4. Submissions on Behalf of the Welsh Government by Mr Kinnier KC

Mr Kinnier: My Lady, good morning. I appear on behalf of the Welsh Government before you today.

The pandemic touched the lives of everyone, but none more so than those who lost loved ones. As was so powerfully demonstrated in yesterday’s impact film, the bereaved are rightly seeking an answer to the question which lies at the heart of this module: were the governments of the United Kingdom adequately prepared for the Covid-19 pandemic?

The question is one that requires a timely answer, and it is a significant achievement of this Inquiry that Module 1 has been brought so swiftly to a hearing.

The scale of the preparation by the Inquiry team and the core participants is considerable, and it bodes well for the efficient completion of the hearings in line with the timetable you have recently announced.

As Mr Keith’s opening statement illustrated, the question about the adequacy of this country’s preparedness will not be a straightforward one to answer. Much turns on an assessment of structures, policies and procedures in the four nations, and although they shared some institutional arrangements and framework strategies and policies, such as the UK’s 2011 pandemic influenza strategy, there were material differences between them all and their application by the devolved governments.

Much will also depend on whether the assessment contained in the UK National Risk Register that the pandemic influenza was the greatest risk confronting the country was reasonable.

In addressing the question whether the UK was adequately prepared, the Welsh Government has co-operated fully with the Inquiry and will continue to do so. Scrutiny may sometimes be difficult, even uncomfortable, but it is necessary. That is because fair but unsparing scrutiny is vital to make sure that the four nations of the United Kingdom are best prepared for any future health emergency.

The Welsh Government made clear at the outset that it would play its full part in helping and supporting the Inquiry’s work. To that end, in addition to giving very significant disclosure, the Welsh Government has provided 18 statements in Module 1 alone. Five statements came from present ministers, including the First Minister of Wales, and former ministers, and 13 were given by past and present senior officials.

Their statements answer the questions that the Inquiry asked, and each and every one of the makers of those statements is ready to help your work further. Indeed, a number have been called to give oral evidence in due course.

As you know, the Welsh Government’s statements address in detail the resilience and preparedness structures in Wales, the NHS in Wales, and its links to preparedness and resilience and the provision of scientific, technical and medical information in Wales. Those matters were addressed at length as well as the Inquiry’s questions about what was considered to have worked well in relation to preparedness and, equally, what was thought not to have worked well. The detail of those views will surely be considered further in examination.

The Welsh Government did not wait for the Inquiry’s call for evidence and hearings to examine what had worked and what did not work. Before the first wave of the pandemic started to retreat, in June 2020, the Welsh Government started critically to examine its own response and to identify recommendations for improvement.

The resulting analyses have all been disclosed to the Inquiry. Undoubtedly the conclusions of those analyses will inform Counsel to the Inquiry’s examination of Welsh Government witnesses and your report in due course.

The Inquiry’s work may also be assisted by the work of others who have analysed the substance of the Welsh Government’s response to the pandemic. For example, Parliamentary consideration of the Welsh Government’s response by the various committees of the Senedd, reviews by Welsh regulatory bodies such as Estyn, the inspectorate of training and education in Wales, Healthcare Inspectorate Wales, the Care Inspectorate Wales and the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and, finally, audit work carried out by the independent body, Audit Wales, particularly in relation to PPE.

The Inquiry will undoubtedly examine Welsh Government witnesses on the substance of the lessons learned from its responses to the pandemic and what they may say about the strengths and weaknesses of preparedness arrangements in January 2020.

One theme which emerges from the evidence is that those arrangements provided a useful foundation for the Welsh Government’s response. That said, when the pandemic started, adaptability and flexibility were required of decision-makers and all those responsible for carrying out the response.

The Inquiry will examine whether the degree of adaptability and flexibility that was required could or indeed should have been reasonably anticipated before.

The Inquiry will also rightly shine a light on the extent to which detailed consideration was given to the impact of the pandemic and the response on health and other inequalities.

Although the general impact on vulnerable persons was considered, it is fair to say that more detailed work could have been done to identify the particular effect of a pandemic and its response on those with particular health or impairment issues, as well as broader socio-economic inequalities.

One important point that Mr Keith drew out yesterday is the broad question of resilience, that is to say the country’s ability to respond to and to recover from a whole system emergency such as Covid-19.

It is much more than an analysis of structures, policies and procedures, although they are important. It is concerned with whether the country has invested sufficiently, both in terms of people and resources, to weather and recover from an emergency such as the pandemic.

The Welsh Government’s evidence makes clear that a central element, in its view, of Wales’ resilience was the policy of steadily increasing investment in the Welsh NHS in the years before 2020, and in an environment where austerity significantly limited the available funding.

That important point of context will be a significant feature in the assessment of preparedness.

Another feature of resilience was the well established and effective working relationships that had developed between the Welsh Government, local health boards and Welsh local authorities in the years before the pandemic, as was reflected in the Welsh Local Government Association’s submissions yesterday afternoon.

Those good working relationships were an essential and necessary feature of effective preparedness and they greatly assisted the response to the pandemic in Wales. That too may be an issue that will be explored in due course.

The Inquiry investigation in Module 1 is rightly alive to the overarching political context in which the adequacy of preparedness will come to be assessed in the years before 2020. A significant and arguably the dominant factor of that context will be the preparations for the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union and in particular the planning for a no-deal exit.

The extent to which Brexit-related preparation and planning consumed the attention of all four governments in the UK from 2017 onwards cannot be underestimated. It is clear that Brexit preparations were the reason why the work of the UK’s pandemic influenza review board was substantially paused in 2018. That said, it is also clear that preparations for a no-deal departure required both ministers and officials to consider the consequences of a whole system emergency, work which bore fruit when the pandemic struck.

My Lady, may I finally turn to the question of recommendations.

A fundamental part of this Inquiry’s work is the formulation of efficient and effective recommendations that put right any deficiencies or flaws that are found to exist. The Inquiry provides an invaluable forensic context in which to identify and analyse the merits of proposed measures.

My Lady will know better than most, from her experience following the 7/7 bombings, that some proposals may, at first blush, seem attractive or indeed consistent with a perception of common sense but which, on analysis, are found to be unlikely to address the identified problem effectively, or indeed transfer the risk elsewhere, or maybe even heighten that risk.

Consideration of recommendations may not therefore be a straightforward exercise. How the Inquiry will identify and consider them will be an important feature of your work, in which the Welsh Government stands ready to help.

At this stage, one matter which the Inquiry may wish to consider is whether, and if so to what extent, intergovernmental arrangements for the sharing and commissioning of expert advice may be improved.

Some institutional reforms have already been implemented, primarily addressed at enhancing the nature and quality of intergovernmental liaison between the heads of government of the four nations.

However, the clear and consistent evidence is that Welsh Government was unable to draw more directly upon the UK Government’s very considerable and comparatively greater expert scientific resources so as to better inform their own decision-making.

My Lady, in conclusion, we come before you recognising that there will be lessons to be learned in relation to preparedness. Finally, thank you for the work that you and your team have already undertaken and for the very much more substantial work that is to come. The Welsh Government will continue to assist the Inquiry in any which way it can.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much indeed.

Now, I think we have Mr Mitchell for the Scottish Government.