Pat McFadden
MP for Wolverhampton South East · Labour · United Kingdom
“In his review Alan Milburn considered that issue and said that, “the UK’s NEET crisis is much more long-term and deep-seated than any decisions taken in the last few years.” As I said earlier, 400,000 more people are in work this year than last year, and the number of young people in employment is up since the election.”
“Since our last DWP questions, both Alan Milburn and the Pensions Commission have published their respective interim reports on young people and on the current state of saving for retirement. I look forward to receiving their final reports later in the year.”
“As Alan Milburn pointed out in his recent report, the UK’s NEET crisis is much more long-term and deep-seated than any decisions taken in the last few years. There are 400,000 more people in work than last year. The number of young people in employment is up by 74,000 since the election.”
“I thank the right hon. Gentleman and send him commiserations for whatever has left him reliant on his crutches today. I am happy to congratulate the businesses he mentioned in his constituency. He raises a serious point: it is important not only to come up with the right policy, but to make it simple for businesses to use.”
“My hon. Friend is right, and I thank Cardiff football club for being a partner. We are supporting nearly 1 million young people and creating up to half a million opportunities for jobs and training.”
“We are making strong progress on expanding youth hubs, with around 130 already in operation across Great Britain. In March, I announced the locations that we want to open in this year, and I have just announced a further 180 locations for the following two years.”
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“If the right hon. Member set aside spending for his commitments, he did something pretty rare for the last Government. When we look under the bonnet, we find that that was not often the case. We will have more to say about that in the coming days.”
“We are getting on with our first steps, including on healthcare, which is a top priority for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. We want to make the NHS fit for the future. We did it before and we can do it again.”
“We intend to set up a council of nations and regions. The hon. Member is right to say that we need to improve relations. That is easier said than done because such organisations are run by political parties, but I hope that the election result, in all its facets, represents the opportunity for a bit of a reset and better relations in future.”
“We will do everything we can to collect the greatest amount of tax possible—that is right. We are interested in value for money and, given the legacy that we have inherited, I assure the right hon. Member that that is needed.”
“The great danger is preparing perfectly for the last war. The real challenge in resilience is looking around the corner for things that have not already happened. As we respond to the covid pandemic, it is important to keep that in mind, and we will try to do that.”
“That is because responsibility for veterans is being transferred to the Ministry of Defence, which is a better home for it. Looking after our veterans will be a big priority in the Ministry of Defence.”
“This Government of service are determined to learn the lessons from this inquiry and to prepare as best we can for the future. That is the duty that we have to the people we serve, and indeed to the memory of those we lost. It is in that spirit that I commend this statement to the House.”
“The United Kingdom has a huge amount to offer and it is in our national interest to do so, because, as we have seen so powerfully, pandemics do not respect international borders, so global health security is an essential element of national security. I wish to thank Baroness Hallett and her team for all their work so far and for putting the voices of the bereaved at the heart of the inquiry. Amid the tragedy of the pandemic, the British people came together in the most extraordinary ways—from the incredible service and sacrifice of our frontline workers, not least in the NHS, to the generosity of volunteers across our communities supporting one another with acts of kindness. It was a story of service that showed the very best of our country.”
“Where things are good, they should be kept; where they are not good enough, they should be changed. The inquiry’s report recommends improvements in the way whole-system risks are assessed and managed across the UK Government and the devolved Governments, and improvements to the leadership and oversight provided by Ministers. The Government will carefully consider all the findings and recommendations, including any from the Grenfell inquiry that also have a bearing on resilience planning. We will respond in full within six months. We will also play our full part in international efforts to improve global health and pandemic preparedness, from disease surveillance and vaccine development to strengthening health systems in the global south and building even greater international co-operation.”
“When we have an emergency, we should do everything we can to work together locally and nationally. The Prime Minister has already started to reset relationships with critical partners, because resilience is too important for division to get in the way. Instead, it has to be about co-operative strength. Some improvements to our operational effectiveness have already been made. The previous Administration did make efforts to improve preparedness. These include changes in the way that the Government access, analyse and share data, including with the public. They also changed the risk assessment processes and the way in which the centre of Government works to prepare for and respond to crises. As an incoming Government, in office for just two weeks, we will look at those efforts in the coming months as we develop our own approach.”
