Are MPs exempt from stricter COVID-19 restrictions?

Boris Johnson recently released new laws to try to contain the increasing numbers of Covid-19 around the UK.

These laws include not being allowed to be in groups bigger than six people, as well as making pubs and bars close at 10 PM every night of the week.

But the parliament and MPs seem to be exempt from these new laws. Shortly after the reveal of these new rules, it was revealed that the bar situated in parliament does not have to close at 10 PM, like all the other pubs in the UK. Instead, they only stopped serving alcoholic drinks at that time, still allowing their guests to enjoy non-alcoholic beverages or items from their food menu. Wearing facemasks will also be exempt from this bar.

But the care minister Helen Johnson does not agree with these rules. She told Today on BBC Radio 4 that MPs should ‘‘not be sitting around late at night when we’ve got a job to do’’ and argued that the bar in parliament should close at the same time as every other bar.

@estwebber Parliament’s bars exempt from 10 PM curfew? Appalling decision – had no idea. This sort of thing is what brings parliament into disrepute. Who makes these decisions? The Speaker’s Commission? Will look into it.

— George Freeman MP (@GeorgeFreemanMP) September 28, 2020

George Freeman, MP for the Conservative party, tweeted saying that the choice to leave the bar in parliament open was an ‘appalling decision’’ from the parliament’s side, and promised to look into why the decision was made.

This is not the first time MPs have seen breaking the laws that the government have set out since the pandemic started. At the beginning of lockdown, Dominic Cummings drove his possibly Corona sick family from London up to his family in Durham to be closer to his parents. MP Danny Kruger was also seen on a train – without wearing a face mask like the parliament had made mandatory on public transportations.

Alice Sjöberg
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Featured image curtesy of Marcin Nowak on Unsplash. Image licence found here. No changes were made to this image.