Sir John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): A lot of us feel that this legislation should now just lapse, because there has been a material improvement in the situation.
There are other powers should things go wrong, and this House could grant powers in the space of a few hours if there were a new and unpleasant crisis. Why do we have to have these powers hanging over our head when there does not seem to be a need to use them?
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Mr Sajid Javid): What I can tell my right hon. Friend is that there are provisions that we hope to keep in the Act, subject to the House’s will today, which are still necessary.
For example, there are provisions that protect NHS capacity with respect to temporary registration of nurses and other healthcare professionals.
There are similar provisions for the care sector; there are also provisions that provide support packages for those whose jobs may have been hit or who have to take time off work to meet the self-isolation requirements. There are provisions in the Act that I think are still necessary; I will speak about some of them in just a moment.
