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(1) Here are The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (All Tiers and Obligations of Undertakings) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2020, which amend the All Tiers Regulations to add in the legal basis for the new Tier 4 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/1611/contents/made
(2) These amending regulations were made at 6am this morning (Sunday 20/12/20) and came into force at 7am
(3) They won't be laid before Parliament until Monday. The Minister has used the emergency procedure in s.45R of the Public Health (Control of Diseases) Act 1984 which allows the making of regulations without a draft being laid before or approved by Parliament
(4) The primary job of these new regulations to amend the existing "All Tiers" Regulations to add in Tier 4 - seems "All Tiers" was an optimistic title. In due course the All Tiers Regulations will be updated on the http://leglislation.gov site to take account of the amendments.
(5) The rules for Tier 4 will be found in a new Schedule 3A to the All Tiers Regulations (they can't use Schedule 4 as that's already being used for something else)
(6) The amending regulations also reduced the window for the operation of "Christmas Linked Households" to a single day.
(7) And they also extend a requirement in the "Obligations of Undertakings" Regulations for premises operators to police the gathering restrictions to Tiers 3 and (now) 4.
(8) A handy overview of the amending regulations (which run to 33 pages) can be found in the Explanatory Memorandum (a mere 7 pages) here: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/1611/memorandum/contents
(9) To answer the most FAQ, the law is in the regulations, not in guidance - guidance seeks to summarise and explain the law, and much of the time does so accurately, but guidance is not a definitive interpretation of the law, and where it gives advice it is just advice
(10) The Tier 4 guidance is here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/tier-4-stay-at-home
(11) So, turning back to the law and starting with the new Tier 4. What Tier 4 has that other tiers don't is a restriction on movement
(12) This in materially identical wording to the former restriction on movement in Lockdown 2.0, found in the (now revoked) No. 4 Regulations: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/1200/regulation/5/2020-11-05
(13) So the same principles that applied to England then now apply to a person "who lives in" the Tier 4 area. "Who lives in" is not defined, and lawyers can have bean-feast arguing what that means.
(14) As before the ban on leaving or being outside the place where living is subject to a widely drafted exception of reasonable excuse
(15) The regulation gives examples of circumstances which might to amount to reasonable excuse. But they are just examples - there may be other reasonable excuses that the *law* may accept.
(16) There are 16 categories of examples of reasonable excuse - they are the same categories as applied to Lockdown 2.0 plus 3 more - attending a permitted outdoor sports gathering, attending a parent and child group and moves for students
(17) Then there is the restriction on gatherings - this is as per Tier 3. Unlike the restriction on movement, there isn't a wide "reasonable excuse" exemption, but rather a list of specific exceptions.
(18) Some of the Tier 3 exceptions to gathering restrictions don't apply to Tier 4 - the ones that have been deleted are permitted organised gatherings, protests (!), the "Christmas Period" exception, and picketing (!).
(19) The gathering exception for "a commemorative event to celebrate the life of someone who has died" has been reduced from no more than 15 persons (Tier 3) to no more than 6 (Tier 4)
(20) And then there are business closures and restrictions, the key difference being that retailers have to close unless they are within one of a list of categories of businesses that are allowed to remain open.
(21) The regulations don't use the word "essential" in the context of retail, but guidance probably will...
(22) The approach is likely to be that if a food retailer (like a supermarket) has an element of non-essential retail (like homewares) then it doesn't need to close individual aisles but may need to close separate departments
(23) Now for what is not in the Tier 4 *law* - there is *no* separate travel ban - so the same situation as Lockdown 2, with the only restriction being the prohibition on leaving home without a reasonable excuse
(24) So, travelling anywhere is not - by virtue of the travel - an offence. And if there is a reasonable excuse for leaving/being outside home, no offence.
(25) Turning to Tiers 1-3, here is the truncation of the Christmas Period
(26) And finally the amendments deal with one of my hobby-horses - the removal of Tier 3 from the "all reasonable measures" provisions in the Obligations of Undertakings Regulations has been reversed, and Tier 4 added - see my tedious article here https://www.cholland.com/single-post/tidying-up-the-coronavirus-restrictions-regulations-the-law-of-unintended-consequences
(27) The regs say this is a clarification - well, if by clarifying you mean putting back what shouldn't have been taken out, then yes, it's a clarification.
(28) I've updated my Coronavirus Resources page to add in this new stuff https://www.cholland.com/single-post/coronavirus-law-resources
