Parliament

The evidential basis refers to page four of the COVID-19 vaccine surveillance report: Week 38, published by Public Health England on 23 September 2021. The report is available at the following link:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/614c53a28fa8f56113bf6472/Vaccine_surveillance_report_-_week_38.pdf

The report assessed the impact of the vaccination programme on the population by taking into account vaccine coverage, evidence on vaccine effectiveness, and the latest COVID-19 disease surveillance indicators. These figures were, at the time of the report, the latest estimates on the impact of the COVID-19 vaccination programme on mortality.

NHS England maintains efforts to evaluate potential revisions to the National Infection Prevention and Control Manual (NIPCM), which aim to maintain high infection, prevention, and control standards. Any updates will ensure consistent application across healthcare settings. Current guidance balances scientific evidence, operational feasibility, and sustainable infection, prevention, and control practices to protect healthcare workers and patients.

Delaying NIPCM updates until the final Module 3 COVID-19 inquiry report risks greater exposure to infection, slower practice improvements, and training gaps. Timely updates, based on emerging evidence, strengthen healthcare worker and patient safety through evidence-based, locally adapted measures.

The updated acute respiratory virus guidance, published in March 2024, advises adult social care providers on precautions for preventing respiratory infection transmission, addressing masks, ventilation, and other measures based on current evidence. The acute respiratory virus guidance is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/infection-prevention-and-control-in-adult-social-care-acute-respiratory-infection/infection-prevention-and-control-ipc-in-adult-social-care-acute-respiratory-infection-ari

The Chief Nursing Officer for England has stated that a range of evidence on the issue of routes of transmission of COVID-19 was presented to the COVID-19 Inquiry during their examination of the impact of the pandemic on healthcare systems across the United Kingdom.

A response from the UK Chief Nursing Officers to the letter from the Covid Airborne Transmission Alliance will be sent shortly.

In relation to my answer of 4 November 2024 to Question 11837, decisions about parliamentary engagement are matters for the relevant department owners of each review.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster committed to a review of UK national resilience in his statement to the House of Commons on 19 July, in response to the Covid-19 Inquiry’s Module 1 report. The review is expected to conclude in Spring 2025 and includes a broad programme of engagement, including Parliamentary, to ensure the UK Government’s approach to resilience best helps mitigate the challenges we face. The review will also consider the future approach to reporting on and scrutiny of UK national resilience.

In relation to my answer of 4 November 2024 to Question 11837, the aforementioned reviews are scheduled to conclude in the first half of 2025. Decisions about publication and consultation are matters for the relevant department owners.

The Cabinet Office owns the resilience review which will conclude in Spring 2025 and will set the future direction for the resilience system. It is an internally-led review which will draw on existing evidence to inform what is working well and what could change, including the findings from the Covid-19 Inquiry Module 1 and the Grenfell Inquiry. In addition to regular discussions with stakeholders, Ministers and officials are continuing to meet with those from devolved, regional and local Government, businesses and civil society.

In relation to my answer of 4 November 2024 to Question 11837, the aforementioned reviews are scheduled to conclude in the first half of 2025. Decisions about publication and consultation are matters for the relevant department owners.

The Cabinet Office owns the resilience review which will conclude in Spring 2025 and will set the future direction for the resilience system. It is an internally-led review which will draw on existing evidence to inform what is working well and what could change, including the findings from the Covid-19 Inquiry Module 1 and the Grenfell Inquiry. In addition to regular discussions with stakeholders, Ministers and officials are continuing to meet with those from devolved, regional and local Government, businesses and civil society.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster committed to undertaking a review of UK national resilience in his statement to the House of Commons on 19 July, in response to the Covid-19 Inquiry’s Module 1 report. The review is expected to conclude in Spring 2025. It will be informed by the voices of local leaders, the Four Nations, businesses, voluntary and community sector representatives and academics. It will also consider recommendations from public inquiries into Covid-19 and the Grenfell Tower tragedy.

As part of this review I recently met with representatives of those disproportionately impacted during crises, faith groups, businesses and charities who support a range of communities, and earlier in the year convened a roundtable of 11 Northern Local Resilience Forum representatives during a recent visit to the North East.

It is important that lessons are learnt from the Covid-19 pandemic and the response to it. The UK Covid-19 Inquiry is independent of government and it is right that we allow the Chair to continue her important work. The Chair is under a statutory obligation to avoid unnecessary costs in the Inquiry’s work, and she has been clear in her intention to complete her work as quickly and efficiently as possible. Quarterly financial reports are published every quarter on the official UK Covid-19 Inquiry website.

