Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 22 March 2022
That is a pretty fundamental issue, and it will affect the Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill that the Parliament will scrutinise fully in the normal parliamentary process. It relates to whether we have a statute book that is capable of addressing emergency circumstances such as we have faced. In the past, the United Kingdom Parliament has legislated for England and Wales to have statutory powers to—[Interruption.]
Mr Whittle is muttering from the sidelines that this is not the same thing—it is exactly the same thing.
The UK Parliament has legislated for powers that can be exercised by ministers in an emergency such as a pandemic. We did not have those powers in Scotland; we had to legislate for them in a great hurry at the start of the pandemic. The Government—Parliament having considered the legislation—is asking that we extend some limited provisions for six months. Parliament can consider the full legislation.
There are motions on four sets of regulations before Parliament today. I will not rehearse all the details in them. However, if they are not passed today, local authorities will not be able to make the wider public health interventions that they have been using to deal with the pandemic at local level, because the interventions are in the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Directions by Local Authorities) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2022.
Also, if we do not extend the deadlines for the regulations tonight, we will lose our ability to maintain in place the arrangements for face coverings. As Mr Mason has just pointed out when he asked about hospital cases, more than 2,000 people are in hospital with Covid. We have never had so many people in hospital during the pandemic.
We need to continue to address the gravity of the situation. There are measures that the Government will remove as a consequence of the regulations, which is consistent with what we say in the strategic framework—that we will not retain any of the powers or responsibilities for a moment longer than is necessary. I therefore invite Parliament to support the motions on the statutory instruments at decision time. They are essential to ensuring that we have in place the public health protections to deal with the continuing severe situation with Covid. It is the duty of Parliament to ensure that we have a properly considered legislative framework that can address that situation.