Covid-19 Inquiry

Statement

The following Statement was made in the House of Commons on Thursday 16 January.

“I would like to make a Statement on the Government’s response to module 1 of the Covid inquiry. In July last year, Baroness Hallett published her report from the first module of the inquiry. It concluded that the UK was not as prepared as it should have been for the pandemic and that more could and should have been done. In my Statement to the House immediately following the publication of her report, I committed to responding in full within six months.

Before I turn to the Government’s response, I want to place on record once again my thanks to Baroness Hallett and her team for the work they have done so far in the inquiry. I also pay tribute to the families and friends who lost loved ones during the pandemic, some of whom are with us in the Gallery. Earlier this week, I visited the National Covid Memorial Wall just across the river from here. I am grateful to the Friends of the Wall who have so lovingly cared for it and maintained it over the past few years.

As I said in my Statement in July, the Government’s first responsibility is to keep the public safe. That is why, since we were elected, we have taken steps to strengthen the UK’s resilience. I announced a review of national resilience. Work on that review is proceeding, and I will update the House on its conclusion in the spring.

The Prime Minister has established a single Cabinet committee for resilience, which I chair, which meets to ensure clear and rigorous ministerial oversight. We have adopted the 2023 biological security strategy to protect the UK and our interests from significant biological risks.

In April, the new UK resilience academy will be launched. It will train over 4,000 people in resilience and emergency roles every year and help them plan for and manage a range of crises, including pandemics. I should also acknowledge, as I did in my first Statement back in July, that in some areas these improvements build on work carried out by the previous Administration.

The improvements that we have made to our resilience have been put to the test over the last six months. Those include the Prime Minister chairing a number of emergency COBRA meetings to address the violent disorder that occurred over the summer and working across our four nations to anticipate and contain clade 1 mpox cases in the UK.

Since July, we have also sent two emergency alerts to provide advice to the public in life-threatening situations. During Storm Darragh, because of a very rare red—danger to life—warning, an alert was sent to over 3 million people in affected regions. More recently, we issued a very localised warning over flooding danger. The Government will carry out a full national test of the emergency alert system later this year. That will ensure that the system is functioning correctly, should it need to be deployed in an emergency.

The Covid module 1 inquiry found that years of underinvestment meant that pandemic planning was not a sufficient priority, that our health services were already suffering and beyond capacity, and that there were high levels of illness and health inequalities. All of that meant that the state was ill prepared to manage a crisis on this scale. Therefore, apart from the specific recommendations, delivering on the Government’s missions—particularly in this context, building a National Health Service fit for the future—will contribute in important ways to the UK’s resilience.

Pandemic planning and resilience are about not just specific resilience measures but ensuring the underlying fundamentals of our country are strong. I thank the devolved Governments for their co-operation in preparing our response today. We will continue to work together for the safety of the communities we serve.

I turn to specifics. There are three new commitments that I wish to highlight. First, the inquiry recommended that the UK Government and devolved Governments should together hold a regular UK-wide pandemic response exercise. We agree and will be undertaking a full national pandemic response exercise later this year. It will be the first of its kind in nearly a decade. It will test the UK’s capabilities, plans, protocols and procedures in the event of another major pandemic. It will be led by senior Ministers, involve thousands of participants, and run across all regions and nations of the UK. Alongside the Health Secretary, I have written to all Cabinet Ministers to ask for their commitment to full participation. The exercise will take place in the autumn over a number of days. The Government will communicate the findings and lessons of the exercise as recommended by the Covid-19 inquiry.

Secondly, the inquiry found that the pandemic had a disproportionate impact on vulnerable groups and continues to affect many people in those communities. A new national vulnerability map created by the Cabinet Office with the Office for National Statistics will geographically map population numbers of those who may be vulnerable in a crisis. It will do that by sharing data including age, disability, ethnicity, and whether someone is receiving care. The map will improve the Government’s understanding of the scale and location of disproportionately impacted populations ahead of and during crises and enable targeted local support when required.

