UK | COVID-19 | Changes in restrictions in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland

Keep up with the rapidly evolving COVID-19 regulatory landscape with Red-on-line COVID-19 legal watch. Red-on-line’s EHS legal experts track and evaluate the latest COVID-19 regulations and guidance from around the world daily. In the past week, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland published new amendments or supplement act to ease or enhance some of the restriction measures.

S (A) 2020 asp 10 – Coronavirus (Scotland) (No.2) Act 2020 On 27 May 2020, Scotland published another bill following the previous coronavirus act published on 1 April 2020. The Bill makes changes that will help public services continue to operate during the coronavirus pandemic. It also includes changes to support businesses and individuals. These reflect changes to the way people can live and work during the emergency situation. The Bill includes:

• measures to ensure that business and public services can continue to operate well
• changes to some obligations and duties on public services
• changes to protect certain student tenants
• support for carers and power to reduce non-domestic rates
• changes to criminal procedure to ensure that essential justice business can continue

The Bill contains the following safeguards:

• most of the measures in the Bill will expire at the end of September 2020. (They could be extended up to a maximum duration of a further year, if the Parliament approves this)
• where a measure is no longer needed, Scottish Ministers can bring it to an end earlier
• Scottish Ministers must review and report on the measures every 2 months

W (SI) 2020/529 (W. 124) – The Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (Wales) (Amendment) (No. 4) Regulations 2020 The main change made by this amendment is to increase the amount of the fixed penalty for repeated breaches of the Regulations up to a maximum of £1920. The increased penalties apply to any fixed penalty notice issued on or after 22 May 2020. Amendments to Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2020 In the past week, two amendments (Amendment No. 3 and No. 4) were made to Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2020. these amendments ease down the restriction on the place of worship and enable a person to participate in an outdoor gathering consisting of up to six people who are not members of the same household. They also allow some businesses listed in Part 2 of Schedule 2 to provide a drive-in cinema or live entertainment event for people attending on the premises in vehicles.

Sources:Coronavirus (Scotland) (No.2) Bill: Explanatory Notes published on the Scottish Parliament website NI (SI) 2020/84 – The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Amendment No. 3) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2020 published on UK legislation website on 20 May 2020 NI (SI) 2020/86 – The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Amendment No. 4) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2020 published on UK legislation website on 21 May 2020