PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Topical Questions - 23 September 2021 (Commons/Commons Chamber)
Debate Detail
Mr Speaker, a theme this morning has been your recent G7 Speakers conference, and certainly for me, as someone born and bred in Lancashire, it is a particular honour to have the role of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. The Cabinet Office is the strategic headquarters for the Government, supporting the Prime Minister and the Cabinet in delivering for the British people. I look forward to working with colleagues to do so, supported by an excellent new ministerial team.
Whereas the NHS infected blood scandal was the biggest treatment disaster in the history of the NHS, the covid pandemic has been the biggest public health disaster in a century. In March 2020, the chief scientific adviser said if the UK could keep covid deaths below 20,000 that would be a “good result”, and now of course there have been more than 135,000. If the covid public inquiry, which we understand will not start until next year, is to be a genuine attempt to look at the rights and wrongs of what happened, will frontline staff in the healthcare and social care sectors be involved in setting the terms of reference?
The next pandemic or major disaster could happen tomorrow. We have to learn our lessons from this pandemic and be much better prepared for it happening again. The covid-19 national foresight group has been capturing these live lessons, and it has concluded that a “strong and persistent theme” has been the
“lack of strategy and shared plan”
in the Government’s response. Its recommendations have spent nine months gathering dust. Will the Minister commit to implementing its recommendations, and would he meet the group?
The latest allegations about the Home Secretary’s secret meeting with British Airways, a billionaire Tory donor and the then Business Secretary, but with no official present, should concern us all. She is a serial offender for breaking the ministerial code previously. Will the new Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster hold an investigation into these allegations and actually start enforcing the code, or is it just there for show?
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