Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure police forces have the necessary powers to enforce local lockdowns.

Under the Health Protection Regulations, the police have been given the powers they need to support compliance with essential social distancing measures to keep us all safe during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Health Secretary signed new regulations under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 in order to maintain and reimpose restrictions for Leicester, which came into force on 4 July.

These regulations also exempt Leicester from the national changes under the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (No. 2) (England) Regulations 2020, which came into force on Saturday 4 July.

We worked closely with our policing partners who issued operational guidance to all forces on enforcing the Leicester local lockdown. This operational guidance has been made available on the College of Policing website.