Civil Proceedings

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Motions 3 and 4 will be debated together. Under the terms of the Business of the House (Today) order, the Questions on the motions will be put separately, no later than 90 minutes after the start of this debate.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maggie Throup)]

I beg to move,

That the Coronavirus Act 2020 (Delay in Expiry: Inquests, Courts and Tribunals, and Statutory Sick Pay) (England and Wales and Northern Ireland) Regulations 2022 (SI, 2022, No. 362), dated 23 March 2022, a copy of which was laid before this House on 23 March, be approved.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following motion on the Coronavirus Act 2020 (Review of Temporary Provisions) (No.4):

That the temporary provisions of the Coronavirus Act 2020 should not yet expire.

[Maggie Throup]

Throughout the pandemic, the Government have done everything in our power to protect the lives and livelihoods of people across the country .The Coronavirus Act has been a vital tool, allowing us to do that. Last week marks two years since the Act gained Royal Assent and the automatic expiry date for its temporary provisions. This is an opportunity to reflect on the progress we have made in our fight against covid-19 and on how the Act has supported us in that fight, as well as in encouraging important innovations in some of our public services, which we want to take forward.

First, I come to the support the Act has given us. It was an extraordinary piece of legislation for an extraordinary time in this country’s history, giving us the powers we needed to keep the country safe, and the economy and public services open at the time of need. It helped us to bolster the health and social care workforce by suspending rules in the NHS pension schemes for England and Wales, and allowing the creation of temporary registers enabling recently retired NHS and social care staff to return to the workforce and play their part. Almost 15,000 nurses, midwives and, in England, nursing associates joined these temporary registers to help deal with the impact of the pandemic, as well as more than 10,000 paramedics, operating department practitioners and other professionals, and about 6,500 social workers.

The Act also helped the Government to offer unprecedented economic support and to help people and businesses at a time when so many businesses faced disruption. That includes the coronavirus job retention scheme, also known as furlough, which has supported 11.7 million jobs.