“We are reminded of that this morning as reports come in about a global IT outage affecting airlines, GP surgeries, banks, media and other organisations. It is not easy to know what the future holds. We cannot plan fully for every possible risk, but we must do what we can to learn the lessons of this period. The Government’s first responsibility is to keep the public safe. That is a top priority of this Government. With a long-term approach to strengthening our national resilience, I shall lead a review of our national resilience against the range of risks that the UK faces. I shall chair a dedicated Cabinet Committee on resilience to oversee that work. Of course, it is not just about central Government, so we will work with the devolved Governments, regional mayors and local leaders as we consider the report’s recommendations.”
“Before the pandemic began, our public services were already stretched to their limit, during what should have been normal times. This was especially true of the NHS, overstretched even before the pandemic hit, and key workers in other services, overburdened in normal times and then asked to go above and beyond. A nation can only be as resilient as the foundational strength of its infrastructure and public services. As I stand here today with 8 million people on NHS waiting lists, prisons overflowing, councils pushed to the brink and public services in a worse position than they were even in 2020, we must ensure that we are prepared. Baroness Hallett says that it is not a question of if another pandemic will strike, but when. Resilience is not just about another pandemic, but about the full range of risk that we face.”
“That is why the report’s findings on the most vulnerable are so important: what it says about the elderly, ethnic minorities and those already subject to existing health inequalities, particularly in the early months of the pandemic; those with higher risk of serious illness who were asked to shield for extended periods; those living in overcrowded houses, working in the gig economy or on low incomes; those who suffered as a result of the appalling increase in domestic abuse during the lockdowns; and, of course, disruption to education and the inequalities of vastly different access to online learning and IT equipment. Resilience has to be for all of us, not just some of us. The underlying picture that this report sets out is stark.”
“There was a lack of leadership, a lack of appropriate challenge and oversight from Ministers and officials, which allowed major gaps to open up in the UK’s resilience in the period leading up to the pandemic. Baroness Hallett finds “fatal strategic flaws underpinning the assessment of the risks” and “a failure to learn sufficiently from past civil emergency exercises and outbreaks of disease.” Ministers and officials took false comfort from a positive analysis of the UK’s preparedness. Not enough thought was given to how we might seek to prevent the worst effects of a pandemic, such as with a system of test and trace, rather than accepting the consequence of spread as inevitable. In this emergency, the cracks in our society were exposed. The inequalities were glaring, and that weakened the response.”
“We can only begin to imagine the anguish and anger that people feel, because this report confirms what many have always believed: that the country was not as prepared as it should have been, and that more could and should have been done. Baroness Hallett is unequivocal: “The UK was ill prepared for dealing with a catastrophic emergency, let alone the coronavirus…pandemic”. She finds that “processes, planning and policy” across all four nations failed our citizens. There were fundamental failures of state, with poorly performing public services, as well as health and social inequalities contributing to our vulnerability. The inquiry finds that “the UK prepared for the wrong pandemic”, with a focus on influenza to the effective exclusion of other potential pathogens.”
“With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the covid-19 inquiry. Yesterday, Baroness Hallett published her report from the first module of the UK covid-19 inquiry, which examines the resilience and preparedness of the United Kingdom between 2009 and early 2020. My thoughts, and I am sure the thoughts of the whole House, are with the families of those who lost loved ones during the pandemic. Their grief and the nature of their loss is harrowing, with so many loved ones lost before their time; so many heartbreaking last goodbyes said over a phone or iPad; and in some cases there was not even the chance to say goodbye at all. So many friends and family members were denied even the chance to go to a funeral, and many others found their lives changed by covid forever.”
“Baroness Hallett is quite clear that in a truly national emergency the centre has to step up and responsibility cannot be left to individual Departments. The right hon. Gentleman was right to conclude with the spirit of co-operation that we need on this issue. This work is in the national interest and in the public’s interest. It is the first duty of any Government of any political stripe to do what they can to protect the public. The challenge is that the risks we face are more complex and more unpredictable than they have been in the past. As I said in my statement, we cannot fully plan for every risk, but we have to try to have a system in place that gives us the best possible chance of planning for the risks we can see in front of us.”
