10. Submissions on Behalf of the Trades Union Congress by Ms Gallagher

Ms Gallagher: Thank you.

My Lady, as you know, I represent the Trades Union Congress, the TUC, along with my colleague Mr Jacobs, from whom you will be hearing later in the week, instructed by Thompsons, and the TUC is grateful to be designated as a core participant in Module 2, also in Modules 2A, 2B and 2C concerning Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in particular. And as of course you’re aware, my Lady, we are also a core participant in Module 1 on pandemic preparedness, and so you have been introduced to the TUC at a prior hearing, at your first hearing.

Given the different attendance here today along with Mr Weatherby, I also intend just to very briefly introduce my client’s role and interest.

The TUC brings together 5.5 million working people who make up its 48 member unions from all corners of the UK. And 5.5 million working people is, of course, a huge number. By way of context, this is a number greater than the entire population of the Republic of Ireland, it’s roughly approximate to the entire population of Scotland.

In an annex to our written submissions, we have set out the 48 member unions of the TUC and you will be aware, my Lady, that this list spans a very wide range of industries profoundly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, including many frontline roles and many workers at what Mr Keith described this morning as the coalface in his submissions: those in hospitals, including hospital doctors, midwives, radiographers and others, those working in care homes, those working in shops, warehouses and factories, drivers and other staff on buses and trains. And in many ways the pandemic showed on whose shoulders society is built, the true value of labour, who carries us as a society at moments of crisis.

At the outset, on behalf of the TUC, I want to make three points about workers and workplaces which we say must be borne in mind throughout the examination of the UK’s core political and administrative decision-making in this module, in Module 2.

First, in addition to the coalface as mentioned this morning, we must remember – and I know you and your team will have this in mind – that there are other coalfaces which don’t necessarily share the same profile or have the same public awareness as hospitals, care homes, buses and trains. And by way of indicative examples only, may I give you two: first, food processing. Essential so that we could all continue to eat during this period. There were several mass outbreaks associated with food processing plants, including at an early stage: March 2020, for example, many of you will recall the mass walkout of over 1,000 workers in Moy Park at Seagoe, Portadown, due to safety concerns; Bakkavor factory in Kent, two died, 100 tested positive following an early outbreak; and in August 2020, at Banham Poultry factory in Norfolk, responsible for a huge 7% of chicken processing in the UK, it had to be shut down after a serious mass outbreak, 75 initially testing positive, rising to 127, and devastating outcome.

Second example of a coalface which isn’t necessarily in the public consciousness as much as others is workers in supply chains, including delivery, logistics and communications workers.

Of course, one of the consolations of lockdown for many of us was that we could order goods online and they would appear at our front doors as if by magic. But behind that magic were people: postal and delivery drivers who continued to work, to be travelling around at great risk; logistics staff; call centre workers; HGV drivers sleeping in their cabs on laybys.

Now, some supply chains and the people behind them began to seep into public consciousness as soon as there was a direct impact. We saw the headlines when Nando’s ran out of chicken, when Ikea ran out of mattresses, when Wetherspoons ran out of beer, and suddenly supply chains were acknowledged as mattering. But a key question will be: was there timely and adequate recognition that the people who keep essential supplies moving should matter too?

That’s the first point we want to make as an underlying point in relation to this module.

The second is that many of those working in essential coalface roles are in low paid jobs, often paid minimum wage, and some indeed paid, as you will hear, below minimum wage. So many of those at the coalface in shops, in care homes, in supply chains, were in jobs which exposed them to particularly high risk of contracting Covid but they were also paid very poorly.

High risk, low wage jobs. And that meant limited choices. In many cases, my Lady, it meant deaths from Covid, having contracted it in their workplaces. Tens of thousands of people of working age died in the pandemic, and a great many of them were workers in those high risk workplaces, sectors such as health, social care, transport, food processing, textiles.

The third key factor is that amongst the working population the impact of Covid, as you have heard from others this morning and indeed from Mr Keith in his opening remarks, hit particular communities and groups harder than others. And as we said in Module 1, my Lady, workers from ethnic minorities were particularly hard hit: BME men 57% more likely to be working in jobs with a higher mortality rate; BME women 48% more likely. And you have heard, in powerful words from Mr Dayle just now, on behalf of the Federation of Ethnic Minority Healthcare Organisations, particular disparities in that sector.

