Covid-19: Lockdown Costs and Benefits

Debate between Lord Allan of Hallam and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Wednesday 13th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)]

My Lords, I am sure the Minister would agree that policy-making is best done based on hard evidence rather than on opinion and speculation. In that respect, can she say whether the Government will publish a review independent of the inquiry of all the many academic studies taking place on the impact of lockdowns in the UK and elsewhere? And—who knows?—whichever side we start on, some of us may even change our minds on the basis of reading such a study.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I agree that hard evidence is important and I too value academic studies. A lot of academic studies and reviews of the pandemic in other countries have already been published and are generally available. We are focusing on responding to the Covid inquiry. Clearly, we hope that it will cover all these different points and make sure that future pandemics are tackled as expeditiously and as well as possible, looking at the broader impacts.

AI-generated Public Services

Debate between Lord Allan of Hallam and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Thursday 14th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I very much agree that, to ensure public trust, you want services that are accessible by design. Coming from the retail sector, I have a slightly less rosy view of labelling. Like earlier data changes, AI is part of a continuum of technological change. The key thing is to have proper arrangements, such as, for example, the AI Safety Institute, which we have now set up following the Prime Minister’s AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park with international partners. This is to make sure that we are aware of what is happening, because there are opportunities as well as risks to AI. I have a whole list of opportunities, which we can go through, but I would like to hear some more questions.

[Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)]

My Lords, I will follow up the Minister’s previous answer. The public sector can benefit from many kinds of artificial intelligence that are a long way from the image of a killer robot threat to mankind, which often features heavily in the public debate. AI can improve hospital bed management, care worker rostering, public procurement and many other dull but very valuable tasks. Does the Minister share my concern that the killer robot narrative may overshadow the adoption of these much less controversial AI systems? What are the Government doing to encourage and accelerate their deployment?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I do not think that list is dull. I have other examples, such as the world-leading child abuse image database, which the Home Office is working on. My son, as a detective in the Met, thinks it will be a marvellous opportunity to make the police’s job easier and less awful. The noble Lord is right that the robot vision has to be moderated by an understanding of the usefulness of AI on many things, such as conversational front ends to public services on GOV.UK. These things will make life easier and more accessible, which is why it is good that we are debating them and can reassure people. Of course there are fears, which is one of the reasons why we are working on guidance on frontier AI—that is in the pipeline.

Nuclear Test Veterans

Debate between Lord Allan of Hallam and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Tuesday 18th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right that the rollout of the medals has been a little slower than we had expected. We were keen to make progress on this, and we announced last November that the medal would be given to these brave veterans. Others will know that it takes time to design, improve and manufacture a new medal. However, I am absolutely determined—and Johnny Mercer, the Veterans Minister, who everybody will no doubt know, is determined—that we will do everything we can to make those medals available on the chests of veterans on Remembrance Sunday.

[Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)]

My Lords, further to the Minister’s exchanges with the noble Lord, Lord Watson, will she clarify that the Government believe that nuclear test veterans have an absolute right to access any records of tests from samples they have given over the years? Will the Government assist those individuals who are having to follow up the claims themselves, when they believe that medical records are being withheld?

Covid-19 Inquiry: Judicial Review

Debate between Lord Allan of Hallam and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Tuesday 6th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)]

My Lords, what a dog’s breakfast this is when a Government who spend so much time complaining about other people using judicial reviews stand before us trying to justify their decision to use the same legal process to prevent an inquiry that they set up having access to communications sent by members of that very same Government on matters of significant public interest.

The Government’s case appears to be that full disclosure would be unfair because their communications are all over the place, mixing business and pleasure with God knows what in a soup of uncontrolled WhatsApping, as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, has already flagged. Yet this is a problem entirely of their own making. While the pandemic was not something that anyone could have foreseen, it was entirely predictable that the way this Government have been working would lead to problems. If this were not happening with the Covid inquiry, we would have arrived here sooner or later with some other investigation into government decision-making where disclosure of Ministers’ messages was necessary.