“I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his response and for the tone in which he spoke. He set out what the previous Government have done, and in my statement I acknowledged that progress has been made, but I think it is also right that a new Government take the opportunity to have a fresh look at this, with fresh eyes and in the right spirit. The right hon. Gentleman asked a couple of questions on consultation with the devolved Administrations. Yes, that is essential, as is consultation within England with local authorities and elected mayors. It is important that different parts of the country work together when there is a national emergency. There were also questions about how this operates within Government and the balance of responsibility between the centre and individual Government Departments.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right to pay tribute to the staff at St Thomas’ and other NHS staff across the country, who did so much to care for people during that very difficult period. I have visited the memorial wall in her constituency, and she is right: it is an incredibly moving and human experience. I am very happy to take up her invitation to visit again.”
“I thank the hon. Member for her questions and the spirit in which she asked them. The truth is that it is easy for any of us to say, “Lessons must be learned,” and whenever anything goes wrong, people say that. The proof is in the practice. Will it be shown in practice? That is the ultimate test for us all. I am happy to confirm to the hon. Member that, just as I said to the Opposition spokesperson, yes, we are happy to work across the aisle on this and to consider suggestions. My colleagues at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport are considering the recommendations on the memorial.”
“I echo my hon. Friend’s tribute to the work of the NHS staff in his constituency. RAAC in public buildings is part of the Government’s inheritance. Just because the problem has slipped down the news agenda somewhat, that does not mean that it has gone away. In time, we will have to address it to ensure that such buildings—whether housing accommodation or public buildings—are safe for people to live in, work in and be treated in.”
“The hon. Member is right that groupthink is identified in the report, so it is important for the Government to have access to the widest range of advice, but no part of that, for me or the Government, will be about engaging in anti-science rhetoric or anything of that nature. A diversity of views, yes; a denial of the facts, no.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for her question. Again, I echo her comments on the memorial wall. Following the election, we have a lot of new Members in the House; if any of them find themselves with a spare hour, they could do a lot worse than go to the memorial wall, contemplate, and look at the outpouring of grief that is reflected on that wall. My hon. Friend is absolutely right about long covid, which I mentioned in my opening remarks. When we think about the pandemic, of course we think about those who were lost and their families, but there are also people several years on from the pandemic who are still living with those consequences.”
“I thank the hon. Member for his comments. He is quite right: this report covers all parts of the United Kingdom, and it makes a real effort to do so. The new Prime Minister also made an effort to do so in the days following the election, and one of his first priorities was to visit Northern Ireland. I agree with the hon. Member about co-operation—I think it is essential. Small differences sometimes act to the detriment of the whole effort.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for his question, and ask that he accepts my condolences on the loss of his auntie during the pandemic. He is absolutely right to draw our attention to the procurement issues that have been highlighted—they are not specifically covered in this report, but they will be. As he will be aware, this Government will bring forward proposals for a covid fraud commissioner to recover as much as we can of the money that was lost to fraud or waste during that period.”
“The hon. Member is right to praise the role of local government. My experience in Wolverhampton was that the council stepped up and did a fantastic job for local citizens during the pandemic. The financial position of local government is difficult; the financial position on a number of things is difficult. I am afraid the truth is that I cannot stand here and promise to write big cheques for everything. We did not say that we would do that during the election, and we will have to operate with a difficult—very difficult—economic inheritance. Everything that we do has to be underpinned by economic stability and financial responsibility. Tough as that is, I am afraid that we have seen the consequences of doing otherwise all too clearly in recent years.”
“One of the things that Baroness Hallett advises in her report is that every three years there is a proper exercise to test any plan and see whether it is fit for purpose. That is an important recommendation to take away and consider. It is difficult to plan for every possible risk. This is not an easy thing to do, but it is really important to try to have the best possible systems in place between the centre of Government, between the Departments and, as we have said, between local authorities and the devolved Administrations too.”
“Scrutiny is always good, and I am sure that what we do will be scrutinised. It is really important to have a proper dialogue with the public about these things, because it does no harm for us as citizens, and as Government Ministers, to have a conversation about resilience, about what we do in an emergency, and about we think about that. We do not want to frighten anybody, but it is a good thing to do, and it is a proper role for Government to have a good dialogue with the public about this.”