Since the introduction of the Inquiries Act 2005, there have been three inquiries which include matters which are partly or wholly devolved to Wales: the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, the Infected Blood Inquiry, and the UK Covid-19 Inquiry.

It is important that lessons are learnt from the Covid-19 pandemic and the response to it. The UK Covid-19 Inquiry is independent of government and it is right that we allow the Chair to continue her important work. The Chair is under a statutory obligation to avoid unnecessary costs in the Inquiry’s work, and she has been clear in her intention to complete her work as quickly and efficiently as possible.

The COVID-19 Inquiry’s first report, which covered resilience and preparedness, was published on 18 July 2024, and makes 10 recommendations for the Government. As the Prime Minister’s written ministerial statement to Parliament said, the Government will carefully consider the findings and recommendations of the report in the context of the Government’s overall approach to resilience. The Cabinet Office is leading this work and co-ordinating across all departments, including the Department of Health and Social Care. The full Government response will be published within six months.

The previous Government spent up to £400 billion on pandemic related interventions and programmes including 11.7 million employees that were furloughed through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, at a cost of £70 billion. 2.9m people on the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme received grants at a cost of £28bn.

The Chancellor has announced that she will appoint a Covid Corruption Commissioner, fulfilling a manifesto commitment. The main focus of the Commissioner will be pandemic PPE contracts. They will make sure everything that can be done, has been done, to get the public purse what it is owed.

The UK Covid-19 Inquiry has now been established. As set out in its Terms of Reference, the Inquiry will examine, consider and report on preparations and the response to the pandemic. In doing so, the inquiry will help identify lessons learned. The Inquiry published its Module 1 report, focussing on resilience and preparedness in July 2024. The government will carefully consider the Inquiry’s findings and recommendations, and will respond within six months.

Public inquiries are an important mechanism to learn lessons for the future. The Government will carefully consider all of the findings and recommendations of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry Module 1 report.

Parliament, and in particular its Select Committees, has an important role in scrutinising government policy, including the implementation of inquiries' recommendations.

The Department is embedding lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic within its approach to pandemic preparedness. This includes amending the approach to cover all five routes of communicable disease transmission, rather than focusing on planning for specific threats. We are working with partners in the health and social care system, including the UK Health Security Agency and NHS England, to maintain a flexible and scalable set of response capabilities that can be adapted to any future novel disease. The approach to pandemic preparedness also recognises that the underlying resilience of the health and social care system is crucial to the ability to respond to a novel disease threat.

The UK COVID-19 Inquiry published its first report on 18 July 2024, which focuses on resilience and preparedness for a pandemic, and the Department will consider the inquiry’s recommendations in full.

In the Prime Minister’s written ministerial statement to Parliament, he said that ensuring that the United Kingdom is prepared for a future pandemic is a “top priority” for his government and that the Government is determined to learn the lessons from this Inquiry.

Further to this, on the 19 July, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster made an oral statement in the House of Commons in response to the Module 1 report where he said “this government’s first responsibility is to keep the public safe. We cannot rebuild our national resilience overnight. But we will learn the lessons from this Inquiry – from this Module and every Module that follows”.

The issue of Covid-19 vaccines will be discussed in Module 4 of the Covid-19 Inquiry, where the hearings are planned to start from 14 January 2025 to 30 January 2025.

All routine policy, including the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS), is reviewed on a regular basis. My Rt hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is currently considering aspects of the scheme, following recent meetings with interested stakeholders.

Separately, work is underway with the scheme’s administrator, the NHS Business Service Authority, to review processes and make administrative changes to improve the scheme within the current legislative framework. Formal consideration of whether any reforms of the VDPS are necessary will form part of Module 4 of the COVID-19 Inquiry, chaired by the Rt Hon Baroness Heather Carol Hallett DBE.

All routine policy, including the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS), is reviewed on a regular basis. My Rt hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is currently looking into aspects of the scheme, following recent meetings with interested stakeholders.

Separately, work is underway with the scheme’s administrator, the NHS Business Service Authority, to review processes and make administrative changes, to improve the scheme within the current legislative framework. Formal consideration of whether any reforms to the VDPS are necessary will form part of Module 4 of the COVID-19 Inquiry, chaired by the Rt Hon Baroness Heather Carol Hallett DBE.

All routine policy, including the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS), is reviewed on a regular basis. My Rt hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is currently looking into aspects of the scheme, following recent meetings with interested stakeholders.

