U.K. Parliament to Resume on April 21, Possibly Virtually
(Bloomberg) —
The U.K. Parliament will return on April 21 and may do so virtually as the government grapples with the coronavirus pandemic that’s caused almost 10,000 deaths and brought large swathes of the economy to a standstill.
House of Commons authorities will consider how to use technology to best allow lawmakers to fulfill “essential constitutional functions of conducting scrutiny, authorizing spending and making laws,” the government said on Sunday in a statement. Social distancing rules in place to prevent the spread of the virus would make it impossible for the chamber to resume normal operations.
The announcement of Parliament’s resumption follows calls from new Labour Party Leader Keir Starmer and other opposition parties for a recall to allow members of Parliament to hold the government to account as it tackles its greatest peacetime crisis in modern history. Some 917 coronavirus deaths logged on Saturday brought the toll to 9,875. It’s likely to surpass 10,000 on Sunday, making Britain the fifth country to cross that grim threshold.
“The U.K. is likely to be certainly one of the worst, if not the worst affected country in Europe,” Jeremy Farrar, a member of the scientific panel advising the government on the pandemic, told the BBC on Sunday.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s administration has come under increasing criticism by the opposition and by U.K. media over the time it took to respond to the pandemic, the level of testing for the virus and the amount of vital protective equipment reaching hospital and care home staff.
‘I Owe Them My Life’
Johnson himself contracted the virus, along with several members of his top team. The premier was taken to a London hospital a week ago, and spent three nights in intensive care. He remains in the hospital, where his office said yesterday he “continues to make very good progress.”
The prime minister on Saturday expressed his gratitude to National Health Service staff caring for him. “I can’t thank them enough,” he said. “I owe them my life.”
Attention has focused increasingly on getting vital protective aprons, gloves and face masks to hospital workers and nursing home staff. Health Secretary Matt Hancock has been criticized for suggesting the workers might be wasting the equipment, and Home Secretary Priti Patel was pilloried on social media on Saturday for issuing an apology that to some smacked of a non-apology.
Equipment Shortfall
On Sunday, Business Secretary Alok Sharma told the BBC and Sky that more than 700 million pieces of protective kit had been distributed over the past few weeks and sought to justify any shortfalls by saying that in normal times, the NHS would have to only supply 238 hospital trusts, whereas now the equipment is needed by 58,000 facilities.
Nurses “shouldn’t be placed in that position” of lacking safety equipment, Sharma told Sky. “I’m incredibly sorry that people feel they have not been able to get this equipment,” he told the BBC.
Sharma’s department is under pressure to ensure businesses are able to easily access the package of loans, grants and tax breaks announced last month by Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak to try to limit the economic fallout from the pandemic.
Business Loans
On Sunday, he told Sky 4,200 small- and medium-sized businesses had secured government-backed loans totaling 800 million pounds ($1 billion) to cope with the interruption resulting from the outbreak. That number was dismissed as “low” on the same program by former Bank of England Governor Mervyn King.
“I am worried about it because the economy will recover quickly only if we can keep the businesses that existed at the start of it functioning,” he said.
Companies have complained about the program announced last month, saying banks were diverting them to commercial products and requesting personal guarantees to secure the lending.
“I’ve been very clear to say that we need to get money out of the door as quickly as possible,” Sharma said. “I hope what you will see in the coming days is an increase in money going out. It is vital that we do everything that we can to support our businesses and of course protect jobs.”
Sunak is planning to double the amount companies can borrow under the program to 50 million pounds, Sky News reported on Sunday, without saying where it got the information.
Exit Strategy
Parliament stopped sitting on March 25, six days before it was due to begin recess, though committees that scrutinize the work of government departments and ministers have since held sessions using videoconferencing. Commons authorities are looking at similar measures for the main chamber.
“It’s very important in a crisis like this that Parliament is sitting so that decisions can be properly scrutinized, so that the concerns of constituents can be put to relevant ministers,” Starmer told Sky News on Sunday.
A path out of the national lockdown is deemed key to helping businesses survive the pandemic. An initial three-week lockdown that was due to end on Monday has been extended by Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who is deputizing for Johnson, although no end date has been given. Raab said that government scientists would analyze the data over the next week to see what effect the measures are having.
Under the restrictions imposed by the government, most shops are closed, as are pubs, restaurants, clubs and leisure centers. Britons have been advised to leave the home only to buy essential supplies, to work if they need to, and to exercise.
The government needs to set out its exit strategy because it needs to plan for about 12 months before a vaccine is developed, Starmer told Sky. “It needs to do that planning now and it needs to be open about it.”
(Adds details of Parliament closure in 17th paragraph.)
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