Lord Sumption:

The answer to the first of those questions is that, although the Government of the United Kingdom believes that the Public Health Act confers power to impose a lockdown, I do not actually agree with it. I think it does have such power under other legislation, but that other legislation would subject it to a much higher level of parliamentary scrutiny, which may be the reason it has not chosen it. As regards the effectiveness, this is essentially a question of epidemiology. I can only refer to the epidemiological advice which the UK Government received on 25 February of this year, and again on 16 March.

It was informed by its experts in very clear terms that the effect of aggressive isolation measures, such as a lockdown, was not to suppress the peak incidence of the disease but simply to spread it over a longer period, and it would simply come back once it had become endemic, so it would be sitting there waiting for us when the measures were lifted. To be effective, these measures would have to remain in force indefinitely until there was an effective vaccine, which in February or March we thought might take as long as 18 months.

There is a serious question about the effect of lockdowns. The view expressed at the outset of the crisis by the British experts, which makes more sense and has been borne out by the experience of recent weeks across Europe, is that the virus will simply bounce back when the measures are lifted with the result that the effect of the measures is primarily to prolong the agony and increase the economic dislocation and the social and educational damage without achieving a corresponding reduction in the long-term impact of the disease.