Thirdly, as the inquiry reminds us, the risks we face are changing more quickly than ever before, and we live in an increasingly volatile world. It therefore recommended a better approach to risk assessment across the board, which we accept. Today, I am publishing an updated national risk register: the public-facing version of the national security risk assessment, which provides businesses and the voluntary and community sectors with the latest information about the risks they face to support their planning, preparation and response. We will ensure that it continues to be updated regularly. A significant proportion of the risks will be subject to reassessment over the next few months, and we will publish a further updated risk register as needed once the process is complete.

I want to mention two further recommendations where the Government accept the underlying objectives and propose to take them forward in specific ways. First, the inquiry recommended Cabinet Office leadership for whole-system civil emergencies in the UK. We agree with that, as for whole-system emergencies such as a pandemic, the centre of government needs to play a lead role. But for lower-scale emergencies, we believe that the lead department model still has value. It remains important for departments with the day-to-day responsibility for an issue to lead the work to identify serious risks and ensure that the right planning, response and recovery arrangements are in place. Therefore, in some circumstances we will retain the lead government department model, because, in those cases, responsibility and oversight should sit with the body with the best understanding, relationships and mechanisms for delivery to identify and address risks. There will be an enhanced role for the Cabinet Office to improve preparedness and resilience for larger-scale catastrophic risks.

Secondly, on the question of independent input into whole-system civil emergency preparedness and resilience, we agree with the need for independent strategic advice and challenge, including the use of so-called red teams. We are establishing eight expert advisory groups to combat groupthink in our understanding of risks. Alongside that, through the crisis management excellence programme we will increase training in red teaming. We want to work with the local resilience forums that exist around the country that provide critical knowledge and expertise.

The Government are also committed to introducing a duty of candour on public authorities as a catalyst for a changed culture in the public sector to improve transparency and accountability. We also welcome and will draw on the expertise of multidisciplinary pandemic science institutes that provide world-leading academic and scientific expertise, such as the excellent Pandemic Institute in Liverpool, which I was pleased to visit yesterday. In the end, the Government must remain responsible and accountable for the policy and resource allocation decisions they take, but we believe that the external input of those bodies can add value to that decision-making.

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic was unprecedented in modern memory. It caused the loss of far too many lives. My thoughts, and the thoughts of the whole Government, continue to be with all those who lost loved ones during the pandemic. Many of them feel not just grief but anger that, as Baroness Hallett’s report sadly confirmed, the country was not as prepared as it should have been.

My department will monitor the implementation of the commitments made in response to the Covid-19 inquiry. In all this, we must remember that the next crisis may not be the same as the last. There is a need for flexibility in our planning and learning, and we will build that into what we do. The Government also remain committed to engaging fully with the inquiry, and await Baroness Hallett’s findings and recommendations in subsequent module reports as she continues her important work. I commend this Statement to the House”.

