You are not wrong, rjay49. At the outset of the pandemic, the government declared a state of emergency. It invoked section 198 of the Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008 and conferred on Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton emergency powers to make directions to prevent the spread of COVID-19 as he or his delegates saw fit. The powers, still in effect, are broad and include restrictions on movement and, now, compulsory masks in public.