Migrant workers were also particularly adversely impacted. For example, I mentioned Banham Poultry factory: the majority of workers there were migrant workers, many from Eastern Europe. And that, of course, links to the point about low wages. Many lived with co-workers at houses with multiple occupancy, travelled together.

This all goes to underpinning the point Mr Keith acknowledged this morning in his opening remarks, that hardship and suffering were not equally spread. And we agree, or as the TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady put it in her speech to Congress in September 2020: coronavirus is no leveler; on the contrary, it has exposed huge inequality in modern Britain.

For the TUC, they hope that this Inquiry, my Lady, will deliver, if I can put it this way, on three As: answers about what went wrong, and of course, as Mr Keith indicated this morning, what went right, when it went right. Accountability, a form of public accountability, where justified, for decision-makers who made plainly wrongful decisions and significant errors of judgement. Again to quote from this morning. And vitally, action, recommendations to secure real change with recommendations being made during the lifetime of the Inquiry in interim reports where possible and with ongoing monitoring by your team. We were very encouraged to see that at the heart of your opening July statement, my Lady.

Against that general backdrop, we wish to address you on four points orally today, and we’re grateful to your team for the detailed written note and the further indications this morning, as a result of which some matters have fallen away.

The four points I’ll address you on are: one, the focus of Module 2 and the role of core participants; second, some additional specific points about Module 2 and scope, I’ll call them the micro points; third, some higher level points about Module 2 and scope, I’ll call those the macro points, primarily about Northern Ireland and England and how they fit in; and then, fourth, a specific request for a closing hearing in early 2024 in Module 2 when you have completed Modules 2A, 2B and 2C. So we gather again, is our proposal, at the end to look back on what we’ve learnt from each of those other modules.

So number one, the focus of Module 2 and the role of core participants. My Lady, the TUC agrees that, as you indicated in your opening statement in July, the Inquiry’s overall terms of reference are wide-ranging and demanding, and we recognise that and we say it at the outset it would of course be impossible to call every witness relating to every single event, issue or decision, and that you must focus on the key issues.

We agree that this requires the Inquiry to be, as Mr Keith indicated this morning, ruthless in the selection of issues and relentless in its focus on matters of real importance.

I mentioned the TUC’s three As. We’re also committed to Mr Keith’s two Rs: being ruthless and relentless, continuing the alphabet theme.

But for Module 2, my Lady, given the plethora of decisions on a wide range of issues which necessarily were taken at national – by which I mean both UK and then national within each of the nation states – regional and local level over a two-year period, we recognise you cannot examine each and every one of those decisions, and the focus needs to be upon what you described in your opening statement as “the key issues”, or what Mr Keith described this morning as matters of real importance or the “key narrative events”.

We do also recognise that scope as currently defined is a generic wide guide without necessarily delving into specific detail at this stage.

Now, where there is a difficulty is this: Counsel to the Inquiry this morning say that the detail will follow and what will inform it will be the evidence gathered under the Rule 9 process. What we heard this morning in effect was: the evidence gathered under the Rule 9 process will in effect determine the issues.

But there is a circularity to this, because the Rule 9 evidence obtained will necessarily be affected by the terms of the request from your team. Indeed, for a statement under Rule 9.4, it requires in terms that any request for an written statement must include a description of the matters or issues to be covered in the statement. So the Rule 9 evidence which will come later, which is said to be determinative of the detail of the scope, will itself necessarily be limited, focused or targeted, if you will, by the terms of the Rule 9 requests, and that means that the outline of what are, using your phrase from July, the key issues or, using Mr Keith’s phrase this morning, matters of real importance or the key narrative events, those phrases become hugely important, because what will come back to you will be coloured by what your team set out in the requests as being the key issues, the matters of real importance or the key narrative events.

Regrettably, because the core participants are not seeing those requests, we don’t know the list of key issues, we don’t know the matters of real importance, or precisely what the key narrative events are seen to be by your team, we’re in difficulty. And, as we understand it from this morning, by the time we’re now going to see those, the key issues, the matters of real importance, it will in effect be a done deal, a fait accompli, with very limited time left until the summer 2023 hearing.

Now, Mr Keith asked again this morning: to what end would there be earlier disclosure to core participants? Essentially we will see it when we see it, was the approach taken, when the product of the requests is returned and disclosed. He said, and I hope my note is accurate:

“The answer is plain: we [by which he meant the Inquiry team] … decide what the key narrative events and decisions are …”

My Lady, he says the answer is plain. We say the concern is plain. It’s been shared in different forms by the vast majority of core participants who filed written submissions or made oral submissions to you today. We’re not attempting to be difficult. We simply don’t want to be in a position where we hit March 2023, within weeks of this eight-week hearing being due to start in summer 2023, and we say there’s a problem or there’s a gap.

