What is the monitoring process for the use of COVID-19 emergency legislation?
The Coronavirus Act 2020 was passed by the UK Parliament in March 2020 and provided the UK Government and devolved administrations with additional powers to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The provisions in the 2020 Act were the result of significant and collaborative work between all four nations, and cover a range of matters including specific powers for Wales to be exercised by the Welsh Ministers.
The 2020 Act is due to expire at the end of the period of 2 years beginning with the day on which it is passed; on midnight 24 March 2022. The UK Government is required to review the non-devolved provisions of the 2020 Act every six months and the 2020 Act provides a mechanism enabling provisions to be expired earlier than the planned, at the 2 year expiry, or extended beyond the planned 2 year expiry as necessary. In relation to devolved provisions of the 2020 Act however this could not be done without the consent of the devolved administrations.
Alongside the powers in the 2020 Act, a wide range of coronavirus-related legislation has been made using pre-existing powers. For example The Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (No. 5) (Wales) Regulations 2020 and The Health Protection (Coronavirus, International Travel and Restrictions) (Amendment) (Wales) Regulations 2021
Under these regulations the Welsh Ministers must review the need for the restrictions and requirements imposed by such Regulations, and whether those restrictions and requirements are proportionate to what the Welsh Ministers are seeking to achieve. The reviews for the Coronavirus Restrictions Regulations must be held at least every 21 days.
Written statements have been issued to inform Members of the making of key coronavirus-related legislation and to help improve the accessibility of Welsh law relating to coronavirus, subordinate legislation made by the Welsh Ministers in response to the pandemic has been published on a single page on the GOV.wales website (https://gov.wales/coronavirus-law), while statutory instruments also continue be published on the legislation.gov.uk website.
While there is no statutory obligation on the Welsh Ministers to report on the use of these powers, the Minister for Health and Social Services gave an undertaking to the Senedd to do so. These reports includes details of all subordinate legislation relating to coronavirus made by or on behalf of the Welsh Ministers during a period of time, not just legislation which originates from the Coronavirus Act 2020. Three reports have been published to date and another report will be provided for the period September 2021 – March 2022. The reports are published on the GOV.wales (https://gov.wales/coronavirus-pandemic-legislation-reports-senedd-cymru).