Does the Minister accept that this situation could have been avoided if her Government had shown more discipline in managing government communications from the outset? Does she agree that it was not inevitable that we would end up in this mess—that this could have been avoided through having clear rules such as using different devices for home and work communications, as is common in many other sectors? Can she indicate whether all Ministers are now following improved protocols so that we will not repeatedly fall into this same situation, as there are surely other areas of government policy that will be challenged either in the courts or through future public inquiries?

I am sure that all of us find it hard to keep track of which communications channels we use for which purposes, and it can of course be convenient to mix them up, but the business of government is special and communications about decisions by government that affect millions of people have a particular importance. This importance means that Ministers of the Crown and those working for them should be held to a higher standard, and they have more resources available than most of us to help them meet those high standards.

The fact that this court case is happening is not—however much the Government protest—a way of protecting all Governments from overreach, as not all Governments would have allowed decisions to be made in the way that this one has done. Concerns about this Government acting as a chumocracy, mixing public business with the private interests of their friends and supporters, run much more widely than the supply of PPE during the pandemic.

The public interest is not now served by the Government throwing up legal barriers to those we have tasked with investigating, thoroughly and impartially, how decisions were made on matters of massive public interest. The Minister has a job to do and she has been sent here to defend her Government’s latest actions, but I hope that she will at least acknowledge that this is not a bolt from the blue but an inevitable consequence of how her colleagues have been working for far too long.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)]

I start by agreeing with the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, that it is difficult to answer questions when we have not had the benefit of the Statement. It was a long Statement in the other place.

WhatsApp: Ministerial Communications

Debate between Lord Allan of Hallam and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Wednesday 8th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I will not be drawn on the individual case, but I will point to what the Government are doing and also refer the noble Lord, who is a friend, to the Covid inquiry. My understanding is that Mr Hancock has said that he will ensure that all appropriate material is given to the inquiry, and I understand that the Department of Health and Social Care is ensuring just that.

[Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)]

I understand that staff in departments such as the DWP and HMRC already have guidance that tells them very clearly that they should not use their personal phones for business purposes. This creates a very clear separation between personal and public correspondence. Can the Minister confirm whether the advice she was given included clear strictures on using personal devices for public purposes and, if not, why not?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

The answer is that it did.

Infected Blood Inquiry

Debate between Lord Allan of Hallam and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)]

My Lords, Sir Robert Francis’s study into a framework for paying compensation starts with powerful testimony from those who were given infected blood products and those around them whom this affected deeply. Members in another place shared moving stories of their constituents in responding to this Statement last week.

This all points to the absolute urgency of getting compensation to the people who we are morally obligated to help, as Ministers now have agreed. We need to keep coming back to the timetable for establishing the full scheme and press the Government to move as quickly as humanly possible. I certainly echo the point from the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, that we need a timetable to give people certainty.

There has been considerable political turmoil this year, but it is good to know that the machinery of government kept working and has now been able to deliver the interim payments that Sir Brian Langstaff asked for in July. It would be helpful if the Minister could reiterate for the record what I understand the policy to be: that there are no circumstances under which any of those interim payments could be required to be paid back and that they could go up from £100,000 once the final scheme is in place, but they will never go down. That reassurance needs to be repeated for those applying to the scheme.

Could the Minister also ensure that recipients of compensation are properly protected as they claim for and receive these payments? We know that, sadly, there are some less moral people out there who will seek to take advantage of those entitled to compensation in any such scheme, either through excessive charges to support them through the claim process or by defrauding or seeking to defraud them once they have received the funds. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that we minimise the risks of financial exploitation of claimants during and after the claim process?