And really here we think the fault line and the difference between us and your team is about what the true role of core participants is in this process. Now, we’re conscious that a core participant is not defined as such in the Inquiries Act 2005 or in the 2006 Rules, save the rather circular definition provided in Rule 2:

“[A] ‘core participant’ means a person designated as such under rule 5.”

And in the Core Participant Protocol which you have produced, it’s defined by reference to its entitlements under the rules. But broadly speaking, in our submission, a core participant is understood to be an entity which plays a key role in the Inquiry, and our position, and we understand this to be shared by other core participants who have made submissions today about early disclosure, is that core participants should play that role from the outset at an early stage, and the impression that we have from what’s been said today is that the Inquiry team does not envisage core participants playing a key role in the evidence gathering process at this stage; instead we’re to wait until we see what comes out of the sausage machine at the other end.

Now, we are not intending to usurp the Inquiry team’s inquisitorial role. We recognise it’s their role to gather the evidence. We say the core participants, of whom you’ve got 39, with a very broad breadth of expertise and knowledge, here, we all by definition have played a key role in the decision-making under scrutiny in this module, or we have a significant interest in it. Our submission is it’s in your interests and your team’s interests to hear from us earlier rather than later.

Now, there’s many ways to skin this particular cat, whether it’s through early provision of a list of issues, as advanced by Ms Sivakumaran and Mr Dayle, whether it’s disclosure of the Rule 9 requests in this module – we appreciate the ruling in Module 1 but we agree with Mr Weatherby that this is different because of the targeted approach being adopted rather than relevance alone – or another mechanism.

What we have said with one voice today in our written and oral submissions is: engage with us earlier, give us the information earlier, and that will help to make your process as robust as possible and avoid difficulties in 2023.

May we give you one specific example about the Inquiry’s focus of which we learned this morning and about which the TUC has concerns, having discussed it over lunchtime.

Mr Keith said, and I hope I’m quoting accurately:

“In the context of this module, Module 2, the focus is on whether the government had sufficient regard to the likely impact of the pandemic and its decision-making, not on what the impact of its decision-making turned out to be.”

From the TUC’s perspective, if we have understood that quote correctly, we consider this to be a false dichotomy, because this is not about a single snapshot of decision-making at one time; it’s about decision-making over a two-year or 25-month period from early January 2020 to February 2022. And in our submission, the impact of that decision-making, on an ongoing basis, is indeed a key part of analysing the adequacy of ongoing decision-making by central government.

I’ll just give you two indicative examples to illustrate the point, one is London bus drivers, one is inspection of workplaces.

So London bus drivers. The epidemic in London began at least an estimated 15 days before the rest of the country. That meant that its lockdown occurred at a later stage of its pandemic and, as we anticipate evidence will show during this Inquiry, there’s a stark difference in mortality during the first wave between London compared to the national average.

But this also gave rise to some learning opportunities which could and should have been learned from and rolled out in other parts of England, in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. And that’s why we give this specific example.

A very early pattern emerged of deaths in the London bus driver population. Death rates from Covid amongst bus drivers in London exceeded death rates for London as a whole throughout March, April, early May 2020. Across England, bus and coach drivers at an early stage were identified as amongst the occupations that ONS reported as having elevated mortality from Covid-19. And indeed, ONS published occupational mortality from all causes and deaths involving Covid-19 between March and May 2020 and that indicated that the all-cause death rate for bus and coach drivers was greater than that for all other occupations, and almost double what would have been expected from the mortality of bus and coach drivers in the previous five years.

Now, a swift understanding of the reasons behind those statistics was critical. Was the key factor increased levels of exposure to the public? What about additional risks for bus drivers in London, including age or race? Early evidence tended to suggest that amongst bus drivers those aged 65 and over, and those from BAME backgrounds, and those with certain pre-existing conditions were at higher risk from Covid-19 mortality. And similarly Mr Dayle, in his submissions just now, referred to the emerging picture about the particular adverse impact upon healthcare workers in black and brown communities.

And of course, when you’re looking at central government’s decision-making, factors such as these and the impact of decision-making or lack of decision-making at an early stage is likely, of course, to be relevant to the adequacy of your ongoing decision-making.

