Ministers back Holyrood consent to COVID-19 bill

The Scottish Government is recommending that Holyrood grant legislative consent to the sweeping  emergency powers in the Coronavirus Bill, now introduced to the UK Parliament.

The 320 page measure, expected to be debated in the House of Commons on Monday and to come into force from the end of this month, follows intensive work between the UK Government and the devolved administrations, Constitutional Affairs Secretary Michael Russell told MSPs yesterday. "It is required because of the extraordinary public health and economic challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic."

Five main areas of action are in the bill:

• additional public health measures to assist with containment or to mitigate the spread of the disease, including powers relating to events and the ability to effect screening for potentially infected persons;
• measures to allow for increased numbers of health and social care workers, including recently retired NHS staff and social workers, and final year medical students, and in Scotland, those who are on a career break and social work students;
• relaxation of certain regulatory requirements, to ease the burden on medical staff;
• measures to ensure management of deceased persons with respect and dignity, at a time of likely increased demand for related services; and
• measures to support the economy, including provisions on statutory sick pay, which are aimed at ensuring that the coronavirus impact on small businesses and individuals is lessened; these will have retrospective effect from 13 March.

Questions have already been raised as to the duration of the powers. The bill intends them to be exercisable for up to two years – though with a duty on the Government to report every two months – but opposition parties have called for them to be subject to review at least every six months, if not more frequently. Mr Russell said the period in the Scottish legislation "must be shorter than" the two years.

However he also emphasised that "creating these additional powers does not automatically mean that we will be required to use them": many of the powers come with trigger thresholds regarding the severity of the situation being faced.

Click here to access the bill and related papers.