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

Ms Studd: My Lady, the Cabinet Office has provided the Inquiry with a written opening which undoubtedly you will read in due course.

This is an abridged version to comply with the time constraints required to permit all those core participants who wish to speak the opportunity of doing so.

The period between January 2020 and February 2022 presented challenges to our country that were unprecedented in peacetime.

The government is committed to ensuring that lessons are learned and recognises the importance of this module in ensuring that the country is prepared for future risks and threats. You will be aware, my Lady, that the Cabinet Office has already implemented a number of lessons learned which we do not have time to deal with in this abridged opening statement, but which we have set out in our written opening.

My Lady, the strategic response to the pandemic was prepared with input from experts and other departments and was agreed by the Prime Minister and other ministers. Particularly in the early period, the Cabinet Office, including Number 10, sought to lead the response at a time of exceptional pressure on the centre of government, including during the illness of the Prime Minister, for whom Dominic Raab, the then first Secretary of State, deputised.

A key role of the Cabinet Office throughout the relevant period was to seek to ensure that the Prime Minister and other ministers were equipped with strategic advice which balanced the different impacts of the pandemic between health, the economy and society.

The Cabinet Office co-ordinated a strategic response across government, bringing together the range of departmental views and helping to ensure that ministerial decisions were implemented effectively.

Particularly in the early phases, strategic plans were developed in an environment of significant uncertainty, about both the characteristics of the virus and the path of the pandemic, and against the backdrop of catastrophic reasonable worst-case scenarios.

As the scientific understanding of the virus developed, and as lessons arising from the response were learned, strategic planning too had to develop and adapt. Strategic planning was also influenced by the tools that were or were not available at any given stage. For example, once the Department of Health and Social Care had built a testing architecture, the planning could reflect the advantage of that testing ability.

Similarly, the vaccine roll-out provided a further opportunity to revise the strategy. The vaccines, along with the lessons learned over 2020, were at the heart of the February 2021 roadmap for the lifting of the third and final lockdown, as well as the strategy for living with the virus published at the end of February 2022.

Underpinning the structural framework of decision-making is the Cabinet system of government, based on the principle of collective responsibility. Individual Cabinet committees are established to consider a particular area of government business. Cabinet committee decisions have the same authority as Cabinet decisions. Of course departments also routinely take many decisions that do not require collective agreement.

Following the emergence of the outbreak in Wuhan in January 2020, the Cabinet Office worked closely with the Department of Health and Social Care to monitor the situation and set out trigger points for escalation. It convened the first ministerial COBR meeting on 24 January to discuss the government’s response.

The COBR process, as you have heard, is intended to respond to short-term crises. So as the pandemic escalated and the response developed, correspondingly so did the structures required to meet it.

From 16 March 2020 ministerial implementation groups were introduced to lead the government’s key lines of operation, running alongside COBR and Cabinet meetings. The ministerial operation groups reported in to a 9.15 am strategy meeting chaired by the Prime Minister.

In early May 2020, the government published a phased roadmap out of lockdown. It became clear that the governance structure, less complex and more sustainable for the longer term, was required. From 28 May 2020 the ministerial implementation groups were replaced by the Covid Strategy Committee, Covid-S, and the Covid Operations Committee, Covid-O.

Throughout this evolution of governance structures, the government sought to maintain the principle of Cabinet collective responsibility despite the speed of events. By way of example, Covid-O met over 200 times during this Module 2 period to help ensure that the significant decisions were made collectively and rapidly.

To support decision-making, the Covid-19 Taskforce was established in May 2020 and increased in size over the subsequent months.

This was the unit at the centre of government which joined together strategy, analysis and co-ordination with departments across Whitehall, working closely with the Chief Medical Officer and the Government Chief Scientific Adviser.

I turn now to deal with data. As many witnesses made clear in their written submissions to the Inquiry, they were working with a novel coronavirus, and consequently with imperfect information, particularly during the early period. Collecting and synthesising data in the initial and critical stages of the pandemic was not a challenge unique to the UK Government but rather a global issue.

Nevertheless, the government sought to develop the structures required to collect the necessary data and evidence and integrate it into a single analytical picture. The Covid dashboard, operated by Cabinet Office, brought together a wide range of information provided by an analytical community across government. It was used frequently to present updates to the Prime Minister and inform ministerial meetings.

Over time, the availability of data across a broad range of indicators significantly improved, enabling better formed decisions to be made, with a higher degree of certainty.

There remained, of course, many unknowns, such as whether and when a vaccine might be available and delivered at scale. This meant that the government had to make its best judgments based on assumptions of risk and trade-offs without certainty.

Equality concerns were also an important part of understanding and responding to the virus. The taskforce had analytical and policy teams dedicated to understanding the impact of the pandemic on disproportionately impacted groups. They conducted a broad range of analysis, which informed policy making across government, ministerial meetings and equality impact assessments.

The Equality Hub provided data and evidence to assist the Cabinet Office and government more widely, including on the prevalence and impact of Covid-19 on communities who were considered to be at greater risk.

The Race Disparity Unit, which became part of the Equality Hub in September 2020, informed the government’s understanding of the prevalence and impact of Covid-19 on different communities, helping to shape the government’s response throughout the relevant period.

The pandemic also posed novel challenges to frameworks for decision-making across all levels of government in the United Kingdom. The spread of the virus across the country and the measures in place in different parts of the country were not always uniform. The Cabinet Office endeavoured to engage constructively with the devolved administrations. From the start of the pandemic, for example, the First Ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were regularly invited to COBR meetings. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster also had regular calls with the First Ministers to support co-ordination between the devolved administrations and the UK Government.

There is significant evidence of data sharing between the UK Government and the devolved administrations throughout the pandemic, and where concerns were raised, efforts were made to address them. Provision of data to local authorities and regional mayors improved substantially over the period.

To conclude, this Inquiry is an unprecedented moment of transparency about the government of this country. Many thousands of documents have been provided to the Inquiry, and you will hear from dozens of witnesses who had direct involvement in decisions and decision-making.

In responding to Covid-19, the government sought to balance the impacts of the virus on health, on the economy and on society. The response began in the context of acute uncertainty and evolved over time as the virus was better understood, as more tools were developed to combat it, and as lessons were learned.

The Cabinet Office can assure you, my Lady, that it welcomes the opportunity to further improve its capabilities to be able to respond in the event of any future pandemic.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much, Ms Studd.

Right, well, that completes the opening statements of those who wish to make oral submissions, as I understand it. So we’re now moving to evidence, which I think will be ready at 2 o’clock this afternoon, Mr Keith.

Mr Keith: My Lady, yes, we’ll be hearing at 2 o’clock from Ms Goodman on behalf of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice.

May I before that, however, invite you to give permission to publish the written submissions filed before you by the core participants.

Lady Hallett: I so order. Thank you.

Right, well, I know that some have quite a lot to do this lunchtime, so a little extended lunch will probably go down quite well.

Mr Keith: Yes, very well, thank you.

Lady Hallett: Very well, 2 o’clock.

(12.48 pm)

(A short break)

(2.00 pm)

Mr Keith: My Lady, may I please call Joanna Goodman.