Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 24 February 2022 [Draft]
I am grateful for the considered point that Mr Rowley has made. This matter comes down to a fundamental point of legislation: whether there should be, in statute, provision that enables the Government to take swift measures to control a pandemic—not that it must or that it will take those measures, but that it might have to use those powers.
Mr Rowley raises fair points about the long-term legislative issues, which the Parliament will consider and scrutinise. However, at this moment we still face challenges in relation to Covid. The extension of regulations that I am putting to the Parliament today, which is essentially about ensuring that the face coverings restrictions can remain in place, if that is necessary, until September—although we hope that it will be only until 21 March—will ensure that the Government has the ability to do exactly that.
I welcome Mr Rowley’s contribution and, as I confirmed to Mr Whitfield in discussions—yesterday, I think—we will of course have full parliamentary scrutiny on all those points.
We do not know for sure that it will be appropriate to lift the measures that are included in the regulations from 21 March. We hope that that will be the case, but we want to make sure that we have the arrangements in place to enable us to do that. For now, it is really important that we do not allow the remaining baseline measures to expire by default on 28 February. The regulations will ensure that that does not happen and that the measures can be removed when the time is right.
Subject to the course of the virus over the next few weeks, we expect to be in a position to remove the measures on 21 March, but approval of the regulations will provide the statutory basis for the Government to be able to act, should there be any deterioration in the coronavirus situation. Members will be familiar with the very sharp turns of events that have taken place over the course of the pandemic, when we have gone from a position that we thought was stable and benign to an acutely difficult position in a very short space of time. I simply counsel members to consider that point as I invite them to endorse the regulations that are before the Parliament.