Sir Robert’s report included a recommendation for an arm’s-length body to be set up to manage the compensation scheme. This seems sensible as a way to build confidence from all parties concerned and shows lessons being learned from previous schemes such as the Windrush scheme, where there was a breakdown in confidence which damaged the scheme. Are the Government looking at how such a body could be set up? Are they doing that now under the committee that I understand is being led by Sue Gray in the Cabinet Office, to ensure that setting up such a body does not itself become a source of further delay if this is what the inquiry eventually recommends?

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)]

My Lords, I start by saying that this is an unimaginably awful matter causing heartbreak and pain to all those directly and indirectly affected. It is a deeply shaming episode, as the noble Baroness rightly said. It dates back many years to the 1970s and 1980s and is a tragedy that has affected all Governments. We have to resolve it and move forward. The noble Baroness did not mention the need to ease the stigma and to be more vocal about the awful experiences of those involved and their loved ones, especially a long time ago when HIV/AIDS was less well understood.

The noble Lord, Lord Allan, asked about the interim payments, which we have all welcomed. It was an amazing effort by the machine once those were recommended to make them all by the end of October. They can only go up; they cannot come down. I think that was the reassurance he was seeking.

The noble Baroness had a number of questions. I think the first was on whether we can commit to publishing a full timetable for compensation. Clearly, that is something we would like to do. As she will understand from the Statement, it was the Government’s intention to publish our response to the compensation framework, and timings and so on, alongside the study, but the sheer complexity and the interdependencies have meant we are not able to set a timetable or, to answer one of her other points, to respond on all of the other recommendations in Sir Francis’s extremely good and perceptive report on compensation until we have the report from Sir Brian. I understand that that is expected next summer—I cannot say anything more explicit—and clearly, we will need to respond. The plans we have put in place will ensure that we are ready to respond.

The group led by Sue Gray was referenced, and that is progressing work on many fronts. This is a priority for government, so she is bringing together Permanent Secretaries—obviously the prime group of the Treasury, HMRC, the Cabinet Office and DHSC is leading on that, but it also involves the DWP, DLUHC, the devolved nations and others, as necessary. Preparations are being made so that, once the complexities are resolved with Sir Brian’s report, we will be able to move quickly.

Clearly the Government want to work with the people affected. I should take the opportunity to say how amazing the APPG has been, and I thank Dame Diana and Sir Peter Bottomley, and I know that in this House the noble Baronesses, Lady Finlay and Lady Meacher, have been involved. Both Sir Brian and Sir Robert have also consulted, and as we get closer to paying out more compensation, there will be more work with the various groups—I am glad to see the noble Lord, Lord Allan, nodding. To pick up some of the wording of the report by Sir Robert, the schemes have to be collaborative, sympathetic and as free of stress as possible for these people who have had unending disappointments. But they also have to be simple and easy to access, and consistent with our fight against fraud and scammers. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Allan, made that point; again, it is high on our agenda.

We are working across government to ensure that we can deliver on the recommendations of the report. As I have already explained, it is a high-level, cross-government working group; it meets monthly and it is gearing up, thinking about the IT systems and how we ensure that we contact people who might want to seek compensation once we know the precise framework, and make sure that everyone can respond. Publicity is very important with these public issues, and noble Lords across the House can help with that, so that people know what is happening.

The final point I do not think I have covered is whether there should be an ALB, which is one of the recommendations in Sir Robert’s report. We are of course giving that careful consideration. It is clear how important it is that any vehicle for delivery of a compensation scheme carries the trust of the victims—I cannot make that point strongly enough—but it also has to achieve the objective of delivering compensation in a speedy and efficient manner. There are also issues regarding legislation and so on, which the Gray group is looking at.

To conclude, we are doing everything that we can within the constraints that I have described, and which the Paymaster-General, who spoke in the House last week, was very honest about. We will make progress statements to the House so that we do not repeat the difficulties of the past. We are absolutely determined as a Government to give this priority and get it sorted. This has been a serious failure and we have to compensate those who have had such a ghastly time.