12:01:00

My Lords, I thank the Minister for bringing to the House this Statement on the government response to the Covid-19 inquiry module 1 report. I thank the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, for her leadership and the work of her team. I pay tribute to those who lost their lives and to the families who continue to grieve. Their loss is not just a memory but a standing rebuke to complacency—a warning against the easy comfort of forgetting. If this inquiry is to mean anything, it must ensure that the failures of the past are never repeated. The Government’s response recognises those failures, but recognition is not the same as resolution. The inquiry lays bare what went wrong. Lives were lost not because those in government or on the front line lacked effort or intention but because the system they relied on was too slow, too complex and too poorly maintained. The structures for emergency response were fatally flawed, with too many competing voices and unclear lines of authority. When the crisis hit, leaders lacked the information they needed to make informed decisions quickly. Vital data was unavailable, inconsistent or siloed. Worst of all, preparedness had been allowed to slip down the priority list. Without a recent crisis to focus the mind, plans had gathered dust. When they were finally needed, they were out of date or prepared for another type of pandemic. We broadly welcome the steps that the Government have taken, especially to ensure that the Cabinet Office has a clearer and stronger role in crisis and resilience co-ordination. I appreciate that the Government have clearly signalled their intention to build on the work started by the last Government. The Resilience Directorate should provide clearer leadership. The resilience academy will help build expertise. A full-scale pandemic exercise is a necessary step in testing our ability to respond. These are real improvements, and we support them. However, there is still much more to do. Preparedness must not be something that the Government remember only when disaster strikes. A culture of resilience should be embedded across the system, with clear accountability for ensuring that it does not fade from view. The Government’s response does not go far enough in simplifying the system. Complexity was a core failing in our pandemic response, yet we are in danger of replacing one tangle of bureaucracy with another. Data sharing remains a critical weakness, and without an efficient way to collect, share and use real-time information, we will make the same mistakes again. That is why recommendation 10 is the wrong answer. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, calls for simplification, yet her recommendation to establish yet another arm’s-length body would add another layer of complexity. A new statutory body, given responsibility for strategic advice, assessment, local consultation and national capability planning, is simply too broad in scope. A body that is simultaneously an adviser, a regulator, a strategy setter and a watchdog will be a body that lacks focus. Instead of bringing clarity, it will muddy decision-making. Instead of streamlining the system, it will entangle it further. Instead of ensuring resilience, it will create yet another institution competing for influence within an already crowded space. If independent oversight is needed, let it be exactly that—an assessment function that checks government preparedness against a clear framework set by Ministers, not a permanent fixture with an ever-growing remit. Otherwise, we risk creating a body that spends its time lobbying Ministers for its own recommendations, regardless of whether they are useful or practical. When disaster strikes, there must be no doubt about who is responsible, who is making the decisions and who is accountable to the public. There are, of course, deeper questions that must be answered. How will we measure progress? Unless we have clear benchmarks, improvement is just an illusion. Without real accountability and framework clarity, the reviews, consultations and task forces risk being temporary solutions. Working out what to do is the easy part. The hard part is ensuring rigorous implementation backed up by data. Is there data to support the whole-system emergency strategy? In recommendation 7, the report asked for three-month publications to report back the findings of the nationwide investigations. Can the Minister speak to that? Why is this inquiry taking so long? Lessons that could save lives should already be implemented. The Government speak of a duty of candour, but honesty is already required in the Civil Service Code. Yet as numerous inquiries such as Horizon, infected blood and Grenfell have demonstrated, it has not delivered transparency in the past, so how will this now be ensured? Above all, how do we ensure that this inquiry does not become just another exercise in bureaucratic introspection? We have seen too many reports whose conclusions are welcomed, debated, nodded at solemnly and quietly ignored. This cannot be one of them. The Government have not yet responded to last year’s House of Lords Statutory Inquiries Committee report on reforming the process by which public inquiries are conducted, and the committee has said it is unacceptable that so many recommendations have not been implemented. I call on the Government to consider last year’s report. Can the Minister provide an update on the timely implementation of the recommendations? So far, only one recommendation has been implemented. Resilience is not built through process. It is not achieved by handing responsibly to another statutory body. It is built through strong leadership, clear accountability and a system that is ready to act when the moment demands. The Government’s response is a step in the right direction, but we must go further and move faster because the next crisis will not wait. When it comes, the true test will not be whether we have created another agency, or published another report, but whether we are finally and fully prepared to respond.

