The Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (No. 5) (Wales) (Amendment) (No. 6) Regulations 2021

EXPLANATORY NOTE

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

Part 2A of the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 enables the Welsh Ministers, by regulations, to make provision for the purpose of preventing, protecting against, controlling or providing a public health response to the incidence or spread of infection or contamination in Wales.

These Regulations are made in response to the serious and imminent threat to public health which is posed by the incidence and spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in Wales.

These Regulations amend the Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (No. 5) (Wales) Regulations 2020 (S.I. 2020/1609 (W. 335)) (“the principal Regulations”).

The amendments provide that the whole of Wales is an Alert Level 3 area from the beginning of the day on 27 March 2021. This means that the previous requirements to stay at home, or more recently, to stay local, no longer apply; though restrictions on travelling to or from Wales continue.

Despite formally moving to Alert Level 3, the amendments provide that for a limited period (currently, until the end of the day on 11 April 2021), the restrictions and requirements applying in Wales are those set out in Schedule 3A to the principal Regulations, not those in Schedule 3 (which would otherwise have applied to an Alert Level 3 area). Schedule 3A is inserted into the principal Regulations by these Regulations.

The temporary Alert Level 3 restrictions under Schedule 3A are different in a number of respects from those in Schedule 3. The main differences are that under the temporary restrictions in Schedule 3A—

(a) up to 6 people (not including children under 11 or carers) from no more than 2 households may gather outdoors, including in private gardens, for any purpose, regardless of whether the people gathering are members of the same extended household;

(b) only those households that were permitted to form extended households under the Alert Level 4 restrictions that applied in Wales immediately before these Regulations came into force may form extended households under Schedule 3A (i.e. a well-being needs household, including a household in which a person aged under 18 lives alone, and another household);

(c) gathering outdoors in groups of more than 6 (and with persons from more than 2 households) for an organised activity is only allowed in relation to an outdoor organised activity for the development or well-being of children (for example, in clubs provided for children during school holidays);

(d) no person living outside Wales may, without reasonable excuse, enter or remain in Wales (regardless of exactly where outside Wales a person is living), and no person living in Wales may, without reasonable excuse, leave Wales;

(e) nearly all premises that were required to be closed to the public immediately before these Regulations came into force must remain closed, the exceptions being—

(i) libraries and archive services;

(ii) the public outdoor areas of premises on which a scheduled monument is situated, and the public outdoor areas of a park or garden that is registered in the register of parks and gardens of special historic interest in Wales;

(iii) self-contained holiday or travel accommodation: this means that camping sites and holiday sites may open if the only shared facilities are water points and waste disposal points, and other accommodation (including holiday apartments and hotels) may open provided that guests do not share facilities and indoor communal areas with anyone outside their household or the limited form of extended household described in paragraph (b).

The Regulations also—

(f) amend Schedule 5 to the principal Regulations to make temporary modifications to enable the enforcement of the restrictions in Schedule 3A;

(g) make other minor amendments and consequential amendments, including to the Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (No. 5) (Wales) (Amendment) (No. 5) Regulations 2021.

The Welsh Ministers’ Code of Practice on the carrying out of Regulatory Impact Assessments was considered in relation to these Regulations. As a result, a regulatory impact assessment has not been prepared as to the likely cost and benefit of complying with these Regulations.