Covid-19 Pandemic: Commemoration

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Thursday 13th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

The noble Lord raises a really important point. A number of noble Lords will be aware that I had the privilege to work on the response in London. People who I was working with, at the same time as they were leading that response, also lost loved ones. For example, when I went to the wall a couple of weeks ago, I looked for the heart remembering Diana Walker, who was the mother of the woman who was my researcher during that dreadful period. How do you get over a loss of that kind? We are aiming to work with a range of organisations, including bereavement organisations, to make sure that we get it right. We need to get it right so that we commemorate what happened, but also so that, as a Government, we recognise that for so many people the pandemic and the devastating impact it had on people’s lives are still very much part of their present.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, from these Benches, we too send our remembrance to all those who have died and their families. We send our thanks to so many people across the country who went beyond the call of duty to keep people safe and alive and to keep the country running during the pandemic. The commission’s report talks about preparedness. I ask about one specific issue. What extra help and provision will be given to local public health departments across the country, because they are the ones who have the data and the resources of shoes on the ground and can make a big difference in such problems to do with pandemic or local emergencies?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I am happy to meet the noble Lord to discuss this issue on a national level. I appreciate that he was asking about public health officials at a local level, but we have been conducting a pandemic preparedness exercise at a national level: Exercise Pegasus. Clearly, a huge amount is delivered locally, but I am happy to set up a meeting for the noble Lord with either me or the relevant officials, so that he gets that level of detail that I unfortunately do not have before me today.