Coronavirus: Ministers 'ruling by decree' on virus, warns Sir Graham Brady - BBC News
Sir Graham Brady suggests the public are being "treated like children" and MPs must have more say.
Sir Graham said any new measures must be directly approved by Parliament

Parliament must directly approve any new coronavirus restrictions before they come into force, a leading Conservative MP has told the BBC.

Sir Graham Brady said ministers had "got into the habit of ruling by decree", citing the "imposition" of the rule of six limit on social gatherings

He told Radio 4's Today public opinion was "moving" and the government could not take its backing for granted.

His warning comes as further measures are considered to address rising cases.

In a televised briefing, the UK government's chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty said the number of new infections was doubling roughly every seven days and risked "taking off" in all adult age groups.

Unless the UK "changed course" soon, he warned there could potentially be 50,000 new cases a day by the middle of next month, resulting in about 200 deaths every day by the middle of November.

MPs will vote next week on whether to continue to allow the government to use powers contained in the Coronavirus Act, an emergency piece of legislation fast-tracked through Parliament in late March.

It gives the government a wide range of emergency powers, although most of the Covid lockdown laws have been imposed using regulations under the 1984 Public Health Act, which take effect prior to a parliamentary vote.

The PM is due to make a statement to MPs on Tuesday, in which he is expected to announce a tightening of the rules on social interaction and leisure activities.

Sir Graham, who is chair of the powerful 1922 committee of Conservative backbenchers, said the six-month review of March's Act was welcome but Parliament needed to be much more involved in scrutinising and approving what he said were "really quite extreme emergency powers".

While he accepted the current situation was "serious", he said this did not absolve government from acting without recourse to Parliament - as he suggested had happened when it "imposed" the rule of six limit in England.

If there had been a debate on the measures, he said ministers would have been forced to justify why children were included in the maximum number, unlike in Scotland, and what the criteria would be for relaxing the strictures.

"The government has got into the habit, in respect of the coronavirus issue, of ruling by decree without the usual, debate, discussion and votes in Parliament that we would expect on any other matter," he said.

"The British people aren't used to being treated as children.

"We expect in this country to have a parliamentary democracy where our elected representatives on our behalf can require proper answers to these not just have some imposed."

Many MPs are concerned Parliament has been marginalised during the pandemic while the UK's most senior former judge, Lady Hale, has suggested it had "surrendered its role" when it allowed "sweeping and draconian" laws to be passed with only a few hours of debate.

In an essay published on Monday, the former president of the Supreme Court said she hoped the UK could return "to a properly functioning constitution as soon as we possibly can".

Sir Graham said there was no excuse for lack of Parliamentary debate, adding that "governments find it entirely possible to put things to Parliament quickly when it is convenient for them to do so".

His comments were echoed by a number of Conservative MPs during a statement in the Commons.

Former Cabinet minister Chris Grayling said the "case had not been made" for more stringent nationwide measures while Sir Edward Leigh suggested the government's increasingly "authoritarian" approach was un-Conservative.

But Health Secretary Matt Hancock rejected this, saying the government was following the "Conservative principle" of protecting people from harm.

However, he said he agreed with Sir Graham that the more scrutiny of government decisions, the better.

Labour has signalled it would back further restrictions in the coming days, shadow minister Wes Streeting telling BBC Politics Live it was not the time to "muck about".

Meanwhile, MPs are urging the government not to repeat some of the "mistakes" it made when the pandemic first struck at the start of the year.

The Commons Human Rights Committee said "confusion over what is law and what is merely guidance has left citizens open to disproportionate and unequal levels of punishment for breaking the rules".

"Unfortunately it seems that once again, this is overtly affecting BAME individuals," it said in a new report.

"The government must learn from these mistakes to ensure that any additional lockdowns do not unfairly impact specific groups."