Inclusive Society

Lord Bhatia Excerpts

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Bhatia (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, as the Monitor states:

“We live in unprecedented times. The global community has been broadsided by a pandemic that has upended our lives socially, physically, psychologically, and financially … The impacts of COVID-19 are so profound that even re-emergence … won’t look like 9/11. It won’t look like the 2008-09 global economic collapse. This time it’s different, because it’s intertwined with a global public health threat that … re-centres the public good. The old paradigm that prioritized economic growth above population and community wellbeing has become a massive casualty of the pandemic. COVID-19 exposed an already fragile ecosystem COVID-19 has exposed what many of us already knew: public health is the key driver of everything, from community wellbeing to a thriving economy. If ever there was a time to embrace a Health-in-All-Policies approach to government decision-making, it is now. COVID-19 has exposed the short-sightedness of austerity budgeting, where governments prioritized tax cuts over needed investments in public services—in health and mental health, education, child care, social supports, affordable housing, public transit, long-term care, and more.”


This is not the time for political parties’ views. Maybe the time has come for a national unity Government, as in 1945, when both political parties came together and agreed to deal with the crisis.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Watkins of Tavistock) (CB)]

I call the previous speaker, who has now reconnected: the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer. Lady Miller? No. We will move to the next speaker, the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker.