Coronavirus Act 2020 (Review of Temporary Provisions)

Lord Brady of Altrincham Excerpts

Wednesday 30th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)]

I beg to move,

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

When we first introduced the Act in March, I said that coronavirus is the most serious public health emergency that the world has faced in a century. Now, six months later, it is still the most serious public health emergency that the world has faced in a century. We have worked hard, overwhelmingly across party lines and sometimes at great pace, and come together to slow the spread of this virus. With the help of this Act, we protected the NHS, we built the Nightingale hospitals, and we welcomed thousands of clinicians back to the frontline. The Act helped people to get more appropriate care, faster; it helped the NHS and social care to harness technology like never before; and it has allowed the Government to deliver unprecedented economic support in troubled times. Although we have made huge strides in expanding testing and huge progress toward a vaccine, with the virus still at large, the Coronavirus Act 2020 and the measures within it remain as important as then.

Our strategy is to suppress the virus while protecting the economy, education and the NHS until a vaccine makes us safe. The Act is still needed to keep people safe. I understand that these are extraordinary measures, but they remain temporary, time-limited and proportionate to the threat that we face. Some of the measures we seek not to renew; some have, thankfully, not been used, but it is imperative that we maintain the ability to use them if needed; and some of the measures have proved critical to our response and are now used to keep people safe every day. To stand down the Act now would leave Britain exposed at a time when we need to be at our strongest.

This virus moves quickly, so we need to have the powers at our disposal to respond quickly. It is deeply important to me that we strike the right balance between acting at pace and proper scrutiny. I believe in the sovereignty of Parliament, I believe that scrutinised decisions are better decisions, and I believe in the wisdom of this House as the cockpit of the nation.

This has been an unprecedented time. This House has had to do many unprecedented things, many of which have been uncomfortable. I have listened to the concerns raised about scrutiny. As you pointed out earlier, Mr Speaker, there have been times when this pandemic has challenged us all and we have not been able to do this as well as we would have liked. I therefore propose that we change the approach to bringing in urgent measures. I am very grateful to all colleagues we have worked with to come forward with a proposal that will allow us to make decisions and implement them fast, yet also ensure that they are scrutinised properly.

Today, I can confirm to the House that for significant national measures with effect in the whole of England or UK-wide, we will consult Parliament; wherever possible, we will hold votes before such regulations come into force. But of course, responding to the virus means that the Government must act with speed when required, and we cannot hold up urgent regulations that are needed to control the virus and save lives. I am sure that no Member of this House would want to limit the Government’s ability to take emergency action in the national interest, as we did in March.

We will continue to involve the House in scrutinising our decisions in the way my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister set out last week, with regular statements and debates, and the ability for Members to question the Government’s scientific advisers more regularly, gain access to data about their constituencies and join daily calls with my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General. I hope these new arrangements will be welcomed on both sides of the House, and I will continue to listen to colleagues’ concerns, as I have tried my best to do throughout.

[Sir Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale West) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for being prepared to listen and for the constructive conversations that we have had over the last couple of weeks. As he said, Members on both sides of the House understand the importance of Ministers having the freedom to act quickly when it is necessary, but we are grateful that he and other members of the Government have understood the importance of proper scrutiny in this place and the benefits that that can bring for better government.

[Matt Hancock]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I agree with him on the point about scrutiny. I am very glad that we have been able to find a way to ensure that we can have that scrutiny and that colleagues on both sides of the House can have the opportunity to vote, but in a way that still does not fetter the Government’s need to act fast to keep people safe from this virus.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale West) (Con)]

Mr Speaker, may I begin by thanking you? Although you gave your reasons earlier for not selecting the amendments in my name and that of 80 other colleagues across the House, you also made your expectations of Government crystal clear. No one could doubt your commitment to upholding the Standing Orders of this House, Mr Speaker, and nor have you left any doubt about your resolve in defending parliamentary democracy and the right of this House to scrutinise and hold Ministers to account.

I am also pleased to be able to thank my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. Throughout my discussions with him, he has accepted the need to find a better approach to scrutiny and parliamentary approval of coronavirus measures. The new procedure that he has committed the Government to follow shows a genuine understanding of what has been wrong in the past and a real promise of transparency and engagement in the future. I believe the outcome we have reached is in the interests of Parliament, in the interests of better government and, most importantly, it gives the British people reassurance that measures that restrict their liberty, interfere with their family life, and very often threaten their livelihoods will not be implemented without important questions being asked and answers given in advance.

[Mr Harper]

Because it is not clear necessarily outside the House, will my hon. Friend agree that what the Secretary of State has effectively confirmed at the Dispatch Box with just the one change of the word “practicable” to “possible” is exactly what he put forward in his amendment, which we understand, for very good reasons, the Speaker was unable to select.

[Sir Graham Brady]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that intervention, because it is important to say that those of us on both sides of the House who put our names to that amendment were seeking to be eminently reasonable and accept the difficult constraints under which the Government are operating, and it is important that the Government accepted that in those terms. We believe that it was in good faith, and we will, of course, hold the Government to that.

It is also important, following this change of approach signalled by the Secretary of State, that the public—the people whom we represent—will rightly be in a position in the future to judge us, as Members of this House, on the balance that we seek to strike in the protection of their liberty, the safety of the public and their ability to support themselves and their families.

[Mr Mitchell]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend, who has done an extremely good job, and a great service to our constituents, in the work that he did in respect of his amendment. Will he confirm that the aim of this amendment was not to confront the Government in any way, but to try to ensure that the Government use the wisdom across this House in tackling this very serious problem?

[Sir Graham Brady]

I absolutely agree. Those were two wonderful interventions from former Chief Whips; I wonder whether there are any more in the House. That is precisely the point: it is our belief that this House can work with the Government, and that our collective knowledge and the difficult questions we will ask will improve the quality of the Government’s actions and governance.

[Chris Bryant]

Can the hon. Gentleman tell us what this new procedure is?

[Sir Graham Brady]

The hon. Gentleman is an expert on procedure, and he will soon get to grips with it. It is the made affirmative procedure, which entails the setting of a commencement date in the future for measures, which will allow for a debate and vote to take place in advance of commencement. The House will therefore have that crucial ability to refuse consent.

[Chris Bryant]

But the Government decide.

[Sir Graham Brady]

These things will be brought forward. We have had the assurance, and we will hold the Government to it. The hon. Gentleman will see it very soon.

I will close by thanking those Members across the House who, by supporting my amendment publicly or privately, have helped to achieve what I believe will be an important step forward for all of us.