My Lords, I echo the comments in the Statement and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, and extend our sympathies from these Benches to all those who lost loved ones in the Covid pandemic, those who are still losing loved ones to Covid—even though the numbers are much reduced—and those who are still living with the consequences, either with long Covid or with Covid having changed their health in other ways. I also thank and remember everyone who stepped up to do extraordinary things during the pandemic, including the NHS, social care, our local government and directors of public health leading our local resilience forums. We must also not forget those who kept important infrastructure work going—railways and bus services, supermarkets, farmers and all those who helped to bring in the homeless in those early days of lockdown. The speed of response and care shown were inspirational. From these Benches we also thank everyone who took on volunteer roles. They show the strength of our British civil society, especially in a serious crisis. The Covid inquiry report on preparedness makes it plain that the last Government did not get it right, but I suspect that had it happened after the election, the same would have happened. This is not just about politicians. It is also about how our Civil Service and others had always pushed it as a non-urgent item, meaning that funding and reviews did not happen. That is probably one of the reasons why it took the UK much longer to get ready when the pandemic came to our shores. I always try to contrast the work of Taiwan. Resilience is there every single day, not for pandemics but for an invasion by China. Taiwan’s relationship with people, with civil society and with different government departments is entirely different from ours. As a result, it was able to move much more swiftly. So my first question to the Minister is: as pandemic preparedness is not just about those who have direct responsibilities and roles, what are the Government doing to change the cultural way that our society thinks? For example, some people say that masks are absolutely unnecessary and fight having to wear them, when we know that there is a large spread of infectious diseases going on at the moment, particularly in hospital. I was interested in the view of the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, that the report’s proposal for an arm’s-length body is wrong. I believe that she is wrong, because setting up lots of small units is not helpful. Part of my Front-Bench brief is to follow all the current inquiry and compensation schemes, and common to all of them is a Civil Service attitude that retains departmental priority rather than looking at the crisis. I am not trying to traduce civil servants, many of whom do step up, but there is a culture, as noble Lords know, that, as you have to work to your annual budget, you work to the priorities that you are set, and I am afraid that it is clear from the Covid inquiry report that the pandemic did not feature on the radar. I think a UK resilience academy is a good idea, but its funding must be protected. Attendance on courses must be compulsory for certain key individuals, and it is important that this covers other emergencies, too: flooding, bombings and any other major unexpected event must have people who will run towards the crisis while everyone else is told to move away. However, funding for the academy is not enough. We must have ring-fenced and guaranteed funding for local resilience forums. I did not start, and I should have done, by declaring my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. It is appalling that local government’s public health role funding was not just decreased but often announced late over the last 10 years, meaning that there was little capacity for LRFs to focus on anything other than the most urgent demands, so they could not plan ahead for other events. The previous Government often talked about reducing waste in public services and cutting pandemic planning. Worse, they did not even learn from the events that did happen. The inquiry report says that that must not happen again and these Benches agree. While it is good that there will be a full national pandemic exercise this year, I ask the Minister how often these will be held in the future. I will very briefly mention vulnerable groups, which are referred to in the Statement. We seem to have moved back to a world where vulnerable groups are people who may be elderly or disabled, but we forget the clinically vulnerable, who are still with us. Particularly on health issues, will the Government make sure that, whenever vulnerable groups are discussed, clinically vulnerable people will be checked as well? There are recommendations in today’s second inquiry report, which has been published, to increase the base of vaccination to ensure that many more clinically vulnerable people are regularly given access to vaccinations. The new national risk register is impressive, and pages 7 and 8 demonstrate how much the new Government—I give the previous Government some credit for starting work on this—have taken on board from the Covid inquiry report and other reports on key emergencies in recent times. I end with a warning. In the excellent social and medical history of the Spanish flu pandemic, author Laura Spinney had a number of chapters at the end on life across the world post the pandemic. Virtually all the lessons that they said they would learn in the immediate aftermath of that pandemic were forgotten, including preparing for future emergencies—so much so that, in the mid-1930s, when large numbers of young people were dying of strokes and heart attacks, nobody could work out why. These days, we would understand why. The Covid inquiry’s clear recommendation to centre all preparedness in the Cabinet Office is rejected by the Government. I wonder whether the Government will review that. I recognise that they are talking about devolving, but the Cabinet Office must hold control of everything. Finally, by all means have some departmental staff with expertise involved, but we need a neutral body that can see the whole emergency and is able to challenge the preconception better. For example, local resilience forums, and in particular the directors of public health, were ignored by NHS England and the Department of Health for far too long. Will the Government undertake to look at this issue?

