Public Health

Andrew Griffith Excerpts

Monday 4th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con) [V]]

I am pleased to follow so many of my colleagues on the Government Benches in this important debate. I completely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) who emphasised the vital role of Parliament in overseeing the extraordinary measures that are being taken. Only we in Parliament can supply legal and democratic legitimacy to the difficult decisions that need to be made in this crisis. In that context, I regret several aspects of today’s debate.

First, I regret the fact that we are discussing only now, on 4 May, regulations to which our citizens have been subject since 26 March. I am afraid that, by some distance, the House could not be said to be debating them at the first possible opportunity. Secondly, I regret the fact that matters of such importance were not dealt with by primary legislation, given that the House was able to pass the Coronavirus Bill when it met before the Easter recess on 23 March. Thirdly, even today, only two hours have been given over to debating what the Minister acknowledged to be extraordinary measures of a kind never seen before in peacetime. I note that, for whatever reason, fewer than 3% of Members are participating in a debate on a subject of such magnitude, which may have consequences for the liberty of the individual for generations to come.

It was utterly foreseeable to anyone who has experienced an event much larger than the average parish fête that over-zealous police officers and public officials would jump into the ambiguous space between legislation and guidance. I exclude from my remarks, and indeed would like to praise Sussex police under the leadership of Police and Crime Commissioner Bourne and Chief Constable Giles York for avoiding many of the excesses we have seen elsewhere. However, there is a type of personality who, if given a high-vis jacket, a uniform or an official title, relishes dishing out prohibitions to their fellow citizens. Such a minority—we must be clear that that is what they are—are ignorant of and usually untroubled by the limits of the law unless they are specifically drilled into them in a way that time has not allowed to happen here.

I would like to propose to the Minister what I believe to be a reasonable notion. When the police or public authorities purport to issue guidance or spend taxpayers’ money on paid-for advertising, it should contain footnotes indicating the clear basis in law for that guidance. It was Hayek who wrote:

“Nothing distinguishes more clearly conditions in a free country from those in a country under arbitrary government than the observance in the former of the great principles known as the Rule of Law.”

In the UK, the rule of law was central to the great charter of freedoms, described by Lord Denning as

“the greatest constitutional document of all times”—

I agree.

Members may recall that the Earl of Arundel was one of the 25 barons tasked to hold the King to account, however uncomfortable a position that may have been. Today, as the Member of Parliament for Arundel and South Downs, I am pleased to support the Government and believe that they have done an exceptional job in difficult circumstances, but it is hard to argue that a touch more parliamentary scrutiny would not have exposed, and therefore narrowed sooner, the gaps between legislation and guidance.