A panic which should have been no more than an emergency

Today, a Covid-19 Bill is scheduled to be passed to their Lordships by the Commons. It contains provisions which go beyond existing emergency legislation. (A Lords briefing is here.) At the time of writing, it appears it will grant worrying extra powers over telecoms.

I am also grateful to the Institute for Government (IfG) for their briefing. It seems to me that, with the exception of the power to postpone elections, application of existing emergency legislation at an earlier date would have avoided the necessity of more draconian measures now.

Not only draconian, but also suspicious is that:
The bill also makes provision to deal with the disruption that Covid-19 might cause to certain national security processes. It relaxes the judicial safeguard on the power of the home secretary to order the interception of communications. The maximum amount of time allowed before a warrant for interception is reviewed by a judge will be increased from three to 12 days. The government says that this is because the virus may affect judges’ availability.

Those who are keen on extending the surveillance state miss no opportunity to slip in further legal intrusions on our privacy.

Another loosening of civil rights relates to detaining of people suspected of being infected. Under the 1984 Act:
A magistrate has the power under the act to make a person submit to a medical examination, detain them in hospital, hold them in quarantine, and make them abstain from working or trading.

The 2020 Bill would allow the police to detain infection suspects without a warrant.

Technically, returning officers (EROs) have no power to call off by-elections

As the law stands at present, Neath Port Talbot council were acting ultra vires in postponing next Thursday's by-election in the Mount Pleasant ward of Neath Town Council. However, advice from the Cabinet Office and Crown Prosecution Service is that nobody is going to prosecute EROs for suspending by-elections, as one has already been put off in Clackmannanshire.

Pandemic or no pandemic, UK legislation has not wholly taken account of various emergencies which might occur. Andrew Teale, the Britain Elects Previewer, has published an analysis which goes beyond the current state of play. His remarks about devolved administrations make me glad that I am no longer in the front line of election campaigns.