The other example the TUC gives is the inspection of workplaces. And my Lady, we gave you some information in previous submissions about the HSE, the Health and Safety Executive, and just in summary, by early June 2020 the HSE had received over 6,000 additional concerns from workers about social distancing and other pandemic-related matters, and the impression of the unions at that time was that the HSE response fell woefully short. And that’s supported by the HSE’s own reporting of its response.

At that early stage of over 6,000 concerns, only 2,684 were even passed to HSE field teams for follow-up. Of those, 1,331 were considered to require no further action. And most starkly, of over 6,000 concerns, only 47 concerns were responded to with a physical inspection, and only one prohibition notice was served.

That’s striking, we say, six months into a pandemic which had terrible consequences in so many workplaces, that HSE had conducted only 47 site visits and issued only one prohibition notice. We, on behalf of the TUC, say that that was wholly inadequate, and it was heavily criticised by the Commons select committee on work and pensions.

Now, when you’re considering the adequacy of central government’s decision-making to ensure safety in workplaces, what in fact was happening on the ground with the HSE is central. So the impact is central. And this goes back to looking at your opening statement in July and the reference to impact and systems, there is of course an interaction between impact and systems.

The well known quote, my Lady, about the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, which is sometimes wrongly suggested to be from Einstein, but that quote is relevant here. Because if you have, on an ongoing basis over this two-year period, decision-making by central government which fails to look at impact, in our view, that will, in itself, indicate an inadequacy in that decision-making.

We also suggest this is in fact reflected in the scope document itself. When considering issue 3 on non-pharmaceutical interventions, NPIs, it says:

“… the development of the approach to NPIs in light of the understanding of their impact on transmission …”

Which suggests that ongoing decision-making rightly should have an eye on impact.

A second category, my Lady, is a number of additional specific points about Module 2 and scope. These are micro points, if I can put it that way.

Mindful of the time, may I indicate that we deal with these in detail in paragraph 33 of our written submissions, so just in headline terms, my Lady, the TUC has indicated to you and your team that it has a particular interest and expertise in three issues in the provisional scope document. Issue 2, as it relates to guidance and advice given to health and social care providers. Issue 3, on NPIs. Issue 5, on public health communications.

At paragraph 33 of our written submissions we have set out four points. And to be clear, we don’t suggest these points require an editing to the wording of the scope document, we agree with the point made by Mr Keith about the scope document on many issues being sufficiently broad to allow these things to come under its particular umbrella without editing the wording.

The reason we raise them now is that we submit that it’s vital that they’re considered, they appear to fall within scope of Module 2, but there is a lack of clarity as to whether or not they will be delved into in Module 2 or touched on in Module 2 and delved into at a later stage in another module in greater detail.

So the four points are: first, the education sector, which we say is of significant relevance to the examination of decision-making around NPIs, non-pharmaceutical interventions. And that’s both because education was significantly affected by NPIs but also because education settings could be vectors for community transmission.

So when considering your issue 3 in the scope document, this must inevitably include consideration of educational settings, we say, and there is some clarity needed about the extent to which you will do that in Module 2 or whether it will be something that is returned to in a later, as yet undefined, further module.

Second is the use and effectiveness of NPIs in workplaces across the UK. And as I have indicated in my opening remarks, community transmission and significant loss of life occurred in particular sectors, including the transport sector, communications sector, the manufacturing sector, food processing, textiles industry, construction sector, the retail sector.

Now, all of those sectors saw significant loss of life and outbreaks of the virus, and all were reliant to varying degrees on NPIs such as social distancing and the use of masks. And in examining the development of the approach to NPIs, in light of the understanding of their impact on transmission, it would be important to understand the effectiveness of NPIs in these sectors and how they were being applied in practice.

We also say that an understanding of these issues is relevant to examining the assessment of the likely impact of the contemplated NPIs on vulnerable groups in light of existing inequalities. And again, we’re unclear about the extent to which would be delved into in Module 2 or looked at later.

The third example is in relation to public health communications, and a significant feature of the use of NPIs was the lack, we submit, of clear communications and guidance for workplaces. The Inquiry will need to consider what guidance was given in respect of NPIs and workplaces, and you have seen in our written submissions that the TUC say in the experience of the TUC unions, the messaging and guidance was frequently confused, often contradictory, and placed workers at risk, with the unions trying to fill the gap.

