Coronavirus Act 2020 (Early Expiry) (No. 2) Regulations 2021

Considered in Grand Committee

Moved by

That the Grand Committee do consider the Coronavirus Act 2020 (Early Expiry) (No. 2) Regulations 2021.

Before I call the Minister, I must inform the Committee that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, will take part remotely so I will call the Lib Dem response at the appropriate time.

My Lords, the Coronavirus Act has been a central part of the Government’s response to Covid-19. It includes powers to bolster the health and social care workforce through the temporary registration of practitioners. More than 13,000 social workers and 28,000 nurses, midwives, paramedics, operating department practitioners, radiographers and other professionals have joined the temporary registers. This continues to provide extra resilience for our health and social care sector during these uncertain times. It also demonstrates the commitment and determination of our fantastic health and social care professionals.

The Act includes powers to ensure that critical functions in society are able to continue throughout the pandemic. For example, it has allowed virtual court hearings to take place in a wider range of circumstances. The Government plan to secure some of these powers in alternative primary legislation. The Act also includes powers that have enabled the Government to provide vital support to people and businesses, including provisions for statutory sick pay for Covid-19-related absences; the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, which has supported 11.7 million jobs; and the Self-employment Income Support Scheme, which supported almost 3 million self-employed individuals.

The Coronavirus Act has been a critical part of the Government’s response to the pandemic, but I acknowledge that some noble Lords are concerned about some of the powers in it. I assure them that the Government have sought to use the powers in an appropriate and proportionate way. There are arrangements in place to ensure accountability, including regular opportunities for parliamentary scrutiny; this accountability is vital. I am grateful to noble Lords, my honourable friends in the other place and the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, whose welcome review of our draft instruments continues to ensure their accuracy.

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to debate the provisions in the regulations before us and I congratulate my noble friend on bringing them forward. I thank him for the meeting that I had in the last 10 days with him and his team, which was most useful. I endorse enthusiastically his invitation for those who have not yet been vaccinated to come forward. This would be an opportunity to ask where we are, particularly with those under 18. Have they had their second vaccinations and at what age will the vaccine programme be rolled out?

I remind the Committee of my interest as an adviser to the Dispensing Doctors’ Association, which may or may not pertain to the comments that I make this afternoon. I seek my noble friend’s guidance on whether one area that I am particularly interested in, as I know are all general practitioners, is covered in the provisions before us. If it is not, can he write to me? I understand that one of the reasons why GPs are unable to have as many face-to-face appointments as they would wish is that they have been constrained by the regulations passed by both Houses of Parliament. I cannot remember whether the provision was in the original Act or in supplementary regulations in the form of statutory instruments that we have adopted. However, I understand that specific regulations regarding the square footage or meterage of a waiting room were set out at the beginning of the pandemic, limiting the number of patients who could be accommodated in person in a waiting room during the pandemic. I think that it was the same for dental practices.

Are these provisions still in place? If they are not part of these regulations, I would be grateful if my noble friend could write to me. It could be extremely important to advise the public that that is why doctors are not able to see as many patients physically as they would wish to do. I am sure that the regulations were brought in for good reasons—that we should not be mixing and should be masking and that we should respect the ventilation to which my noble friend referred, while self-distancing—but it is important that patients understand the constraints under which general practitioners have to operate.

Regulation 3 is on the operation of the working tax credits, as on page 5 of the EM, and I am delighted that that was addressed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Budget and spending review. However, it would be helpful to know whether the figures that the Chancellor announced then will amount to a similar amount to what would have been received as a £20 top-up to those claimants of universal credit. Is it the same amount that can be claimed? Will they have to apply for it separately? What concerned a lot of colleagues both in your Lordships’ House and the other place was the neatness: that it was universally applied to all those on universal credit whereas, if I understand it correctly, what was announced by the Chancellor has to be applied for separately. Therefore, it is not automatic and not universal to those in receipt of universal credit.

My final point relates to Regulation 5, as on page 6 of the EM, which concerns local authority meetings. I think that it refers to Section 78 in the original Act. It states that the provision

“enabled all local authority meetings held before 7 May”

to be held remotely, but that was time-limited and no longer operable. It has been put to me by a friend who is a councillor in North Yorkshire that there may be instances where councils may wish to continue to meet remotely. I think in particular of the weather conditions —we still have no power in a great many parts of North Yorkshire, which is unbelievable, but obviously due to Storm Arwen. Is my understanding correct that they can continue to meet remotely if they wish and that that power will remain, so I can advise my friend and councillor in North Yorkshire, and others who are concerned, that that is the case? If so, it would be helpful to know under what authority they can continue to meet remotely. It just seems common sense that we keep that power in place. With those few remarks, I welcome the regulations.

