Just two Regulations in this period, but the first is very significant.
The Miscellaneous Amendments Regulations have taken this form, I assume, purely to make it more difficult for me to divide EPRs by different subject matters. The Regulation amends the Prohibition on Movement Regulations, the Closure of Business and Other Premises Regulations, and the Events and Gatherings Regulations.
To start with the last, the definition of “gathering” in the Events and Gatherings Regulations formerly referred to “two or more persons who are not members of the same household” (reg.3). This is amended to “any meeting or assembly of a number of persons who are not members of the same household, which exceeds the number provided for in a direction made under these Regulations” (reg.5, amending reg.3). This allows the DHSC to make directions permitting meetings of a number of persons but may require some care in practice. If the number of persons does not exceed the number in a direction, it does not constitute a gathering, and so a direction does not apply; the EPR does not allow the DHSC to put conditions on non-gatherings. I am not sure this amendment was required. If the DHSC had wanted to allow gatherings of say 5 people, it could have done so under the existing Regulations: two or more persons from two households is a gathering, and the EPR allows the DHSC to put conditions on a gathering – it does not require the DHSC to prohibit a gathering. This power of the DHSC could never have been lost through the DHSC definition of a permitted number.
The amendments to the Prohibitions on Movement Regulations make it clear that members of the same household do not need to observe social distancing with each other when outside (amending reg.3), and add a number of new grounds on which you can leave the house. The first of these is to attend a wedding or to make preparatory activities (new reg.5(1)(g)), which may give law students a chance to use their knowledge of the law of attempt to explore when an activity is preparatory – is a romantic date preparatory to a wedding? More straightforwardly, the acceptable grounds now include attending a library (new reg.5(1)(w)), a nursery (new reg.5(1)(x)), an auction house (new reg.5(1)(y)), acting as a domestic cleaner for a place of residence (new reg.5(1)(z)), and going to a campsite or caravan park (new reg.5(1)(aa)). While it is not completely patent what is meant by “nursery”, these Miscellaneous Regulations elsewhere make a change to the Closure of Business rules in relation to childcare, which suggests that is what is meant. The regulations allowing an assistant to support a disabled person in an exercise or leisure activity are repeated, in a slightly tidier form, and changing the very specific “distance of at least 2 metres” with the more flexible “appropriate social distancing”, although in the process the assistant must now maintain “appropriate social distancing” from members of their client’s household (amended reg.5(3)(b)).
Finally, the changes to the Closure of Businesses Regulations are primarily about opening up particular types of business. As well as the businesses noted as permitted to leave home to attend, these include domestic cleaning businesses, opticians, private health care clinics, and private dental surgeries (reg.4, amending Part 1 of the Schedule); campsites and caravan parks may now open for any purpose so long as communal facilities remain closed (reg.4, amending Part 2 of the Schedule), and schools and nurseries may now open for the children not only for those providing an essential service, but for any “who may leave his or her residence for the purpose of his office, employment or vocation” (reg. 4, amending Schedule 2).
After this portmanteau EPR, the Births and Deaths Modifications (Amendment) Regulations is narrower. It replaces reg.8 of the earlier Regulations, which deals with death certificates. The original Regulations allowed a very wide range of registered medical practitioners to sign a death certificate, even if they had not attended a final illness, stating their best “knowledge and belief”. The new Regulations take a different approach, with attendance of final illness being satisfied if the medical practitioner attended within 28 days of the person’s death; or where such attendance was not reasonably practicable, they had carried out an effective consultation or assessment by video-link within 14 days of the death (new reg.8). This is a substantial tightening up of the original Regulations, which may indicate either a practical problem, or a sense that the extreme pressure on medical professionals that the earlier Regulations prepared for was now less likely. A new reg.8A allows the Department of Health and Social Care to issues directives to the signing medical practitioner, or any other medical practitioner who becomes aware of the death (new reg.8A(1)). These can include requiring the doctor to provide medical information to the DHSC (new reg.8A(2)). A medical practitioner who fails, without reasonable excuse, to comply is subject to prosecution, with the standard maximum sentence under the EPRs, and no possibility of a fixed penalty alternative (new reg.8A(3)). The Regulation also evens out reg.40(1) and (6) of the 2011 Regulations in this area to remove the need for the presence of an informant in both cases (amended reg.10).
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