7. Submissions on Behalf of the Cabinet Office by Ms Studd KC

Ms Studd: My Lady, the Cabinet Office welcomes the opportunity to make an oral closing statement –

Lady Hallett: I don’t know, is the microphone on?

Ms Studd: It is on.

Lady Hallett: Is it?

Ms Studd: Can you hear me now?

Lady Hallett: Try again.

Ms Studd: Can you hear me?

Lady Hallett: Yes.

Ms Studd: The Cabinet Office welcomes the opportunity to make an oral closing statement, and we continue to support the important work of this Inquiry. We have listened with care to the evidence of all the witnesses who have appeared before you over the last six weeks. In this oral statement, we will review some of the key evidential themes which you have been considering.

The first is understanding risk. In terms of risk methodology, evidence has rightly covered the National Risk Assessment and the National Security Risk Assessment process, and in particular the way in which pandemic influenza and emerging infectious disease were considered in those documents.

The inclusion of pandemic influenza as one of the most significant risks on the risk matrix reflected an objective and widely held assessment of the risk that it posed, and as you have heard in evidence it continues to pose to this country.

Rightly, the experience of the pandemic has prompted change, which we’ve already put into effect. The Cabinet Office has made the most significant reforms to the National Security Risk Assessment since its foundation in the early 2000s. Where appropriate, the National Security Risk Assessment now considers multiple scenarios to reflect the different ways in which risks could manifest. For example, in the 2002 National Security Risk Assessment, pandemic risk now reflects a broader range of infectious disease.

The Cabinet Office recognises the uncertainty which is inherent in risk assessment and preparedness, and endorses the value of building flexibility, innovative thinking and diverse perspectives into its planning system. A future pandemic could be very different, so we must be able to adapt to novel risks and challenges. This is how, for example, we define the National Resilience Planning Assumptions in the National Security Risk Assessment to help emergency planners understand and prepare for the common consequences of risk.

The Cabinet Office has also increased the opportunities for expert input into the risk assessment process, especially from external experts.

We would also draw the Inquiry’s attention to the planned publication of the latest National Risk Register this summer, which is the government’s most transparent approach to date for publicly sharing information about risk, and ensures that we continue to be open to external challenge and input.

The second evidential theme concerns communities and putting equality considerations at the heart of the Resilience Framework.

The Cabinet Office has noted the interest of the Inquiry in the issue of the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on particular groups. The Resilience Framework sets out our ambition to transform resilience and adopt a whole-society approach, with communities, members of the public and businesses engaged in making decisions about managing risk. It makes a specific commitment to better identify and support at-risk groups and seeks voluntary and community sectors’ integration into the work, with stronger local resilience fora working with us to help prevent, prepare for, respond to and recover from risks that the UK faces.

The United Kingdom Resilience Forum process stimulates additional opportunities for input from national, regional and local government, private and voluntary sectors, and other interested parties. It is right that we invite external challenge and obtain different perspectives on what resilience means to all parts of the population.

Data is key to understanding how different groups are affected in a disaster and the causes of any disparity. The Cabinet Office is reforming the way it utilises data and analytics, to prepare for and respond to crises through the National Situation Centre. We are developing a measurement of socio-economic resilience, including evaluating how risk impacts across communities and vulnerable groups to guide and inform decision-making on risk and resilience. These plans are in development and much work remains to be done.

The third evidential theme is responsibility and accountability. The Inquiry has asked many questions about the perceived complexity of the government’s structures for resilience and emergency management. The Deputy Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster holds overall responsibility for national resilience and chairs the national security committee resilience subcommittee. This is a new ministerial forum to take decisions on resilience and preparedness.

The Cabinet Office’s intention in the Resilience Framework is to ensure that roles are simplified and clarified as much as possible. This is a wide-ranging and complex subject area, with many organisations involved, representing the full span of the public, private and voluntary sectors.

However, notwithstanding that, the Cabinet Office’s reflection on the evidence heard by the Inquiry is that the structures are well embedded and generally well understood by those who are working within them. The Cabinet Office will obviously consider carefully any conclusions or recommendations from the Inquiry on the structures around resilience.

Under the lead government department model, the Inquiry has heard it was the lead government department which took the lead in preparing for any risk. The role of the Cabinet Office at the centre of government was to provide support, co-ordinate and direct resources as appropriate. The Inquiry has explored the appropriateness of that model. Some witnesses consider that preparedness under this model did not anticipate the cross-cutting nature of a response to the pandemic, including the need for non-pharmaceutical measures such as national lockdown, furlough, prolonged school closures, or the preparation of the population for measures such as mask wearing.

However, the Inquiry has also heard the approaches to pandemic planning did reflect the scientific consensus at the time and took account of the contemporaneous international guidance and practice.

The Cabinet Office remains of the view that the lead government department model is an appropriate way of allocating principal responsibility. The relevant departments have the expertise for what is inevitably a diverse portfolio of risks. It is the lead department that has the relationships and the levers to be best equipped to lead the response. But it is recognised that the lead government department model needs to be strengthened, with the Cabinet Office providing greater clarity in relation to the responsibility for risks, including those which are more complex and cut across departmental boundaries.

The Cabinet Office’s Resilience Directorate will proactively seek to ensure that cross-cutting work is carried out and tested with lessons from recent national exercises.

In addition, the Inquiry has heard evidence of the various steps the Cabinet Office took to assist local resilience forums in gaining assurance, including the promulgation of resilience standards in 2018 and 2019. The Resilience Framework sets out further steps that the Cabinet Office and Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities are taking by way of investing into and strengthening the local resilience fora. Similar standards and assurance will be extended to the public health sector.

