Pat McFadden MP: speeches

Speeches

• 16 Jan 2025 · Covid-19 Inquiry · Hansard source

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  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 three 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 under-investment 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 group-think 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 who 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.

• 25 Jul 2024 · Civil Service: National Pay Bargaining Units · Hansard source

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  Yesterday, I met the civil service unions together with the new Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Queen’s Park and Maida Vale (Georgia Gould). We had a very positive discussion covering a whole range of issues. I made it clear that the days of Government Ministers waging culture wars against civil servants are over. Instead, we want a civil service that is motivated, valued and helps the Government to deliver their priorities. On the specific issue of pay, the Government will have more to say on civil service pay before the summer recess.

• 19 Jul 2024 · Covid-19 Inquiry · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for her questions and the spirit in which she asked them. The truth is that it is easy for any of us to say, “Lessons must be learned,” and whenever anything goes wrong, people say that. The proof is in the practice. Will it be shown in practice? That is the ultimate test for us all. I am happy to confirm to the hon. Member that, just as I said to the Opposition spokesperson, yes, we are happy to work across the aisle on this and to consider suggestions. My colleagues at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport are considering the recommendations on the memorial.

• 19 Jul 2024 · Covid-19 Inquiry · Hansard source

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  With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the covid-19 inquiry. Yesterday, Baroness Hallett published her report from the first module of the UK covid-19 inquiry, which examines the resilience and preparedness of the United Kingdom between 2009 and early 2020. My thoughts, and I am sure the thoughts of the whole House, are with the families of those who lost loved ones during the pandemic. Their grief and the nature of their loss is harrowing, with so many loved ones lost before their time; so many heartbreaking last goodbyes said over a phone or iPad; and in some cases there was not even the chance to say goodbye at all. So many friends and family members were denied even the chance to go to a funeral, and many others found their lives changed by covid forever. We can only begin to imagine the anguish and anger that people feel, because this report confirms what many have always believed: that the country was not as prepared as it should have been, and that more could and should have been done. Baroness Hallett is unequivocal: “The UK was ill prepared for dealing with a catastrophic emergency, let alone the coronavirus…pandemic”. She finds that “processes, planning and policy” across all four nations failed our citizens. There were fundamental failures of state, with poorly performing public services, as well as health and social inequalities contributing to our vulnerability. The inquiry finds that “the UK prepared for the wrong pandemic”, with a focus on influenza to the effective exclusion of other potential pathogens. There was a lack of leadership, a lack of appropriate challenge and oversight from Ministers and officials, which allowed major gaps to open up in the UK’s resilience in the period leading up to the pandemic. Baroness Hallett finds “fatal strategic flaws underpinning the assessment of the risks” and “a failure to learn sufficiently from past civil emergency exercises and outbreaks of disease.” Ministers and officials took false comfort from a positive analysis of the UK’s preparedness. Not enough thought was given to how we might seek to prevent the worst effects of a pandemic, such as with a system of test and trace, rather than accepting the consequence of spread as inevitable. In this emergency, the cracks in our society were exposed. The inequalities were glaring, and that weakened the response. That is why the report’s findings on the most vulnerable are so important: what it says about the elderly, ethnic minorities and those already subject to existing health inequalities, particularly in the early months of the pandemic; those with higher risk of serious illness who were asked to shield for extended periods; those living in overcrowded houses, working in the gig economy or on low incomes; those who suffered as a result of the appalling increase in domestic abuse during the lockdowns; and, of course, disruption to education and the inequalities of vastly different access to online learning and IT equipment. Resilience has to be for all of us, not just some of us. The underlying picture that this report sets out is stark. Before the pandemic began, our public services were already stretched to their limit, during what should have been normal times. This was especially true of the NHS, overstretched even before the pandemic hit, and key workers in other services, overburdened in normal times and then asked to go above and beyond. A nation can only be as resilient as the foundational strength of its infrastructure and public services. As I stand here today with 8 million people on NHS waiting lists, prisons overflowing, councils pushed to the brink and public services in a worse position than they were even in 2020, we must ensure that we are prepared. Baroness Hallett says that it is not a question of if another pandemic will strike, but when. Resilience is not just about another pandemic, but about the full range of risk that we face. We are reminded of that this morning as reports come in about a global IT outage affecting airlines, GP surgeries, banks, media and other organisations. It is not easy to know what the future holds. We cannot plan fully for every possible risk, but we must do what we can to learn the lessons of this period. The Government’s first responsibility is to keep the public safe. That is a top priority of this Government. With a long-term approach to strengthening our national resilience, I shall lead a review of our national resilience against the range of risks that the UK faces. I shall chair a dedicated Cabinet Committee on resilience to oversee that work. Of course, it is not just about central Government, so we will work with the devolved Governments, regional mayors and local leaders as we consider the report’s recommendations. When we have an emergency, we should do everything we can to work together locally and nationally. The Prime Minister has already started to reset relationships with critical partners, because resilience is too important for division to get in the way. Instead, it has to be about co-operative strength. Some improvements to our operational effectiveness have already been made. The previous Administration did make efforts to improve preparedness. These include changes in the way that the Government access, analyse and share data, including with the public. They also changed the risk assessment processes and the way in which the centre of Government works to prepare for and respond to crises. As an incoming Government, in office for just two weeks, we will look at those efforts in the coming months as we develop our own approach. Where things are good, they should be kept; where they are not good enough, they should be changed. The inquiry’s report recommends improvements in the way whole-system risks are assessed and managed across the UK Government and the devolved Governments, and improvements to the leadership and oversight provided by Ministers. The Government will carefully consider all the findings and recommendations, including any from the Grenfell inquiry that also have a bearing on resilience planning. We will respond in full within six months. We will also play our full part in international efforts to improve global health and pandemic preparedness, from disease surveillance and vaccine development to strengthening health systems in the global south and building even greater international co-operation. The United Kingdom has a huge amount to offer and it is in our national interest to do so, because, as we have seen so powerfully, pandemics do not respect international borders, so global health security is an essential element of national security. I wish to thank Baroness Hallett and her team for all their work so far and for putting the voices of the bereaved at the heart of the inquiry. Amid the tragedy of the pandemic, the British people came together in the most extraordinary ways—from the incredible service and sacrifice of our frontline workers, not least in the NHS, to the generosity of volunteers across our communities supporting one another with acts of kindness. It was a story of service that showed the very best of our country. This Government of service are determined to learn the lessons from this inquiry and to prepare as best we can for the future. That is the duty that we have to the people we serve, and indeed to the memory of those we lost. It is in that spirit that I commend this statement to the House.