MPs HAVE overwhelmingly voted to extend the government’s emergency Covid powers for another six months, despite fears that the Coronavirus Act “continually failed” the public.

The Act was voted through on March 24 2020 under little scrutiny, handing Boris Johnson’s government a wide variety of powers to slow the spread of the virus.

Today’s motion passed with 484 votes in favour versus 76 against.

Ahead of the vote, Health Secretary Matt Hancock repeated claims that the pandemic legislation was required to keep measures protecting renters from eviction, allowing virtual court proceedings and authorising full statutory sick pay during self-isolation.

But he was accused by MPs of spreading “fake news” after claiming earlier this week that if they did not vote for its renewal, the furlough scheme would lapse.

In fact, the scheme is a permanent provision of the Act, as Mr Hancock admitted during today’s debate.

Addressing concerns about the excessive reach of the legislation, he maintained that the government “will only retain powers if essential,” adding that 15 provisions have since been removed.

They include measures allowing local councils to suspend social-care funding and the state to retain DNA and fingerprints.

But some Labour MPs said that this was insufficient to ease their concerns over the legislation.

It handed sweeping powers to the police, including to detain people who are potentially infectious, and has since been used to ban protest gatherings.

Labour MP Dawn Butler said that there was no justification for extending the legislation one year on, describing it as a “blanket of draconian powers that this government has wrapped itself in.”

Although shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said that Labour supported the renewal, he urged the government to rethink the detention powers in the Act.

Other Labour MPs joined Ms Butler in opposing their party’s line.

Streatham MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy argued that the legislation had failed to prevent Britain clocking up the worst Covid-19 death toll in Europe and the biggest economic recession since records began.

A group of Tory backbenchers also rebelled against the Act. Former minister Desmond Swayne warned that the renewal of Covid-19 regulations could lead to “total social control.”
 
Labour MP Richard Burgon vowed to vote against the legislation, but not for the same reasons as the Tory rebels. Their opposition, he said, was based on an “ideology that puts profit before health.”

He called on the government to replace the Act with one that “protects civil liberties and one that tackles both the public-health and social crises.”