10. Submissions on Behalf of the Trades Union Congress by Mr Jacobs

Mr Jacobs: Thank you, my Lady. These are the closing submissions on behalf of the Trades Union Congress. I appear with Ms Ruby Peacock and we are instructed by Thompsons Solicitors.

In this module the TUC is working in partnership with the Welsh TUC, the Scottish TUC and the Northern Ireland Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.

The TUC and its sister organisations seek to be the voice of those at work. That has been our aim in this module, and will be the focus of our closing submissions.

My Lady, by way of preliminary observation, the themes upon which we will address you will be familiar. Centrally, we suggest that the themes of our previous submissions to you, as to disproportionate impacts in the workplace, as to financial support for self-isolation, as to paucity of consultation and so on, have only been strengthened by the evidence as it has emerged.

There is a wealth of evidence as to occupational exposure being a significant risk factor in the transmission of the virus, and of occupational exposure intersecting with socioeconomic inequalities. Independent SAGE reported that people in the lowest paid occupations are twice as likely as those in higher occupational groups to die from Covid-19. Professor Ferguson explained that the poorest in society had the least ability to comply with measures to work from home and were most exposed to the virus.

The documents which record high-level decision-making do refer on numerous occasions to the particular impact on vulnerable groups of certain sectors being closed, retail and hospitality being often cited examples. That was certainly an important consideration. Jobs and livelihoods are fundamental to wellbeing.

The blind spot, we say, was a lack of focus on safety for those who were attending work. Disproportionate transmission and deaths within vulnerable groups arose ultimately in those who were attending work rather than those who were not.

It is right to acknowledge that some of the causes of unsafe workplaces are structural and pre-existing. As considered in Module 1, stretched health services and stretched and fragmented social care services are a fault line. More broadly, we have described before the relevance of a working population that has a growing proportion in low income work and in insecure work. That view finds strong support in the work of the SAGE Ethnicity Subgroup which is before you in this module.

We also mention again, in brief passing, the pre-existing paucity of health and safety enforcement by an underfunded HSE and overburdened local authorities. The Inquiry has now heard evidence of the government grappling after the first lockdown with the difficult balance of returning to work within the R budget. Safe workplaces would have made the aim of returning to work so much more achievable and less deadly. In the event, the return to work was managed against a vacuum of enforcement. We remind you, my Lady, of our view that it is an important issue for future modules in this Inquiry.

An issue that this module has grappled with is financial support for self-isolation. The context is one of low sick pay provision. As the Chancellor was briefed during the pandemic by his advisers within the Treasury, the UK has the lowest sick pay provision amongst all OECD countries. This issue was alluded to in oral evidence by Mr Hancock, who spoke of his own wish that statutory sick pay be doubled.

When the pandemic arrived, the inadequacy of sick pay provision provided the most obvious disincentive to compliance with self-isolation, particularly amongst low income and vulnerable groups.

Of course those we represent campaigned vociferously on the issue, but it is now apparent that a number close to the centre of government were making the very same call for action. Several witnesses it appears to us have spoken quite passionately about the issue they were struck by the comparatively disadvantaged experiences of those on poorer incomes who were working at greater risk to keep the country going.

The assiduously diplomatic Professor Whitty described heated debate on the issue. It is evident that there was a real roadblock, namely the Treasury, and the Chancellor in particular, that is particularly evident in Sir Patrick’s diaries, not least in the reference to Simon Case’s advice given to the Prime Minister that he will need to persuade Rishi personally.

Mr Sunak’s oral evidence that financial support for self-isolation was not relevant early in the pandemic, as test and trace had not got going, was revealing. For the many thousands in low-paid, high-risk jobs who never stopped working, self-isolation was a crucially important safety measure from day one onwards, but one that was hugely difficult without support. It is evident that it is an issue that was still not grasped.

The justification by the Treasury for its opposition to greater support is with reference to survey data which suggested that return to work was just one reason for non-compliance.

My Lady, breaking self-isolation to attend work was high consequence in terms of transmission of the virus, particularly for low-income sectors with high vulnerability. Someone attending to a production line in a processing plant because they are worried about the rent is highly problematic and needs addressing. And the fact that some others may break self-isolation in different ways for some other reason is really neither here nor there. We suggest that on analysis the Treasury rationale is paper thin.

The Treasury did reluctantly agree to provide funds to the Test and Trace Support Payment scheme, however it was devised to be a low profile scheme with a low take-up rate, and so it proved to be.

Safety at work was also hampered by a lack of meaningful consultation with sectoral partners, including unions. The evidence of those we represent is that there was some attempt at consultation but it was perceived to fall short of meaningful engagement. The disclosure indicates that the government, at its core, was one that was dismissive of mature engagement.

It is pithily summarised by Mr Johnson having stated, in the context of decision-making on return to work, that the government “can’t have the bollocks of consulting with employees and trade unions”.

When put to Mr Johnson, he said the sentiment isn’t necessarily that of a Prime Minister engendering a dismissive approach to consultation. We say, what farcical nonsense.

There are numerous examples of this approach festering through government decision-making, whether it’s resistance to making any meaningful changes to sick pay or viewing schools as a battleground with the unions.

The lack of consultation also had an impact upon the quality of workplace guidance. We make no apology for being a broken record on this issue. For all the abstract acknowledgement of disproportionate impacts which are so easy to state, it is ultimately in concrete measures such as those in relation to workplace safety that solutions can be found. All too often workplace guidance was late, lacking in understanding of the practical realities of workplaces, and too discretionary and too generic.

