On Wednesday 23.04.20, the government quietly tightened lockdown restrictions across England. The Health Protection (Coroavirus, Restrictions) (England (Amendment) Regulations 2020, amend previous statutory instrument (SI. 2020/350) that forms the legal basis for lockdown measures, most notably Regulation 6 that places restrictions on freedom of movement.
Previously, Regulation 6(1) prohibited any person in England from leaving their home without a “reasonable excuse”.
Following yesterday’s amendment, Reg 6(1) now reads: “During the emergency period, no person may leave or be outside of the place where they are living without reasonable excuse…”.
From this it follows that simply being outside of one’s home without a reasonable excuse may now break the law, even if you had a perfectly good reason for leaving the house in the first place.