Source · Select Committees · Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee
Recommendation 18
18
Paragraph: 84
The motion under section 98 of the Coronavirus Act 2020 is an “all or nothing”...
Conclusion
The motion under section 98 of the Coronavirus Act 2020 is an “all or nothing” proposition. Under the terms of the motion, either all temporary provisions must be expired or none need to be. The House does not have any power under the Act to order Ministers to expire specific provisions under the Act.
Paragraph Reference:
84
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
The Government shares the Committee’s view that, notwithstanding the exact wording of section 98, Members of the House should use the six-monthly reviews to raise issues and concerns and seek to press Ministers to take a different course. This is what happened during the first six-month debate, when the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care undertook to consider the very many representations from across the House urging him to sunset early the provisions in the Coronavirus Act that allowed Ministers to make temporary changes to the 1983 Mental Health Act. That Instrument was laid before Parliament in October. The Government’s view is that the integrated package of support that the Act provides— for tenants, businesses, returning clinicians, employees, the sick, and the vulnerable— requires a degree of political and legal certainty that a ‘pick and choose’ motion would fatally undermine. However, as the example outlined above demonstrates, necessary limitations of format do not prevent Parliament from expressing its will, nor from seeing it carried through into policy change.