In April 2020, Andy Burnham and Steve Rotherham wrote to Alok Sharma to urge his department to provide greater clarity in the guidance, and they warned that on social media it was awash with stories and images from unsafe workplaces, and the mayoral offices were receiving hundreds of reports of guidance being flouted.

My Lady, the resistance to consultation and dialogue fits a broad pattern. It is also reflected in the evidence given by those in local government, including the metro mayors, by those in respect of the devolved administrations, and by the Children’s Commissioner. This morning Mr Friedman spoke powerfully on this very issue in respect of the disabled. It is a symptom, we would suggest, of what Helen MacNamara’s internal review reported, that many felt there was a belief that intellect will out, implying that a small core of people is clever enough to think their way out of the problem without support; diversity of thought was not recognised. A vitally important lesson, we say, is the need for a mature, open form of government.

Another neglected aspect of workplace safety arose out of the movement of staff between care homes. Carl Heneghan gave evidence that Covid was identified as three-fold higher in staff working across different care homes. The failure to grapple with this issue at an early stage in the pandemic not only seeded the pandemic in the most vulnerable section of the population but also contributed to the unequal impact, given the profile not only of those reliant on the sector but also of the care sector workforce.

It is clearly an issue that needs to be grappled with in future pandemic planning.

We address distinctly decision-making in respect of education. The outcomes were undeniably poor. If a central aim was to keep schools open, the attempts to do so resulted ultimately in the very lengthy restrictions on attendance commencing in January 2021.

For the purposes of this module, it is evident that poor outcomes were symptoms of significant flaws in the decision-making processes within central government.

Coming out of the first lockdown, there was a need for careful and advanced thinking as to how re-opening schools might be managed whilst keeping the R rate below 1. As Mr Johnson expressed, schools were terrific reservoirs of the virus.

At a Covid-O meeting on 6 August 2020, the Department for Education presented an options paper on return to school. It might have been more ambitious in respect of its considerations of NPIs within schools, but it did consider contingencies such as local closures and rotas with the necessary advance notice to schools. Consideration was also given to managing the opening of schools within the overall R budget, and the decisions that may need to be made about other sectors in order to allow schools to stay open safely. That goes to a point raised by Mr Menon just a few moments ago.

The Prime Minister’s response as recorded in Sir Patrick’s diary was an emphatic rejection of those contingencies:

“… ‘Don’t want to hear about plan B and C for failure … We are no longer taking this Covid excuse stuff. Get back to school’.”

My Lady, these were not simply flippant comments, they were the policy. The formal minute of the same meeting was to the same effect. It recorded the point being made that “schools should not be told of a fallback plan as it would allow them to have an excuse not to open in September”, and “explicit contingency plan guidance for schools should not be shared in advance to avoid undermining momentum towards a full re-opening”.

It was hopeless as an approach, given the obvious cause for caution going into the winter. It was also a callous way to treat teachers, who were, as a matter of intentional government policy, left guessing as to what any contingency planning might be and leaving them to respond on the hoof as and when late changes of the course of action were announced.

My Lady, it was not by accident, it was by design.

The ramifications of the no plan B approach were numerous, but they will no doubt be considered in the subsequent module on education.

The quality of decision-making appears to have been further hampered by a relationship with the sector and unions in particular that not only lacked constructive collaboration but was positively oppositional.

In questions to Mr Johnson, we asked about the policy on face masks in schools, which was obviously considered privately to be a mess, and which had been arrived at further, according to Simon Case, to a no surrender approach of Gavin Williamson to unions, for which he had full backing from the PM.

My Lady, we conclude with two more general points, the first being the culture in Westminster.

There is a narrative pushed by some external to this Inquiry of the infighting spreading from Number 10 in particular being titillating evidence but ultimately irrelevant.

My Lady, we don’t agree. On analysis, there are various ways in which the corrosive culture impaired and frustrated decision-making. We see key ministers being sidelined from decision-making processes, an unwillingness of civil servants to step into key roles, voices of senior civil servants being sidelined, and so on.

Mr Johnson appears to have presided over and either promoted or certainly acquiesced in that culture. We were struck, as Ms Mitchell on behalf of the Scottish Covid Bereaved were, by the words of Mr Johnson in a WhatsApp when finally he complained to Mr Cummings of “a totally disgusting orgy of narcissism by a government that should be solving a national crisis”.

My Lady, hear, hear.

That was the honest assessment of Mr Johnson at the time. It was the correct assessment. To some witnesses it is just Westminster. We would suggest that resigned acceptance by some of such behaviour simply underlines the need for this Inquiry to make strident findings on the issue, and in doing so to seek to effect much needed cultural change.

Finally, the timing of lockdowns.

Whilst these oral hearings have focused heavily on events leading to the first lockdown, the response to subsequent waves of the infection were as deadly. Fundamentally, it was a misnomer to approach the second wave as a choice between prioritising health or the economy. No one, when it came to it, was in favour of letting it rip and seeing huge numbers of daily deaths and overwhelming of the NHS. Yet that was the trajectory as reliably predicted by the scientific advice.

On a realistic and balanced analysis, the question from late September 2020 was whether to take action earlier or later. It was also known that later would mean longer.

The lesson from the first lockdown had been go earlier and go harder, but the policy as implemented was to do the opposite. It cost lives and the consequences of a very lengthy later lockdown. My Lady, these matters must be the subject of careful and detailed focus by the Inquiry in its report.

My Lady, those are the submissions on behalf of the TUC and its sister organisations. They have been grateful to have the opportunity to seek to assist you in this important module of the Inquiry. Thank you.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much indeed, Mr Jacobs.

Mr Allen.