Boris Johnson has sparked fresh jitters among anti-lockdown MPs after it emerged he plans to extend “draconian” powers for another six months.
The government has confirmed it plans to renew some temporary powers under the 2020 Coronavirus Act, with MPs due to vote by September 25.
That will spark a massive fight with Tory anti-lockdown MPs, 35 of whom rebelled last time the Act was extended.
While the Coronavirus Act is not behind actual lockdowns in England and Wales - powers for those flow through a separate law passed in 1984 - it still allows authorities to impose a string of restrictions on the public.
These include a power to detain people suspected of having Covid for up to 28 days, which was used 10 times in the first year of the Act.
They also include powers for the Health Secretary to shut down individual events, gatherings, shops or restaurants if they pose a specific risk.
And the Act allows authorities to shut individual schools, as well as ports, railway stations and airport, where there is a specific danger to public health.
The powers for events, venues, schools and ports were not used in the first year of the Act, because authorities could rely on other lockdown laws instead.
But Tory MP Mark Harper, of the Covid Recovery Group, said the Act contained “the most draconian detention powers in modern British legal history”.
He told the Financial Times: “Our vaccine rollout has been a huge success. We have seen a dramatic and welcome fall in people suffering from serious disease and death from Covid as a result.
“We are going to have to learn to live with this virus, and retaining sweeping powers of detention in the Coronavirus Act is not consistent with this.
“What justification can there be for extending these measures?”
However, the Act also includes laws designed to improve the state’s response to the pandemic.
Those include the temporary registration of social workers, paramedics and other NHS staff if trainees or retirees need to surge into the system.
They also allow deaths to be registered by phone rather than face-to-face, and patients to be cremated without a second doctor’s approval.
They suspend the need for certain inquests involving Covid-19 to be held with a jury, and speed up statutory sick pay.
The last time the Act’s powers were extended on March 26, then-Health Secretary Matt Hancock said he’d “prefer” not to have another six-month extension in September. But he did not rule one out.
He said at the time: “The Act has been a crucial part of our response to this virus.
“It helped us to protect the NHS in its hour of need, to keep public services, courts and local democracy running and to offer the financial assistance that has been a lifeline to so many people.”
Now a government spokesperson has said it would be “irresponsible” to remove all temporary provisions under the Act and some will extend through winter.
The spokesperson told the Financial Times: “We will allow temporary powers in the Coronavirus Act to expire wherever possible, as we have at previous review points.
"However, it would be irresponsible to allow all temporary provisions to expire.
"Doing so would remove the government’s ability to protect renters from eviction, give sick pay to those self-isolating from day one, and direct schools to reopen where needed, for example.
"The British public would expect us to retain these powers in case they are needed through the winter."
The government has not said which temporary provisions will be extended or when exactly a vote will take place.
