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Health and Social Care Bill

moved Amendment No. 175A: 175A: Clause 123, page 71, line 32, leave out ““things”” and insert ““fomites”” The noble Baroness said: The amendment probes why the quite extraordinary new Section 45H is in the Bill. It goes under the heading, ““Power to order health measures in relation to things””. I wondered first whether it had been included just to make sure that we read the Bill and did not rely on the briefings, thereby winning lots of points if we called attention to it. I then wondered whether some visionary civil servant thought that there may be an attack by aliens that are not human beings, animals or plants but ““things”” and that we therefore had to make sure that we were covered for the future. Subsection (2) says, "““that the thing be seized or retained … that the thing be kept in isolation or quarantine … that the thing be disinfected or decontaminated … that the thing be destroyed””." Presumably, as one of my grandsons said—I read this out to them and they loved it—at that point Doctor Who gets back into his telephone box and goes into another dimension.