Quote:
Originally Posted by nomadking
The Scottish report specifies "such as". It's not meant to be a complete list. The report itself says "Natural Hazards (including human pandemic disease and flooding)".
If the UK government had to legislate for something then that is proof they don't currently have control over it. They would have to overturn primary legislation. That would take time.
World Health Organisation
The transmission methods are the same. That makes any precautions the same. |
Jfman has ably rebutted this nonsense. You’re fixating on the wrong part of the problem - it makes no difference what similarities or differences exist between an influenza strain and SARS-CoV-2, as I said above. The UK government can act regardless. The Scottish Government has quite rightly made plans for dealing with an influenza pandemic because that is its responsibility under devolved public health law. The civil contingencies act, however, can be used to override this because it is a UK wide piece of legislation.
The Civil Contingencies Act is activated by an Order in Council. The powers exist; they have already been legislated for. No significant parliamentary time is required.
If further legislation is needed later, then in emergencies it can be dealt with in only a couple of days.
As to why they didn’t use the CCA, I think it is most likely they didn’t think it would become serious enough to warrant the use of what is after all really designed to counter existential threats to our national life. Their reason for doing it would have been to dodge the problems caused by the devolution settlement, which has not adequately considered how crises like this should be dealt with. Doing it to get round devolution would have carried a political cost, especially with all four nations under different political control.