It was limited. Different industries were served to different degrees by a patchwork of professional bodies seeking to adapt national public health communications and guidance to their particular workplace and to fill in these gaps. That’s why we have given you specific indicative of examples of that confusion and the contradiction in our written submissions referring to the communications sector, construction sector and the transport sector.

Then the fourth point under this heading is: both in submissions on the terms of reference and for Module 1, my Lady, the TUC has emphasised the importance of the Inquiry examining the mechanisms in place for ensuring safety in workplaces and how in practice NPIs were implemented and enforced. And again we say that requires an examination of the role of the Health and Safety Executive, other regulators such as the ORR, and also local authorities. That will be critical.

Third point, the macro points, my Lady, about the scope of Module 2 and its interaction with Modules 2A to 2C. There’s two separate points. One relates to Northern Ireland, one relates to England. I’m grateful for the indication Mr Lavery gave in his oral submissions that he had had a reassurance from CTI about the Northern Ireland issue being addressed. We have dealt with that in some detail at paragraphs 20 to 24 of our written submissions, my Lady, starting at page 6.

And in short, the issue is that we are unclear at this stage how the particular position of Northern Ireland’s pandemic preparedness in the period leading up to January 2020, and Northern Ireland’s unique position in early 2020 will be addressed, and how it will fit between Module 1, Module 2 and Module 2C. As we indicated in our written submissions, and Mr Lavery echoed this earlier, Northern Ireland had no functioning executive for a three-year period from 2017 until 9 January 2020. You will recall that in January 2017 the then deputy first minister Martin McGuinness resigned, the Northern Ireland Executive collapsed, and in essence you had a three-year period where Northern Ireland was governed by civil servants in a caretaker capacity. And it also meant that the UK Government in Westminster had particular additional obligations as there was no functioning Executive.

Now, that played out in certain ways in particular other areas. So, for example, you will recall the fact that there was a particular legal challenge against the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland within Westminster for failing to take action in relation to abortion and ECHR rights of women and girls in Northern Ireland. But it’s relevant here because you have a situation where there was a hiatus period for three years. When looking at pandemic preparedness in Module 1 this will be very relevant when it comes to Northern Ireland. It also means that you had a brand new government after three years of a hiatus in early January, just as the pandemic was starting to hit. And we are unclear, when looking at Module 2 and Module 2C, as to how that’s going to be dealt with, or indeed how it will be dealt with in Module 1.

We are quite happy to discuss that further with your team, if helpful. Bottom line is, as we’ve said in our submissions, this is an elephant in the room. It doesn’t appear in any of the scope documents currently. It’s of sufficient significance and importance that it must be reflected and we must be clear on when it’s going to be dealt with. If it’s going to be dealt with, for example, in early 2024 in Module 2C, we can see that that’s pragmatic and sensible, given that an eight-week hearing in summer 2023 is bearing down upon us relatively quickly. But if that’s the case, Module 2C will have to look at centralised UK decision-making in respect of Northern Ireland as well as looking at decision-making in Northern Ireland itself, because of the particular role of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in Westminster.

The other issue is England, and we have dealt with that in our written submissions at paragraphs 25 to 27. Now, Module 2 in the provisional outline of scope document is described in a way which is plainly UK-wide, and it seems clear to us that Module 2 is focused upon UK-wide decision-making, with Modules 2A, B and C intended to address, in turn, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland. And we are unclear from the current wording how England-specific issues are to be addressed. And perhaps an unusual submission for an Irish counsel to make, but there is a worry that England will be overlooked in this context.

Lady Hallett: Very unusual.

Ms Gallagher: Precisely. Unusual for someone with my name and my number of consonants and vowels to be making this submission. But we are concerned that 2 looks at UK-wide. And we’re conscious that there is a reference, of course, to communications with both devolved administrations and regional and local authorities in issue 1, as currently phrased. So we’re conscious that there will be some looking at how UK-wide decision-making was then communicated to others, but what we don’t have is an equivalent of what you get in 2A, 2B and 2C about England specifically. And our proposal for that is: we recognise we are not going to have a whole new England-specific module, and that’s why pragmatically what we have suggested is that you do alter the wording, so there is a new 1A, which is England-specific, and we recognise that in the eight-week hearing we are going to have to look at England particularly.

And you will recall that in Module 1 we raised specific concerns about the north of England and London-centric decision-making, and that is an issue which we say does have to be addressed in Module 2.

