Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Tuesday 12th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

It is our hard-pressed police who have been left with the unenviable job of enforcing and interpreting these rushed regulations and guidelines, which did not receive proper parliamentary scrutiny prior to being introduced. Inevitably, there have been differences in the interpretation and application of these regulations, which have statutory force, and the guidelines, which do not. It is clear that senior police officers already feel that the confusion and lack of clarity is making their job of policing by consent increasingly difficult, if not impossible.

The situation will have been made worse by the Statement to Parliament yesterday from the Prime Minister, amending or changing the interpretation of these regulations and associated guidelines. The Statement was not exactly a model of clarity. The Prime Minister stated yesterday that

“from Wednesday there will be no limits on the frequency of outdoor exercise people can take”


and:

“You can drive as far as you like to reach an outdoor space.”—[Official Report, Commons, 11/5/20; cols. 25-6.]


But the Prime Minister later stated:

“Yes, staying alert for the vast majority of people still means staying at home as much as possible.”


Can the Minister explain how, under these regulations and associated guidelines, staying at home as much as possible for the vast majority of people is consistent with there being no limits on either the frequency of outdoor exercise that people can take or how far they can drive to reach an outdoor space? How can the police be expected to reconcile those obviously conflicting statements in enforcing and interpreting these regulations and any associated guidelines?

The regulations actually preclude anyone from leaving the place where they live without reasonable excuse and set out examples of reasonable excuses. Will the intended amendments to the regulations also reflect the changes or modifications to the definitions of reasonable excuse that the Prime Minister announced yesterday, to which I have referred, or do the Government deem those changes to still come within the terms of the existing statutory definitions of reasonable excuses in the regulations and, if so, which definition or definitions?

Finally, were the changes to the regulations and guidelines announced by the Prime Minister yesterday the subject of any consultation beforehand with chief constables and elected and accountable police and crime commissioners? What are the powers of an elected and accountable police and crime commissioner to determine how, in practice, the changes announced by the Prime Minister yesterday should be applied to the constituents who elected them by the police force for which they are the PCC?