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is taking part remotely. Can we beam her in?

My Lords, this is beginning to have the feeling of “Star Trek”, which is certainly not my intention. Thank you, Deputy Chairman. I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

From these Benches, we will not oppose the expiry of these 12 provisions, although we have some comments on them. It was really good to hear the Minister outline the “hands, face, space” guidance, readopted in the past couple of days. Will there be a public communications campaign to reinforce it because, sadly, I suspect that not many people will have heard it in Grand Committee today in Parliament, let alone in the outside world?

Yesterday, in the Statement repeat, we debated masks and self-isolation; we will do so again tomorrow when we look at the SIs. On vaccination, it was good to hear the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State refer to the clinically extremely vulnerable in this afternoon’s press conference. I promise the Minister that I will not repeat all the questions I asked him yesterday, but not one of them has yet been answered. Delivering either the fourth, or a booster, jab for 3.7 million clinically extremely vulnerable people will not work effectively without clearer information systems on exactly who the CEV are and which jab they should get; there is still a lot of uncertainty there. I thank the Minister for his offer of a meeting during yesterday’s Statement. With today’s announcement, vaccination is becoming urgent; I look forward to hearing from him shortly about when it can happen.

From these Benches, we want to make a brief comment on the assessments for local authority care and support. I note that the Explanatory Memorandum says that only

“eight local authorities used these powers between April 2020 and June 2020. No local authorities in England have used them after 29 June 2020.”

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his most helpful introduction to these regulations, which we will not be opposing. As he acknowledged, when the original Act came into force, we were in extraordinary times and they required unprecedented legislation. However, as time moves on and experience and circumstances change, it is right that we seek to remove powers that are no longer needed. The move to do so today is welcome because, in those circumstances, such provisions should not remain in statute.

Examples of those include Section 56 and Schedule 26 powers relating to magistrates’ courts; Part 1 of Schedule 16, which provides for the temporary closure of education and childcare settings, and was not used; and Section 78 powers around local authority meetings, which need to go because the provisions are simply out of date. On this, I add my voice to a point I made previously in Grand Committee: as the Minister has heard from noble Lords today, surely how a local authority meeting is conducted must be the responsibility of the local authority itself. In the case of these regulations, I accept that the provision is out of date, but perhaps the Minister will apply his consideration to that more general point. The provision of powers to detain infectious people was particularly controversial and it is right that it is removed, having been used only 10 times, the last being October last year.

I will raise a few points with the Minister and I first emphasise the need for clarity of communication from the Government. With that in mind, I refer to the comments of Dr Jenny Harries, the head of the UK Health Security Agency, which she made on BBC Radio 4’s “Today” programme. She said:

“If we all decrease our social contacts a little bit, actually that helps to keep the variant at bay”.

However, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that he does not share her view. I understand that the Government have sought to reassure the public that they have no plans to tell people to limit their social contacts with others, which is in direct contrast to the view of this leading medical expert. I would be extremely grateful if the Minister could clear this up for us today.

Secondly, it does not seem so long ago that we were discussing the very matter of face masks in Grand Committee—I know it has come up many times in the Chamber. From these Benches we have repeatedly said that we are of the view that mask wearing should be continued and enforced, so it is welcome to see changes now in this regard, but why are shops and transport the only areas where we, the public, are required to wear face masks? One can be in a theatre, for example, a conference or some other large social gathering in even greater numbers and closer together than one might ever be in a shop or on transport, so I find myself once again seeking some advice from the Minister. I ask him to review this because, as we know, mask wearing is a major contributor to protecting everybody. Further on this point, how will it be enforced and how will compliance be encouraged?

The third area I would like to raise with the Minister is the end of the uprating of working tax credits and disregards corresponding to the universal credit £20 uplift. Does the Minister appreciate the financial pressures that many households live with, as reflected in the increasing use of food banks? Further to this, I note that there is no impact assessment. What assessment has been made of the number of households that will be affected by taking away the uplift of universal credit? What assessment has been made of the financial extent to which those households will be affected? What effect will that change have on levelling up—or, as appears to be the case here, levelling down?

The Explanatory Note suggests that the uprating of benefits was linked to supporting people at a time of unprecedented circumstances. However, one thing that the pandemic highlighted is that those most in need are struggling with incomes that are simply too low, pandemic or no, and it is this that needs addressing. The regulations may turn off the power to increase levels of benefit payment, but they cannot turn off the reality that many will go back to being unable to make ends meet, with all the inequalities that follow from that. I look forward to the Minister’s response to these points.