Final point, my Lady, is about closing submissions in 2024, and in our written submissions, my Lady, at paragraph 9 onwards we dealt with the Inquiry’s modular approach. And this arose, if you recall, in the Module 1 hearing, when a number of other core participants were saying: well, why can’t we see the provisional scope documents in advance? And the position adopted in the ruling and at the hearing was: you’ve no entitlement to see them unless and until you’re a core participant.

So we recognise that there is a value to a modular approach in an Inquiry such as this. And indeed, many core participants who achieve core participant status in one particular module might struggle if they needed to be a core participant across the Inquiry as a whole. So it has great value.

It also has great value, we recognise, in allowing your team pragmatically to be broken down and to have different people working at the same time on different strands. So bearing in mind the importance of timeliness and speedy recommendations outlined in your July opening statement, we can entirely see the value.

There are some disadvantages to it, however, and that’s why we have made the pragmatic suggestions that we have at paragraph 9 onwards. One of the real risks, of course, is a risk of a silo mentality. And one of the other real risks is that core participants won’t be able to ultimately have a real impact on your final report. And an example of that, my Lady, which we give in our written submissions, is that there were no overarching final submissions in the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. And as a result, when the final report comes out, it’s impacted by, of course, submissions which are made in individual modules by individual core participants, but the only people who have actually impacted upon the ultimate decision-maker, in this case you, my Lady, are your own team.

We submit that that’s not the right approach. And that’s why we support, as in Grenfell, overarching submissions being made at the very end of the process, so that looking back, standing back, including looking at how interim recommendations have been impacted, and affected, core participants should be entitled in some form to make submissions to you on overarching underpinning points, rather than sticking to their lane and only dealing with the particular issues in the particular module that they’re in.

Now, in relation to Module 2, there’s a very specific proposal. Module 2 is constructed in a way which allows you to look first, in this eight weeks in summer 2023, at UK-wide decision-making. Then, as we understand the timetable, in autumn 2023 there will be hearings about Scotland and Wales. And then in early 2024, there will be a specific hearing about Northern Ireland. It stands to reason, my Lady, that during those hearings specific to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, it may illuminate certain issues, it may highlight other gaps in decision-making at a UK-wide level which we simply didn’t deal with in summer 2023 because we didn’t know about it.

So our proposal is that the core participants in the summer of 2023 Module 2 hearing should be entitled, in the usual way, to make closing submissions at the end of that eight-week hearing, but we also ask that you take the unusual step of listing a short hearing, we suggest two days, in early 2024, when you’ve finished Module 2, Module 2A, 2B and 2C, so that we can come back here again and we can make submissions on underlying issues arising from Module 2.

Now, it may well also be, of course, that you may need to have further evidence in relation to Module 2 arising from what’s emerged in Modules 2A, 2B and 2C. We simply don’t know that yet. What we do know is that there will be further submissions to be made that we simply will not be able to make in July 2023 because we won’t know the issues. And we suggest that it would be sensible to list a short hearing as a strand-tying hearing so that you can look at Module 2 as a whole with the benefit of the evidence that’s emerged in Modules 2A, 2B and 2C.

And, in our submission, that’s an obvious approach which will help when we go back to the TUC’s three As. So when you’re trying to get answers to what happened, and when you’re looking for accountability and actions, you are likely to get more informed and detailed submissions in early 2024 with the benefit of those other modules having already taken place than you will ever get in summer 2023. So it’s a proposal for an additional hearing but, we suggest, a modest one and a pragmatic one which ultimately will make your process more robust.

Unless I can assist further, I think I have done it within time for the stenographers.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much, Ms Gallagher. Your submissions were as constructive as ever, thank you very much, and I will consider very carefully. A lot of what you said obviously we all agree with. The modular system has its downsides but, when you have an Inquiry of this complexity, it seemed to me, on advice, that it was the best way to deal with it, but as soon as I can get more detail out, as I’ve said to people, about what these modules will do and what later modules will do, I promise you core participants will be the first to know as soon as I’ve made my decisions.

Thank you very much, and I have taken on board all the submissions that you made. Thank you.

Ms Gallagher: Thank you.

Lady Hallett: Right, the stenographer’s had a really rough time. I think we’ve only got a couple of minutes of Mr Hill, and how long for Mr Keith? I’m going to give the stenographer the choice. I think Ms Gallagher speaks even more quickly than I do.

We’ll take a break. Right. 15 minutes, then everyone can sort themselves out. So I shall return at 3.20.

(3.05 pm)

(A short break)

(3.20 pm)