I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Finn and Lady Brinton, for their comments. A number of important issues have been raised, which I will address. If there is not time for me to go through all the points, I will pick them up with the noble Baronesses afterwards. Because LRFs were noted, I should inform the House that I was chair of the London LRF during the pandemic. In July last year, as your Lordships’ House will be aware, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, published her report from the first module of the Covid inquiry. It concluded that the UK was not as prepared as it should have been and that more could and should have been done, and this Government agree. Before I turn to our response, I join others in expressing my thanks to the noble and learned Baroness and her team for the work that they have done so far in the inquiry. As the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, made clear, our thoughts should also be with those who lost loved ones during the pandemic, so I also pay tribute to the bereaved families and friends. We have a visual reminder of that opposite Parliament in the form of the Covid memorial wall. As the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, made clear, a huge number of people helped both with the response and by keeping the country going through what was a very difficult time. The Government accept the inquiry’s findings and agree that the UK was not prepared for a pandemic, as it should have been. We agree with what the inquiry is seeking to achieve through its recommendations but, in one or two instances, we may be using different means to achieve the same objectives. The noble Baroness, Lady Finn, highlighted some of the issues that led to the UK not being as prepared for the Covid pandemic as it should have been. There have already been significant improvements since, and I acknowledge the changes made by the previous Administration. However, clearly there is further to go. My view is that our country’s resilience should not be politicised. I am grateful for the tone of the debate so far, which has reflected this in the thoughtful comments of the noble Baronesses. Since the election, the Government have already taken steps to strengthen the UK’s resilience. In July, we announced a review of national resilience and work on this is proceeding. Parliament will be updated on its conclusion in the spring. The Prime Minister has established a single Cabinet committee for resilience, chaired by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, which meets regularly to ensure clear and rigorous ministerial oversight. We have also adopted the 2023 UK Biological Security Strategy to protect the UK and our interests from significant biological risks. There are also three new commitments in the Government’s response that I will highlight. As noted by the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, we will be undertaking a pandemic exercise. We agree with the inquiry’s recommendation on this and will be undertaking a full national pandemic response exercise later this year. It will be the first of its kind in nearly a decade and will test the UK’s capabilities, plans, protocols and procedures in the event of another major pandemic. Secondly, the inquiry found that the pandemic had a disproportionate impact on vulnerable groups and continues to affect many people in these communities, as highlighted by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. A new risk vulnerability tool, created by the Cabinet Office with the Office for National Statistics, will geographically map the population numbers of those who may be vulnerable in a crisis. It will do this by sharing data, including on age, disability, ethnicity or whether someone is receiving care. This should improve the Government’s understanding of the scale and location of disproportionately impacted populations ahead of and during crises, and enable targeted local support where required. Finally, the Government have published an updated national risk register. On the specific points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, on recommendation 10 for an independent statutory body, the Government agree with the principle of independent scrutiny but, given the importance of ensuring that this complements existing governance, it is right that we take the time to consider the best mechanism to deliver this. The Government also want to work with relevant stakeholders, including the devolved Governments, to ensure that any solution has broad support across the four nations. Since the pandemic, the Government have brought in more external advice and challenge across the resilience system. On the noble Baroness’s point about the length of time taken by the Covid inquiry, I note that the terms of reference were set by the previous Government. The inquiry chair is very mindful of the need to make improvements as we go along, which is why a module-by-module approach has been adopted. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, asked about masks. NHS organisations determine any decisions on mandating or enhancing the use of face masks to reduce transmission in their settings based on the local prevalence and risk assessments. UKHSA continues to recommend that organisations use effective mitigations, including hand hygiene, ventilation and face masks. Some NHS settings, including hospitals, have adopted this during the current winter. On LRFs and vulnerable people, we will publish revised guidance in February to help LRFs identify and support people who are vulnerable in an emergency. Vulnerability is, and has to be, a key focus of the Cabinet Office-led review of our approach to resilience. We are engaging with charitable, faith and other relevant representative organisations to understand how the reduction and prevention of disproportionate impacts to at-risk groups and persons can be better considered in resilience planning and policy. We will monitor the implementation of the commitments made in response to module 1. The noble Baroness, Lady Finn, asked about the House of Lords Statutory Inquiries Committee. I have read the report and found it very interesting. The Government are grateful to the committee for the report and its thoughtful consideration of the issues surrounding inquiries. We are carefully considering its recommendations and will publish our response soon. The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic was unprecedented in modern memory. It ultimately caused the loss of far too many lives, and our thoughts are with those who lost loved ones. The Government also remain committed to engaging fully with the inquiry and await the recommendations of subsequent module reports as the noble and learned Baroness continues her important work.

