Coronavirus Legislation
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Basic background
The Coronavirus Act 2020 (c. 7) received Royal Assent on 25.3.2020:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2020/7/contents/enacted
You can read the explanatory notes to the Bill as introduced to the House of Lords here:
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/lbill/58-01/110/5801110en.pdf
The Act makes emergency changes to existing legislation by means of temporary modifications. These are temporary because:
- The Act (except for specified provisions) expires after two years, see s. 89 (subject to amendment by s. 90 to extend or cut short the life of various provisions or of the whole Act).
- The operation of certain affecting provisions (except for those mentioned in s. 88(6)) can be suspended (and subsequently revived) by a relevant national authority by means of regulations more than once if necessary, throughout the period the Act is in force.
- The drafter calls them “temporary modifications” and they are expressed as having “effect as if” the text was changed or to be “read as if” the text were changed.
For the purposes of increasing legal certainty we have decided to record these temporary modifications where we can as temporary textual effects rather than non-textuals (which would be our usual practice).