Experts in national disaster preparedness have warned that the UK’s post-pandemic resilience plan requires “wholesale, radical rewriting” and said the government was failing to keep the public sufficiently safe.
Bruce Mann, former director of the Cabinet Office civil contingencies secretariat, told the Covid-19 public inquiry that changes called for in the new framework, published by Rishi Sunak’s government in December 2022, were “too slow” and it was “almost silent on resourcing”.
Mann told the inquiry that “the overall preparedness for the pandemic was inadequate”, and said the national flu pandemic plan was known to be deficient from 2017 onwards.
Oliver Dowden, deputy prime minister, published the plan in December 2022, claiming it would “strengthen the underpinning systems that provide our resilience to all risks”, including wars, pandemics, cyber-attacks and the climate crisis.
But David Alexander, professor of risk and disaster reduction at University College London, told the inquiry: “The bottom line is: do you think the British government within the limits of his competency keeps the public safe? My answer to that is no, or not sufficiently.”
Alexander described the new plan as “an attempt to tinker with the system rather than radically approach it with a new view”. He criticised it as “very top-down, despite the absolute need for organisation at the local level”, and said it relied “heavily on the military and I think that is a very bad thing”.
The two experts were giving evidence on the third day of the inquiry into the UK’s preparedness for the pandemic that struck in January 2020. Their joint report concluded it should have been clear, after the 2016 Cygnus flu pandemic planning exercise and a review of the 2009 swine flu outbreak, that the health and social care sectors were likely to be overwhelmed.
The criticism of current and former planning comes before Dowden’s evidence on Wednesday as the chair, Lady Hallett, continues hearings into the pandemic, which claimed at least 226,977 lives in the UK.
David Cameron, the former prime minister, will become the first politician to give evidence under oath when he is sworn in on Monday, followed on Tuesday and Wednesday by the former and current chancellors, George Osborne and Jeremy Hunt.
The short amount of time allocated for their cross-examination was described as “alarming” by lawyers for the bereaved. Cameron is scheduled to appear at 11am in a session that usually runs until about 1pm. However, Chris Wormald, permanent secretary at the Department of Health and Social Care, must also give evidence in that period, which suggests Cameron may not be questioned for much more than an hour.
“Politicians are well equipped to fend off critical questions and it takes time to pierce their armour,” said Elkan Abrahamson, the lawyer representing the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK group. “We have grave concerns that the time limits will allow the slick politicians to escape accountability for their actions.”
The senior Conservatives are expected to be questioned about the impact of austerity on the readiness of health systems and public health from 2010 onwards.
“It is frustrating they will spend such little time under oath when their austerity policies left the UK so underprepared for the pandemic,” said Nathan Oswin, Trades Union Congress Covid inquiry lead.
A Cabinet Office spokesperson said the resilience framework was developed in consultation with experts and was widely welcomed.
“It represents a significant shift to ensure resilience is a ‘whole of society’ endeavour,” they said. “We have already made significant progress in improving resilience. This includes an improved way of assessing future risks, the successful first national test of the national emergency alerts system and a new biological security strategy which will keep the UK public safe from threats including extreme weather and new diseases. A new cabinet committee dedicated to resilience will continue to drive this progress.”
The inquiry continues.