12:21:00

My Lords, I refer to my chairing of the National Preparedness Commission. I welcome the Government’s response to the module 1 report. The nation is on a journey, which was started by the previous Government; I am pleased that it has been continued by the present Government. In particular, I welcome the recognition that resilience and preparedness are an essential underpinning of the Government’s missions for change and everything else, and that those missions themselves feed back into preparedness and resilience. I specifically welcome the fact that the emergency alerts scheme—which, as noble Lords know, I have been championing for some time—is to be tested on a regular basis in addition to when it is used, if you like, in anger. I was interested in the slight differences in emphasis on recommendation 10, but surely the important point is that, when the Government bring forward their review of resilience, they recognise that there needs to be a legal underpinning. In the same way that the Climate Change Act requires Government Ministers and government departments to work towards delivering net zero, there should be a similar sort of obligation requiring them to work towards resilience. Is that under active consideration? There is also the question of whether something like the Climate Change Committee—which, if you like, marks the Government’s homework—which would have a validity under those circumstances. The prime responsibility is to make sure that everybody recognises that they all have to contribute to this.

My noble friend makes a really important point about this being something that everybody has to contribute to. On his point about potential need for changes to the legislative framework, the current basis of legislation is the Civil Contingencies Act, and the next formal statutory review should be completed by 2027. However, in light of the recent inquiries around Covid and Grenfell, it is right that we look at the legislative framework and ensure that it meets the need of the evolving risk landscape and the growing expectations on the local tier in particular. We are considering the legislative framework as part of the resilience review, which, as noble Lords will be aware, will conclude in spring 2025.

My Lords, one of the most notable successes during the whole Covid pandemic was that of the Vaccine Taskforce, which achieved extraordinary things. Yet, in October 2022, it was effectively abandoned and its work absorbed into two different agencies. Does the Minister think that the Government would consider reinstituting it, as the need for vaccines appears to be still very pressing?

The Vaccine Taskforce clearly contributed a huge amount, and we should be really proud of the innovation within the UK on this, including the development of some of the first vaccines. This is one of the points for future modules; the hearings on vaccines and therapeutics are currently taking place, so I do not want to stray too much into that. There is a point at which things need to shift from being emergency response to business as usual, but I note the noble Baroness’s concerns and will feed them back to relevant Ministers as part of their consideration.

Does the Minister think that the inquiry will look closely at the question of collateral damage from the way that the whole Covid epidemic was dealt with? Let us face it: the economy was absolutely ruined by the flood of money that was put into it; the education of young children was gratuitously ignored, and the damages are still being felt today; and many people in the health system who were suffering from other complaints such as cancer, strokes and heart attacks have suffered dreadfully as a result of it. Are they going to deal with the collateral damage of the Covid epidemic? I think that this was much worse than dealing with the disease itself.

