---

Health and Social Care Bill

moved Amendment No. 68A: 68A: Clause 124, page 79, line 13, at end insert ““, except an instrument to which section 45RA applies”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, I wish to move Amendment No. 68A and speak to Amendment No. 68B. The Bill provides for an emergency procedure for the passage of health protection regulations. This procedure is very broad and is triggered whenever the relevant Minister considers that it is urgent for the regulations to become law. These amendments would create two emergency procedures comprising an urgent procedure proposed by the Bill, which will apply to all regulations except those which enable administrative detention, quarantine or isolation, and a new emergency procedure, which applies to any regulations which enable the Secretary of State or other persons to order the detention, isolation or quarantine of persons. Therefore, a distinction is drawn according to the seriousness of the consequences for the individuals about whom we are talking. This new formulation meets the Government’s concern expressed in Committee that the urgent procedure was intended for use in circumstances where technical or administrative arrangements might be urgently required by the World Health Organisation. The stricter procedures that I propose are now limited only to regulations which enable administrative orders for detention, isolation and quarantine. I question whether administrative powers to authorise restrictions on individuals, including measures which affect their right to liberty, such as detention, quarantine and isolation, are necessary or are accompanied by adequate safeguards in the Bill. These provisions do not import the Civil Contingencies Act wholesale. In fact, that Act does not allow for the detention of individuals, as detention must be expressly authorised by Parliament in the relevant regulation-making power. Instead, these amendments provide that, where the Government seek to enable the use of emergency administrative detention for public health purposes, the parliamentary scrutiny is at least of the same degree as that envisaged in the Civil Contingencies Act. The definition of a ““public health emergency”” is adapted from the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. The current emergency procedure provides no definition of ““urgency””, which is left to the discretion of the relevant Minister. Could my noble friend explain why, in the circumstances which Ministers have previously highlighted, such as an outbreak of SARS, Ebola or a similarly life-threatening illness, the potentially draconian steps of enabling administrative detention, isolation or quarantine should not be subject to parliamentary oversight on at least the same terms as those provided in the Civil Contingencies Act 2004? I beg to move.