The purpose of the Coronavirus Act is to enable the Government to respond to an emergency situation and manage the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. A severe pandemic will lead to a reduced workforce, increased pressure on health services and death management processes. The Act contains temporary measures designed to either amend existing legislative provisions or introduce new statutory powers which are designed to mitigate these impacts.
The Act aims to support Government in doing the following:
The Act is part of a concerted effort across the whole of the UK to tackle the COVID-19 outbreak. The intention is that it will enable the right people from public bodies across the UK to take appropriate actions at the right times to manage the effects of the outbreak. As part of its contingency planning, the Government has considered what measures would be needed during a severe COVID-19 outbreak to reduce the pressure of key services and limit the spread of infection. The action plan sets out options that can be taken as part of the response.
This Act ensures that the agencies and services involved in this response – schools, hospitals, the police etc. – have the tools and powers they need. Each of the four nations of the UK has its own set of laws, and thus these tools and powers differ to varying degrees in each area. Consistency of outcome has been achieved by making the range of tools and powers consistent across the UK.
These are extraordinary measures that do not apply in normal circumstances. For this reason, the legislation is time-limited to two years, and it is neither necessary nor appropriate for all of its measures to come into force immediately. Instead, many of the measures in this Act can be commenced from area to area and time to time, so as to ensure that the need to protect the public’s health can be aligned with the need to safeguard individuals’ rights. These measures can subsequently be suspended and then later reactivated, if circumstances permit, over the lifetime of the Act.
