Public Health

Steve Baker Excerpts

Monday 4th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con) [V]]

These rules are necessary and the Government made the right call when they put the country into lockdown in order to protect lives. Nothing that I am about to say should in any way be taken to diminish people’s obligation to obey the law.

My first point is that we see that these regulations were made on 26 March at 1 pm. The Prime Minister announced these rules on 23 March and police officers quickly set about enforcing them, stopping people on trains and, in one case, overturning a barbecue. People very quickly found themselves subject to what seemed to be enforcement action. On 24 March, the Government sent a text message, saying that new rules were “in force now” and that people “must stay at home”. The problem is that those rules were not in force at that time; they were not in force until 26 March. I press on the Minister the fact that we must not again have a situation where the Prime Minister makes an announcement at a press conference and police officers start enforcing rules before they are made. We must in future make the law and then tell the public that it is enforced. I press on him the fact that that must not happen again.

Secondly, there is a good case that these regulations are ultra vires, and I recommend that the Government have a contingency plan in place in case a court case— a judicial review—succeeds in demonstrating that. I will try to sketch out the position very quickly—if I have understood it correctly. This is from an opinion from Blackstone, and I have tweeted the original article if people have an interest in the detail. It says:

“The regulations purport to authorise conduct which would otherwise constitute the torts of false imprisonment and trespass to the person”—

that is the physical restraint and forcible removal to one’s home. It goes on to say that for primary legislation to sanction such tortious conduct there must be

“express words or necessary implication”

to that effect. But section 45G(2)(j) of the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984, under which these rules are made, does not expressly, or by necessary implication, authorise physical confinement.

It is also the case that the Act expressly prohibits the Secretary of State from imposing certain of the special restrictions on people; they can only be imposed by a magistrate. It suggests that, under the 1984 Act, the Secretary of State was not meant to be able to put on people restrictions that would otherwise be tortious—false imprisonment or physical restraint, for example. Therefore, we may be in a position where these draconian rules—these necessary rules—are not well founded in law, and I would like to know today the Government’s position on that. I would like to be assured that, if the lockdown needs to continue, the Government will have a contingency plan in place to ensure that it is well founded in law.

The third point was very well made by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders). He called for harmony between the guidance and the law. There have been very severe, absurd problems arising because the police have sought to enforce rules that were not actually in law. For example, the law in England does not specify that people may not drive to exercise. I know of people who have stayed at home because they need to drive a short distance from a place where they cannot exercise to one where they can. People have been accused, for example, of not sweating adequately when cycling. When doing yoga, they have been accused of not exercising. These things are absurd and wrong and worrying for law-abiding people. The Government may not in future be able to close this difficult area by harmonising the guidance with the rules, so what I suggest is for them to have a look at the Highway Code, where there is already a precedent for rules given with a “should”, which means that they are, in a sense, guidance and not enforceable, and for things that people must or must not do. Given that we have that precedent, can we please close this gap, so that police officers are not put in the invidious position of trying to enforce what are really no more than Ministers’ opinions of what should be done—in other words, things that are not in law.

I want to finish by saying that I am very grateful to the Prime Minister for his liberalism. I am extremely thankful for the exceptionally high-quality policing in Wycombe, where I have had no complaints. None the less, the people of the United Kingdom should not have to rely on the goodwill of the Prime Minister and the Government or the good sense of police officers in order to go about their lawful business. I implore my friends on the Front Bench to ensure that we uphold the rule of law and the freedoms on which they depend.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The Opposition Member who was due to speak next is not now taking part in the debate, so we go to another Government Member, Selaine Saxby.