In addition, the United Kingdom Government continues to work closely with the devolved administrations to promote effective emergency planning whilst respecting the devolved settlements.

Resilience planning has to be rooted in the real world and focused on where the greatest risk lies. Spending on preparedness comes at a cost and has to be balanced with spending on other important areas. Flexibility is essential to resilience.

The Inquiry has spent considerable time considering evidence about the impact on pandemic preparedness of planning for the no-deal exit from the EU, Operation Yellowhammer. A number of witnesses considered that significant parts of Operation Yellowhammer work were of assistance during the Covid-19 pandemic and ensured that we were match fit.

Operation Yellowhammer was a very substantial investment in the United Kingdom resilience capabilities and the government’s understanding of the resilience of our society and of our economy. This included stocktakes of supply chains, including medical supply chains, readiness for problems at the borders, the setting up of departmental operational centres, and daily ministerial meetings on preparedness. Extra staff were recruited and trained in crisis management who were then redeployed to support our response to the emerging Covid-19 pandemic when the threat of no-deal had passed. All of this was invaluable.

The Cabinet Office has reflected on how the department maintains focus on longer term resilience while also responding to crises and near term events.

The Inquiry has heard that several changes have been made, including the separation of roles into the Resilience Directorate and the COBR unit. Political and public interest in resilience will be a central driver of improved future outcome. Starting this autumn, there will be an annual statement of civil contingencies risk and the UK’s performance on resilience made to Parliament. There will also be an annual survey of public perceptions of risk, resilience and preparedness. With this momentum, resilience issues will remain at the top of the agenda, and the system will remain accountable to Parliament and to the public.

These reforms are significant. They provide this country’s resilience with new leadership, focus and direction, and go well beyond the Cabinet Office’s traditional role. They will require the government and others to consider the risks we face as a society, how to prepare for them, and how to respond to them, taking into account the very powerful evidence of the bereaved that we heard yesterday. As we must never forget, at the heart of all this there is a human cost.

The government looks forward to the Inquiry’s observations and recommendations and will continue to support it in its vital work.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much indeed, Ms Studd.

Closing remarks

Lady Hallett: Mr Keith, I think that completes the closing submissions.

Mr Keith: It does indeed.

My Lady, may I just raise the important issue of the publication of material that is relevant to the Inquiry’s work in Module 1.

As you know, a number of documents have been adduced in evidence, either because they’ve been brought up on the screen during the hearing or because you’ve already given permission for them to be published, but you will inevitably be drawing upon a wider body of material for the purposes of your report writing.

So may I therefore seek your permission to publish, firstly, around 560 documents which the Inquiry team has identified as being necessary for the Inquiry to publish in connection with your forthcoming work on the report writing in Module 1?

The list of those documents – and they comprise things such as policy papers, presentations, minutes of meetings, reviews, reports into exercises, reports on exercises, emails, risk registers and reports from NGOs – will be provided to the core participants, of course.

Secondly, there are around 135 statements of witnesses who have not given oral evidence but whose statements we consider it will be necessary – to some extent, rather – to refer to in your report.

So may I have permission for those two bodies of material to be published?

Lady Hallett: You may.

Mr Keith: My Lady, that does indeed conclude Module 1. Of course you will be resuming the evidential hearings in Module 2 on Tuesday, 3 October.

Lady Hallett: Not so fast, Mr Keith, I think Mr Weatherby wants to say something.

Mr Weatherby: Yes, I’m sorry, very briefly. I wasn’t aware that Mr Keith was going to mention the documents. Could we have a little time, with our closing submissions, to perhaps add to that list? That would assist –

Lady Hallett: Yes, of course. Send any thoughts through, Mr Weatherby, of course.

Mr Weatherby: Thank you very much.

Mr Keith: That’s it.

Lady Hallett: Well, thank you all very much indeed. We’ve now completed the hearings for Module 1, resilience and preparedness for the pandemic, in just over a year from the day of our official start. Given the amount of material that’s had to be gathered and then analysed, I think that’s a huge achievement, and I owe a great debt of gratitude to a lot of people – many of whom are in this room today, but many who are elsewhere – and without your significant work, we couldn’t have got this far this quickly. I think it is a great credit to everybody involved, material providers, the lawyers, the paralegals, the secretariats for all different organisations, that we have got this far.

I’d also like to praise the members of the public who have attended, I think one of whom has been here virtually, if not every day – I think every day. So especially the bereaved, obviously, they have acted with great dignity in the hearing room. I know that feelings are running very high at times and I would like to thank you for your composure and your dignity in appreciating the formality of the proceedings in the hearing room. So thank you all very much.

The next stage for the Inquiry team is to start drafting – I think drafting has probably already started in some respects – and finalising the report for Module 1. As I have made clear many times, I intend to finalise it and publish it as soon as possible.

There’s obviously a very great deal of material to consider, and so I will ensure that it’s published – the hope is that it will be published by early summer next year. If we could do it any quicker, obviously we will, but given the amount we have to go through, we will have to see.

Anyway, that is my hope and my plan, because – as I think it was Ms Marsh-Rees said yesterday – the sooner I can get any recommendations, if I make any, public, then the sooner they may be implemented and the sooner they may have an effect.

So thank you all very much, for those who have followed online, for those who have been here, and for the participants and the lawyers involved. Thank you.

(12.43 pm)

(The hearing adjourned until Tuesday, 3 October 2023)