The noble Lord makes a point on collateral damage and the impact of the pandemic. I think a lot of us will recognise that, particularly the impact on children and young people, from those we have in our families and social context. The length of the inquiry was noted by the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, and one of the reasons for its length is that it will go into quite a lot of detail to look at the impact on particular aspects of society beyond the initial response, the preparedness and the impact on individuals from the disease itself. The hearings on the impact on children and young people are due to take place in September later this year. Then, the hearings on module 9, which is the module after that one, are due to take place in November 2025. The wider impact on society is in module 10, towards the end of the consideration of the impact of Covid by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, and those hearings are currently expected to take place early next year.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for bringing this Statement to the House and, in so doing, I remind noble Lords of my own interests as chairman of the Office for Strategic Coordination of Health Research and as chairman of UK Biobank. I would like to reflect a little bit further on recommendation 5, which deals with the question of research and data. The recovery trial conducted during Covid was essential in rapidly bringing forward treatments that were proven and could be applied quickly to the benefit of those hospitalised with Covid who were requiring treatment and intervention, and it had a major impact on saving lives. It was possible only because the Secretary of State had to issue a COPI notice to ensure that there was access to confidential patient data, which was essential in being able to undertake such research studies as the recovery study. Is the Minister content that sufficient progress has been made in curating the totality of NHS data available and ensuring it is research ready, so that it could be applied effectively at scale and pace in any future pandemic? Can she confirm that the funding to support the capacity in infrastructure to undertake clinical research provided through the National Institute for Health and Care Research and the Medical Research Council will be protected in the forthcoming spending round to ensure that this vital research capacity is available at short notice if we have a future pandemic?

My noble friend Lord Livermore is here, so I am sure he heard the noble Lord’s point about the spending review. I will feed the noble Lord’s comments in. In relation to data and future research, the Government agree with the inquiry that data and research are crucial to preparing for and responding to future pandemics. Clearly, it is a matter of when, not if. We have made significant progress on identifying the data across government. The National Situation Centre was established in 2021 and provides situational awareness for crisis response. As a resilience geek, I think that is a fascinating development that has contributed quite a lot. I note the noble Baroness’s previous role in it. The UKHSA continues to develop and optimise data surveillance capabilities to keep ahead of the next threats across all population groups, society and public services, locally and globally. That is something on which we agree with the inquiry’s recommendation, and we hope the noble Lord will recognise that delivery has already started. I am happy to pick up any additional points with him directly.

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, pointedly raised the issue of mental health and the response to it in this report. The report emphasises the need for more research and better data collection, as well as development. I wonder whether the noble Baroness is aware that perhaps the most important cognitive science going on in this country is in the medical research units, which are few in number, with several hundred specialised scientists—among the best in the world, including Nobel Prize winners—who currently are concerned that their budget is being not increased but reduced. There is a serious risk that we will lose those staff, who are the best in the world. If we are to improve mental health, it is important to understand the phenotype as well as the basic causes of these conditions. They are too important to be ignored any longer.

My noble friend makes an important point. This Government are taking the Mental Health Bill through your Lordships’ House at the moment. I will come back to him with a specific response on the points he raises. Going back to my previous answer on future modules, I think that some of the issues around mental health and its importance in how we approach any future pandemic, and measures we might take, will continue to emerge through the inquiry’s hearings.

I thank the noble Baroness for her kind words and I am very glad that the Government are building on the work we did on resilience. I am particularly delighted by the plans for an emergency dummy run and for the extra testing of alerts. Those practical measures are really important. The noble Baroness also mentioned data sharing. We discussed that yesterday at the Statistics Assembly, which was recommended by Professor Denise Lievesley, as she may know. It comes through strongly that we still have a lot more to do on data sharing. Can the noble Baroness tell us how much the inquiry has cost? Obviously, there are two parts to that. There is the large cost of the team of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, and all her lawyers. There is also the cost of the civil servants engaged, and of the supporting witnesses. I am very interested to know what we have spent so far and the estimate of the cost for the future, at this difficult time when we are trying to bear down on expenditure everywhere. I see the noble Lord, Lord Livermore, in his seat.