“I am very, very grateful to my hon. Friend for reflecting her experience. There is nothing that I can add to the power of her words. She is absolutely right that in planning for future pandemics, we have to listen to the voice of the staff, who are the people the country will rely on if we face any kind of similar emergency in future.”
“The hon. Lady is right to draw attention to the pandemic’s impact on education through lost learning and, as I said in my statement, the great inequality that children suffered as a result of differential access to online learning. Did they have a good wi-fi connection at home? Did they have the equipment? Was the school fully geared up to providing online learning? The answer for some children to some of those questions was yes, but the answer for a lot of children was no. It is really important in future planning that if we have to make a change, we ensure that it does not reinforce inequality but helps everyone.”
“My hon. Friend talks about failures of state, and that is the essential finding in Baroness Hallett’s report: there were failures of state. He also mentions ideology; I tried in my statement to make it clear that we would not take an ideological approach and that where the last Government had done good things in response to the pandemic, we would keep them. But I also think that a change of Government after such a long period in power is an opportunity for fresh eyes—not necessarily in a partisan way, but having a different set of people to look at what has been done, keeping what is good and changing things if need be. That is one of the advantages of a change of Government, regardless of political colour, after one has been in office for so many years.”
“My hon. Friend talked about the legacies and, yes, they are very much still here. In terms of vulnerabilities and exposure, Baroness Hallett also mentioned the different impacts on different ethnic minority communities. When I say that resilience must be for everyone, that is also what I am talking about: it has to be for everyone, young and old, and regardless of their ethnic background. Sometimes there were vulnerabilities—particularly in the early months of the pandemic—that exposed inequalities in that regard, and that should give us all pause for thought.”
“Baroness Hallett deserves credit for putting the voices of the bereaved up front. If anyone has looked at the actual report, they will find that before we even get into the recommendations, findings and so on, there are quotes from the bereaved that bring home exactly what these losses of loved ones meant to people, and the lasting impact of that. Here we are some four years on from the beginning of it.”
“My hon. Friend is right to highlight the issue of care homes, where it was such a difficult situation throughout the pandemic. We were trying to get the right PPE to the staff. It was a huge problem during the early weeks of the pandemic. I remember raising questions about that, and it just exposed what a scramble for safety there was, particularly in the early months. She is right to urge us to learn the lessons from that.”
“The points that my hon. Friend makes about local government are well made. As I have said, my experience in my local authority area was that I thought the local council stepped up. Sometimes the issue of who is vulnerable and where they are is much easier for a local authority to know than central Government. The spirit of co-operation that I called for in my opening statement is in the public interest and the national interest, and it is what we have to do. If we co-operate, we will be stronger.”
“Let me offer my hon. Friend my condolences on the loss of his colleague Frances Mason. He is right to pay tribute to NHS staff. Baroness Hallett has set out a number of failings, whether speed, leadership or co-ordination. It is important that we try to learn lessons from this, and we intend to do that.”
“My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the important role of local authorities, as other hon. Members have. I hope that I have made it clear in my statement and in my responses today that this must be an effort by the whole United Kingdom: central Government, devolved Governments and local authorities in every part of the country. We are stronger together.”
“My hon. Friend is right that the NHS was in a vulnerable position before the pandemic, which is why the long-term health of the NHS is so important. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has begun that process. I have to be honest with the House: better long-term strength for the NHS will not happen overnight but it should still be an important aim for us.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for his question. He highlights a very important issue that I spoke about in my opening remarks. It is an important aim of this Government to reduce violence against women and girls. I can assure him that the Minister put in charge of that will champion the cause with a passion and determination that I think and really hope will lead to results. Homes should be a place of safety. Sadly, as he rightly points out, during the pandemic that was not the case for some.”
“I thank my hon. Friend, who highlights the difficulties people had in not being able to visit relatives and so on. Being joined up across the UK is really important. As I said, there is no place in this kind of planning to let what are sometimes small differences get in the way. We have to work together in a co-operative way. We are stronger together.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his mention of the Grenfell inquiry. As I said, it is important to take its findings into account. It is also true that pre-existing inequalities left people more vulnerable. A national emergency like this exposes weak points and brings them into the a glaring public light, and they weaken the response of the whole country. The truth is that we have a stronger response as a country if we manage to reduce inequalities, be they on the basis of ethnic minority or of income.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her question. She is quite right to point out that the prevalence of a particular health condition can be higher in one part of the community. As I have said a few times today, the inequalities exposed in the pandemic made the response weaker than it might have been. If we are to be stronger and better able to handle an emergency like this in the future, we have to address those inequalities. That is not just in the interests of those it will help directly, but in the interests of all of us, because when it comes to emergencies like this, we are all in it together.”
