Coronavirus Act 2020 (Review of Temporary Provisions) (No. 3)

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2021 Commons Chamber

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

It is a pleasure to be closing this debate, and I thank hon. Members from all across the House for their contributions today. It is clear from the speeches we have heard—and, indeed, from the fact that the House can meet at full capacity once again—that we have made so much progress in our fight against covid-19. This is thanks to the perseverance and resolve of the British people, and also to our vaccination programme, which has now given first doses to over 85.9% of the population of the UK over the age of 12. It is this life-saving work that has disrupted the once inevitable link between cases, hospitalisations and deaths, and that has allowed us to start carefully reopening our society and our economy once again.

This battle forced us to take unprecedented steps in pursuit of a lethal virus, and the Coronavirus Act has been a vital weapon in our armoury, but we have said throughout our response that we did not want to keep these powers in place for any longer than we have to and that the House performs an essential role in scrutinising the measures every six months.

In 2020, and shortly after the one-year review, we came before Parliament to remove provisions from the Act that were no longer needed. So far 13 of the non-devolved temporary provisions have already been expired and, as pledged in our autumn and winter plan, we are looking to expire even more of these provisions and will lay regulations very soon to make this happen so that we can continue down the path to normal life.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

May I invite my hon. Friend to remind the House and the country that the instincts of the Government sitting behind this Act were benign and in support of public health, not malign and vindictive and trying to erode liberties? These were unprecedented times that required emergency action. Those actions have paid dividends; they were difficult but right. The intention was benign not malign, contrary to what some of our colleagues seem to suggest.

[Maggie Throup]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. The Government were acting in very difficult times and had to take unprecedented measures, as he rightly said.

The Secretary of State explained the provisions in detail in his opening statement, so I will not repeat those that we will be expiring but they include some of the most stringent measures in the Act such as directing the temporary closure of educational institutions, the detention of potentially infectious people, and enabling Ministers to restrict or prohibit gatherings or events. Meanwhile the powers in the Act that we are retaining are those that are critical to our response to the pandemic; after all, as the Opposition spokesman rightly said, this virus has not gone away. We are facing a difficult winter, a time when we have seen from experience that the virus poses a particular threat, so we are keeping in place provisions that are fundamental to our response, for example to make sure the NHS is properly resourced and to support statutory sick pay for those who are self-isolating.