Swinney vows to ‘carefully consider’ Covid inquiry recommendations

Scotland’s First Minister has vowed to “carefully consider” recommendations made by the UK Covid-19 Inquiry after it found the UK and Scottish governments “failed their citizens” during the pandemic.

Inquiry chairwoman Baroness Heather Hallett urged the new UK Government and devolved administrations to take action on 10 major recommendations after she published the findings of the investigation into “resilience and preparedness”.

The report found the governments “failed their citizens” and used “jargon and euphemism to disguise… tasks that had not been completed”.

It found the UK’s pandemic plan for flu, written in 2011, “was outdated”, and also suggested mitigating “group-think” by scientists.

Lady Hallett identified a “flawed approach to risk assessment”, failure to learn from past outbreaks of disease, and ministers not receiving a broad enough range of scientific advice and failing to challenge it, as contributing to the harms.

The Scottish Government said it will “carefully consider” recommendations into preparation for civil emergencies.

The report said 235,000 deaths involving Covid-19 had been recorded in the UK by the end of 2023.

Lady Hallett called for “radical reform” and said she believes “the nation will be more resilient and better able to avoid the terrible losses and costs to society” if the recommendations are implemented.

In her foreword, she wrote: “It is not a question of ‘if’ another pandemic will strike, but ‘when’.”

Recommendations include holding a UK-wide pandemic response exercise every three years, and creating an independent statutory body responsible for preparedness.

Lady Hallett said: “My report recommends fundamental reform of the way in which the UK Government and the devolved administrations prepare for whole-system civil emergencies.

“If the reforms are implemented, the nation will be better able to avoid the terrible losses and costs to society that the pandemic brought.

“I expect all my recommendations to be acted on, with a timetable to be agreed with the respective administrations. I will be monitoring this.”

First Minister John Swinney , who was previously Scotland’s Covid recovery secretary, said: “The Scottish Government will carefully consider recommendations made by Baroness Hallett and provide detailed responses to recommendations within the timescales set out.

“We offer our deepest sympathies to those who have experienced pain and grief.

“It is with their loss in mind that we continue efforts to make effective, practical and measurable improvements in pandemic planning.

“The implementation of recommendations will require collaborative action with our counterparts across the four nations, and the Scottish Government is committed to working together, at all levels, in a way which allows us to best prevent, prepare for and respond to future civil emergencies.”

Scottish Labour health spokeswoman Dame Jackie Baillie said the inquiry’s findings are “damning” and raise “serious shortcomings”.

She added: “During the pandemic people across Scotland were let down by two ill-prepared governments and the consequences were catastrophic.

“All those in power owe us complete transparency and honesty as this inquiry continues to seek the truth about what went so tragically wrong.

“For all the lives lost, livelihoods destroyed and sacrifices made, the lessons must be learned so that the mistakes are never repeated.”

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said: “(Former first minister) Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney were consistently warned that a pandemic was the single biggest threat to Scotland. Despite that, the Scottish Government they led was completely unprepared and distracted.

“Frontline staff across the NHS and social care were left in the dark because recommendations gathered dust on a shelf and those in charge of preparedness went months without meeting.

“Scotland was badly let down during the pandemic by both the SNP and Conservative governments. This report today must be an important step towards change. Sadly these findings of systematic and political failings will provide little comfort for thousands of grieving families.”

The inquiry began hearing evidence 13 months ago and its progress was hailed as “exemplary” by Alan Wightman, whose 88-year-old mother died in a care home in Fife in May 2020.

Dr Wightman said: “I congratulate Baroness Hallett and her team for reaching this substantive milestone of issuing findings and recommendations.”