There are many important findings but from a Covid regulations perspective an important one is residents of the barracks were falsely imprisoned because they were told they couldn’t leave the site due to Covid regulations which was a misrepresentation of the law
Could have important consequences for other instances where people have been kept in, for example, student accommodation by misrepresentations of the legal position
To be clear, I acted in the early stages of the cases where urgent applications were made to the court. The credit for the final judgement lies with the brilliant team who are in the headnote
Good BBC summary. This was all known by the Home Office by the way - but they decided to accommodate asylum seekers in squalid, dangerous conditions anyway bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan…
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This is the first time, I think, that local guidance has significantly changed without any change to the law. The Steps regulations allow for local areas to be placed into different steps but to date this hasn’t happened.
I am dealing with lots of cases involving hotel detention at the moment. My sense is the system is a complete mess and the security company which is running the hotels is not able to deal with medical or other difficulties
There is some confusion over the travel regulations and what has changed (and confusing messaging)
The truth is that policy over international travel has been confused throughout the pandemic, which suggests (to me, based on experience) policy disagreements
(thread)
The government toyed with the idea that international travel was banned under the various "stay at home" regulations but it was only recently (29 March) when the Steps regulations came into force that international travel without a "reasonable excuse" was explicitly prohibited
The "don't travel outside the UK without a reasonable excuse" law lasted until Monday 18 May, so only about 7 weeks.
Hotel quarantine - though discussed since Feb 2020 - only came into law on 15 February 2021
You may have noticed I have been quiet on the current conflict. That is deliberate - what is happening in Israel-Palestine is very personal for me for various reasons. The issue is hugely important - from a human rights perspective - but not one which I am a particular expert on
and I feel that others on this platform are better placed to comment than I am. I have, as some will know, experienced some difficult and scary situations over the past few years relating to antisemitism and other abuse and I have become a bit more circumspect about what I...
I have no idea if they are substantially different or not - the explanatory note is extremely sparse!
I'm not going to be able to spend the next hour reading the 91 pages for you I'm afraid!
Interestingly, there has been no amendment yet to the Steps regulations to put the country into Step 3 from Monday, or to get rid of the "reasonable excuse" requirement for foreign travel. This is either coming shortly or the govt is going to delay it.