The inquiry regularly publishes details of the money that has been spent. The figures I have relate to the inquiry costs. The noble Baroness is correct that the organisations involved, particularly those with core participant status, are also likely to be putting in additional resources. I will try to establish whether we have an estimate of that. From its establishment up to September 2024, the inquiry spent £124.2 million. As I noted in my initial response to these questions, the inquiry chair is delivering on the terms of reference agreed with the previous Government. She is under a statutory obligation to avoid unnecessary costs in the inquiry’s work and has been clear that she intends to complete her work as quickly and efficiently as possible. The Government also regularly publish their costs in relation to the inquiry response, and I will write to the noble Baroness on that. Today’s debate has shown how it is hard to constrain costs when you have demands for the inquiry to look at every single aspect. This was a whole-society crisis—a whole-society emergency. It touched every aspect of society. That is not to downplay the cost of the inquiry. I note that the House of Lords report that was referenced earlier highlighted costs as one of its concerns.

My Lords, does the Minister share my disappointment that the eloquent contribution from the Front Bench opposite by the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, for whom I have the greatest respect, did not include any apologies, not so much for Ministers partying while others suffered but for the fact that some people made millions—well, billions—supplying materials and equipment that subsequently turned out to be unusable? Will the Minister give me an absolute assurance that she and all her colleagues will co-operate fully with the Covid corruption commissioner to make sure that all those who wrongly profited from the Covid pandemic are brought to book?

I am sure that all those who are asked will co-operate fully with the Covid corruption commissioner. I do not entirely share my noble friend’s view. I felt that the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, did acknowledge that there had been issues that led to some of the problems the UK faced during the Covid pandemic. My view is that all political parties have a role to work together to ensure that our resilience is as strong as it can be for the future. I hope that we continue to work on a cross-party basis to improve this country’s resilience, and that all noble Lords feed into the wider review on the UK’s resilience, which the Government are undertaking at the moment.

My Lords, I hope the noble Baroness will forgive me if I did not hear properly, but I did not hear the answer to the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Winston, about research. We have the best people doing research—some of them Nobel Prize winners—and their budget has been cut, and if this is not addressed pretty quickly they may leave and do it somewhere else. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Livermore, is here and that he deals with budgets. What are we going to do about the possibility of some of our best researchers deciding to go somewhere else where there is money that will allow them to do their research?

Clearly, we want to keep the best researchers in the country here. With the best will in the world, and with the great forbearance of the team that has been preparing my brief, I have gone back on an almost minute-by-minute basis over the last two days to get points added to it. I committed to my noble friend that I would write to him about the specific points he raised in his question. I will be honest: I do not have the answer to that specific question here today.

My Lords, I return to the issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, about the situation today of clinically vulnerable and otherwise vulnerable groups of people. I note that the Statement says that “the inquiry found that the pandemic had a disproportionate impact on vulnerable groups and continues to affect many people in those communities”. Given that, as the WHO says, the Covid pandemic is continuing and we have the threat of multiple other respiratory viruses—I note that H5N1 is an area of great concern—how would the Minister assess the Government’s current approach to clinically vulnerable and more broadly vulnerable groups? I am thinking particularly of their access to commercial and community spaces, and to schools that have clean air through either ventilation or filtration. Dame Kate Bingham from the Vaccine Taskforce told the inquiry this week that there is concern about the availability of prophylactic antibodies for people who cannot benefit in the same way as others from vaccines. Where are we now in making sure that treatment is available for those people?

One of the things that the pandemic threw up as an issue that all responders had to deal with was the redefinition of who was vulnerable. It is something that LRF responders were very aware of at the time. The Government are committed to engaging widely with vulnerable communities and civil society to ensure that the factors that affect vulnerability, including health inequalities and socioeconomic inequalities, are much better understood as we review our approach to resilience. We are going to come back on the response that was in the review later in the spring. We recognise that vulnerability should be a key focus, and it is a key focus of the Cabinet Office-led review of our approach to resilience. In order to get the response on this right, we are engaging with charitable, faith and other representative organisations to understand how the reduction and prevention of disproportionate impact on at-risk groups and persons can be better considered in our planning and policy.