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Health and Social Care Bill

I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 166 and 167 in the group. As the rest of the amendments in my name and in that of the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, relate to Part 3 and the issue of public health and compulsory powers, I crave the indulgence of the Committee to say a few words about the general issues. I am particularly grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for the way in which he has covered this matter. I feel better knowing that it was not just me who found it incredibly difficult to understand. In Clause 123, the Government propose to modernise the law on public health. The Joint Committee on Human Rights welcomed this aim but it was concerned that, in introducing a broad degree of flexibility in the proposed health protection regulations and public health orders, the Government were asking Parliament to authorise the use of potentially broad restrictions on individuals without close scrutiny of the circumstances in which the powers would be used and how they might affect individual rights, such as the right to liberty, respect for the family in private life and freedom of association. Most of our amendments propose a number of additional safeguards for these rights, and we ask the Minister to explain why she thinks the existing safeguards are adequate. Our amendments are principally focused on those regulation or order-making powers which impose restrictions or requirements on persons and which most affect individual rights. One of the final series of amendments calls on the Minister to justify the need to create an emergency power to make regulations which might enable the detention, quarantine or isolation of individuals without parliamentary oversight and without the same safeguards required in the Civil Contingencies Act. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, for raising that. The purpose of the amendments is to ask the Minister to explain why such broad powers to deal with public health risks are necessary and proportionate. We propose further safeguards for individual liberty and to ensure proper parliamentary oversight. Amendment No. 166 clarifies the scope of health protection regulations. It does not change the effect of the Bill but clarifies the Government’s policy intention, which is to allow health protection regulations to enable the imposition of special restrictions or requirements by the Secretary of State or other decision-makers. In our report on this part of the Bill, the Joint Committee on Human Rights concluded that the effect of these provisions was far from clear and accessible. The effect of our amendment would be to clarify that, although health protection regulations may not directly impose requirements for medical examination, removal to hospital or other places, detention, isolation or quarantine, these provisions are intended to allow health protection regulations to enable others to impose these restrictions. Amendment No. 167 concerns the timescale of special restrictions and requirements imposed by regulations. The Joint Committee expressed concern in its report that the provisions in the Bill which allowed health protection regulations to impose regulations and requirements on individuals were not subject to any specific restriction on the time a person might be affected. The committee was particularly concerned about special restrictions and requirements, such as conditions that could otherwise be ordered by a JP, including health monitoring and requirements to provide information, attend training or advice sessions or to be subject to restrictions on contact with others. The committee accepted that the limitation that health protection regulations containing or authorising special restrictions or requirements must be in response to a serious and imminent threat to public health was a positive safeguard. However, it considered that the failure to specify that measures should end when that threat subsides significantly undermined the safeguards. Our amendment would introduce a requirement that any regulations imposing special restrictions or requirements on individuals would lapse after six months. The amendments provide that those regulations may be renewed but must lapse when they are no longer necessary or proportionate to meet the serious or imminent threat to public health that triggered their use. The amendments also provide that, where regulations enable the imposition of medical examination, detention, isolation or quarantine, a short timetable should apply to those restrictions. At present, although the Bill proposes that there should be a 28-day limit on the imposition of these restrictions by a JP before they must lapse and be revisited, no similar administrative restriction is required in respect of the imposition of these requirements. My amendment proposes that any restriction that includes medical examination, detention, isolation or quarantine shall remain in place for no more than 14 days. Thereafter, the restriction can be renewed only by a JP but it can be renewed for up to seven days. Following that, any restriction can be continued, subject to automatic review by a JP every seven days and subject to a maximum period to be set by the Secretary of State. The government response to our reports did not address those issues, but I very much hope that the Minister will address them now.