In August 2020, Northampton saw an increase in the number of Covid-19 cases. A large number of these transmissions were traced back to the Greencore factory in Northampton. On 21 August 2020, workers and their households were told to self-isolate for 14 days to limit the risk of further spread of the disease in the community, and to avoid a local lockdown. This article looks at the regulations introduced to enforce the restrictions.
Documents to download
-
Non-Domestic Rating (Public Lavatories) Bill: Briefing for Lords Stages (253 KB, PDF)
The Non-Domestic Rating (Public Lavatories) Bill 2019–21 is a government bill that would introduce 100% mandatory business rates relief for public lavatories in England and Wales.
In recent years, organisations such as the Royal Society for Public Health have expressed concern about the rate at which public lavatories have been closing. According to data obtained by the BBC in 2018, local councils have stopped maintaining at least 673 public lavatories across the UK since 2010. The data, supplied by 376 of the 430 councils in the UK, reveals that there were at least 4,486 public lavatories run by councils in the UK in 2018, down from at least 5,159 in 2010.
To help prevent the closure of public lavatories, the Government has sought to reduce the cost of maintaining them. In the 2018 budget, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, announced that owners of stand-alone public lavatories would no longer pay business rates. Consequently, the Government introduced the Non-Domestic Rating (Public Lavatories) Bill [HL] 2017–19. However, the bill fell when Parliament prorogued in October 2019.
In the March 2020 budget, the current Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, recommitted to reintroducing a business rates relief measure for public lavatories. He stated that it would apply retrospectively from 1 April 2020.
Following the general election, the bill was introduced in the House of Commons on 18 March 2020. Second reading took place on 16 July 2020, with the remaining stages held on 3 September 2020. During second reading, Simon Clarke, then Minister of State at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, said that the bill would “reduce running costs [for local authorities] and help keep these vital facilities open”. The measures in the bill received cross-party support. However, opposition MPs such as the Shadow Secretary of State for Housing, Thangam Debbonaire, expressed concerns that the bill did not “redress the overall damage done” by cuts to local authority funding and that the bill did not cover other public buildings, such as libraries. Despite these concerns, the bill passed through the House of Commons without amendment.
The bill had its first reading in the House of Lords on 7 September 2020.
Related Links
Documents to download
-
Non-Domestic Rating (Public Lavatories) Bill: Briefing for Lords Stages (253 KB, PDF)
Related posts
-
-
The Fire Safety Bill is a government bill, and forms part of the Government’s response to the Grenfell fire. It seeks to clarify the scope of the Fire Safety Order 2005, specifically to ensure that the responsible person or duty-holder for multi-occupied, residential buildings must manage and reduce the risk of fire for the structure and external walls of the building, including cladding, balconies and windows; and for entrance doors to individual flats that open into common parts.
-
The Government has laid several statutory instruments requiring people to wear face coverings, with the aim of reducing the spread of Covid-19. These regulations include a list of “relevant places” where people must wear face coverings. The regulations have been updated with subsequent regulations that add places to the list and remove exemptions. The financial penalties for non-compliance have also been updated. This article looks at the requirements imposed by the various instruments.