Separately, work is underway with the scheme’s administrator, the NHS Business Service Authority, to review processes and make administrative changes, to improve the scheme within the current legislative framework. Formal consideration of whether any reforms to the VDPS are necessary will form part of Module 4 of the COVID-19 Inquiry, chaired by the Rt Hon Baroness Heather Carol Hallett DBE.

All routine policy, including the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS), is reviewed on a regular basis. My Rt hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is currently looking into aspects of the scheme, following recent meetings with interested stakeholders.

Separately, work is underway with the scheme’s administrator, the NHS Business Service Authority, to review processes and make administrative changes, to improve the scheme within the current legislative framework. Formal consideration of whether any reforms to the VDPS are necessary will form part of Module 4 of the COVID-19 Inquiry, chaired by the Rt Hon Baroness Heather Carol Hallett DBE.

All routine policy, including the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS), is reviewed on a regular basis. My Rt hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is currently looking into aspects of the scheme, following recent meetings with interested stakeholders.

Separately, work is underway with the scheme’s administrator, the NHS Business Service Authority, to review processes and make administrative changes, to improve the scheme within the current legislative framework. Formal consideration of whether any reforms to the VDPS are necessary will form part of Module 4 of the COVID-19 Inquiry, chaired by the Rt Hon Baroness Heather Carol Hallett DBE.

We cannot perfectly predict the characteristics of a future pandemic or know precisely which groups will be most affected by it, and we are therefore strengthening our pandemic preparedness by considering the flexible and scalable response capabilities that can be adapted to any threat that the health and social care system may need to respond to. We continue to review our pandemic planning, in close collaboration with system partners including the UK Health Security Agency, in response to new information and lessons learned from COVID-19 and other disease outbreaks. We continue to draw on a wide range of evidence, both from government research organisations and expert committees, as well as the wider research community

We understand that Versus Arthritis has submitted the recommendations of the Covid Shielding Voices report to the United Kingdom COVID-19 Inquiry. We are committed to learning from the Inquiry’s findings, which will play a key role in informing the Government’s planning and preparations for the future.

We cannot perfectly predict the characteristics of a future pandemic or know precisely which groups will be most affected by it, and we are therefore strengthening our pandemic preparedness by considering the flexible and scalable response capabilities that can be adapted to any threat that the health and social care system may need to respond to. We continue to review our pandemic planning, in close collaboration with system partners including the UK Health Security Agency, in response to new information and lessons learned from COVID-19 and other disease outbreaks. We continue to draw on a wide range of evidence, both from government research organisations and expert committees, as well as the wider research community

We understand that Versus Arthritis has submitted the recommendations of the Covid Shielding Voices report to the United Kingdom COVID-19 Inquiry. We are committed to learning from the Inquiry’s findings, which will play a key role in informing the Government’s planning and preparations for the future.

We cannot perfectly predict the characteristics of a future pandemic or know precisely which groups will be most affected by it, and we are therefore strengthening our pandemic preparedness by considering the flexible and scalable response capabilities that can be adapted to any threat that the health and social care system may need to respond to. We continue to review our pandemic planning, in close collaboration with system partners including the UK Health Security Agency, in response to new information and lessons learned from COVID-19 and other disease outbreaks. We continue to draw on a wide range of evidence, both from government research organisations and expert committees, as well as the wider research community

We understand that Versus Arthritis has submitted the recommendations of the Covid Shielding Voices report to the United Kingdom COVID-19 Inquiry. We are committed to learning from the Inquiry’s findings, which will play a key role in informing the Government’s planning and preparations for the future.

This judicial review was brought to seek clarification on a point of law and we were pleased that the Court agreed that there was an important legal question to consider. It acknowledged our concerns over respecting the privacy of individuals and ensuring that irrelevant information is returned and not retained by the Inquiry.

The total legal costs for the case of the Cabinet Office v Chair of the COVID-19 Inquiry were £192,739.

We have fully cooperated with, and continue to cooperate with, the Inquiry having provided over 56,000 documents to the Inquiry so far.

The UK Covid-19 Inquiry is an independent public inquiry.

In line with the UK Covid-19 Management Statement, the Inquiry’s Accounting Officer must conform to value for money and good financial management requirements and must provide financial updates to the Cabinet Office as its sponsor department.

The Chair is under a statutory obligation to avoid unnecessary costs in the Inquiry’s work and she has been clear that she intends to complete her work as quickly and efficiently as possible.

The Inquiry publishes regular financial updates, the latest from November 2023 can be found at the link here: https://covid19.public-inquiry.uk/documents/uk-covid-19-inquiry-financial-report-for-quarter-2-2023-24/. The total expenditure for the financial year to 31 March 2023 was £22.4m.