“May I begin with a moment of unity? The Deputy Prime Minister and I are both pushing for an early general election as soon as possible. I very much welcome his recognition that there is absolutely no point in this Conservative Government carrying on in office a moment longer. Further to the question a little earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury), this week two people were charged in this country, under the Official Secrets Act, with spying for China, one of whom worked for politicians in this House.”
“Thank you for your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker. I shall ask a policy question. The Government recently awarded a contract for a supercomputer to Lenovo, a China-headquartered firm that has been the subject of enforcement action by the United States on security grounds. This supercomputer will be used by critical Government bodies such as the UK Atomic Energy Authority. How will Ministers safeguard the public against any possible misuse of sensitive Government data as a result of the awarding of the contract?”
“When we announce a policy, we ensure that it is properly costed and funded, which I recommend to the Deputy Prime Minister. One other cyber-threat that modern states are facing is prepositioning: the planting of destructive software in critical infrastructure that can then be activated at a later date. The director of the FBI said that prepositioning of the Volt Typhoon type discovered in American infrastructure was “the defining threat of our generation”. America’s cyber-defence agency said that Five Eyes allies were also likely to have been targeted. Have the Government looked for or found Volt-Typhoon-type infiltration of any parts of our critical national IT infrastructure, and if so what action is being taken to remove it?”
“If so, this is of the utmost importance, and we would need to know what corresponding improvements the Government would make to the preparedness of our critical infrastructure, because if the threat really has changed then so too should our response.”
“What are the Government doing to protect complex and valuable datasets from being stolen now, possibly in order to be manipulated later by more powerful computers that are controlled by authoritarian adversaries? Finally, Mr Speaker, on the broader issue, does the fact that the Deputy Prime Minister chose to make this statement today signal a fundamental reassessment of the overall threat? He referred to the United States and our allies. On 12 February, the US Administration warned Congress that the cyber-threat from China was changing. Previously, a threat that largely involved spying and influencing now looked like it was getting ready to disrupt critical American infrastructure—aviation, energy, healthcare and other sectors. Is it now the UK Government’s view that we should change our assessment of the threat in a similar way?”
“In that spirit, Mr Speaker, I have read reports that the Conservative Back-Bench 1922 committee is to be briefed on these matters later today. Given the importance of national and democratic security to all the parties in this House, is the Deputy Prime Minister intending to arrange a briefing for the Leader of the Opposition, the Intelligence and Security Committee and, indeed, the other political parties represented in the House? Experts in this field have warned of China’s voracious appetite for data, and its potential uses as computing power improves—for example, as quantum computing develops. The UK’s record on data security is patchy, to put it mildly.”
“We are grateful for the work of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, and the report it issued on China last year, which covered much of the same ground that the Deputy Prime Minister covered in his statement. When discussing individual politicians, paragraph 98 of that report stated: “Targets are not necessarily limited to serving politicians either. They can include former political figures, if they are sufficiently high profile. For example, it is possible that David Cameron’s role as Vice President of a £1bn China–UK investment fund…was in some part engineered by the Chinese state to lend credibility to Chinese investment,”. What have the Government done to look into that allegation from the Intelligence and Security Committee? How can Ministers ensure that those leaving politics are not targeted in that way?”
“The Deputy Prime Minister referred to the democratic electoral process, and with an election coming it is vital that people have confidence in their ability to register and to vote. Will he confirm that our electronic register to vote system is sufficiently well protected? He said that the attacks on parliamentary accounts were unsuccessful. Does he believe that China now wants to engage in the kind of hack and leak activity that we have in recent years associated with Russia, in order to compromise either individual politicians or the wider democratic process? On sanctions, only last week the Minister of State was reluctant to respond to the claim that the Foreign Office “indefinitely paused” targeted sanctions against Chinese officials late last year. Will the Deputy Prime Minister explain what has changed in the past week?”