Living in a COVID World: A Long-term Approach to Resilience and Wellbeing (COVID-19 Committee Report)

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests, which may not at first appear relevant, but I aim to explain exactly why they are. I co-chair the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages and am vice-president of the Chartered Institute of Linguists.

Since this report was published, back in March 2022, the independent public inquiry chaired by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, has been set up and its work is still in progress. However, while the inquiry chaired by my noble friend Lady Lane-Fox was in action, several issues relating to languages began to emerge. By the time the inquiry chaired by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, started, the APPG on modern languages had assembled sufficient evidence and constructive recommendations to make a submission to that inquiry.

What we said in that submission fits perfectly with the approach and conclusions of the report being debated in terms of resilience, well-being and inclusiveness and, indeed, of the Government’s statement in their response that:

“The government puts fairness at the centre of its policies”.


The response also acknowledges that there are barriers faced by different groups. I hope therefore that the Minister, when she replies, will be able to respond positively to the points and recommendations I will be outlining, as well as to the report itself.

I will flag up the language issues which emerged relating to the impact of Covid on three things: health, education and justice. On health, there are three key points. The first is that the absence or delay of provision of public health messaging in languages other than English may have been a contributing factor to the disproportionate levels of infection and death among some black and ethnic minority communities. The 2023 report by the Race Equality Foundation, UCL and Doctors of the World stated that after two years black and minority ethnic groups were still three to five times more likely than white British adults to be unvaccinated. Alarm among health professionals was widespread as early as April 2020, yet there was an apparent lack of preparedness to provide effective translations. There was also a disconnect between what was claimed to be happening and what was observed to be delivered. For example, in June 2020, Public Health England stated that the 119 phone line offered translations in more than 200 languages and that the Covid-19 App was available in 12 languages.

At the same time, however, the Cabinet Office stated that its strategy for communications in other languages was confined to only nine core languages, with some other information in an additional five. Yet a BBC report found that translation of guidance was delayed for weeks, resulting in some multilingual communities such as Bradford reporting severe confusion, with apparent links to risky behaviour, outbreaks and extended lockdown periods.

In October 2020, the Government’s quarterly report on Covid inequalities talked of improving public health communication for so-called hard-to-reach groups, including people from ethnic minority backgrounds, but strangely also included a footnote which said:

“Translation into foreign languages is discouraged except in extraordinary circumstances because it conflicts with the government’s approach to integration”.


It was also unclear whether information in the right languages, or up-to-date information at all, was available via the Migrant Help service to asylum seekers, which was especially problematic because of inherent risk factors such as hygiene in shared accommodation, difficulty in observing social distancing and the high turnover of people in asylum facilities and refugee centres. Advice and information were available in 12 languages in May 2020, but by June none of the updated guidance on symptoms, for example, was available in translation.

There was also a significant disparity between the Government’s response to the needs of British Sign Language users, as compared with the needs of people who speak little or no English. The former are covered by the AIS, the accessible information standard, but the latter are not—I had not heard of the AIS before either. The APPG agrees with the call from Healthwatch England that the AIS should be amended as part of better preparedness and inclusiveness in future emergency responses.

The second health issue concerns the use of public service interpreters and languages services in NHS Test and Trace. Test and trace operated primarily as an English-only service, despite apparent arrangements to make language services available. The National Audit Office reported that no equality assessment had been carried out by June 2020, but that test and trace had stated that its call centres offered a language interpreter service—a claim that was repeated by Ministers in Parliament. In contrast, a Sky News report in June 2020 reported that DHSC claims that translations were available in up to 130 languages were “brazen” and “bizarre”.

Local government appeared to be no more consistent, publishing advice—in English—that non-English speakers should dial 119 or use the Covid app if they needed to contact NHS Test and Trace in another language. The function of test and trace, as I understand it, was meant to be contacting people proactively, so putting the onus on them to contact the service for information in another language was never really likely to be effective.

The third health issue also concerns public service interpreters working in the NHS. Most are freelance and many complained that no one was taking responsibility for providing them with PPE. The Government funded the provision of 250,000 clear face masks for British Sign Language interpreters, but no equivalent provision was made for spoken-word interpreters. In answers to Oral and Written Questions that I asked, the noble Lord, Lord Bethell said, in July 2020, that individual hospitals were responsible for providing the interpreters with PPE, and, in December, he said that GP practices had a similar obligation. Nevertheless, many public service interpreters found that, in practice, they were expected to turn up having procured their own PPE. The APPG believes that if the provision of language services were included in the accessible information standard, which I mentioned earlier, this kind of support and equipment would in future be more easily identified and forthcoming.

I turn briefly to issues in education that had, and continue to have, an adverse impact on the social well-being of individuals and the economic well-being of the UK. Covid severely exacerbated many existing problems with the teaching and learning of modern languages. This is important because language skills have been shown to be linked to better employment prospects, international relations, security, soft power, social inclusion and, yes, even health. In summary, the impact of Covid was, first, to deprive pupils studying for GCSE or A-level in lesser-taught languages at supplementary schools of the opportunity to take their exams and gain their qualifications, because the system introduced due to Covid of centre-assessed grades awarded by mainstream schools did not apply to them. Official guidance was often unhelpful, and many pupils were charged high fees as private candidates instead. This was systematic inequality and discrimination against bilingual children and those with English as an additional language. The Government, Ofqual, awarding bodies and others need to sort this out in advance of any future comparable emergency.

Secondly, the pandemic produced some unclear and damaging messaging on the mainstream curriculum from the DfE. The guidance for schools published in July 2020 included a list of subjects to be taught in primary schools which omitted modern languages despite it being a statutory key stage 2 subject. The APPG almost immediately began to receive reports from stakeholders that schools were using this guidance as a reason to ditch language teaching altogether. By January 2021, one in five primary schools had suspended language teaching, blaming the pandemic. Following clarification from Ministers, languages remained statutory, but it was left to subject associations, unions and teacher groups to reassure teachers. Both schools and universities suffered by being forced to scale back or drop altogether their international experiences, such as exchanges, trips and the year abroad as part of a degree course. Oral exams were scrapped from GCSEs in 2021. Together with the loss of international experience, this reduced the appeal of a language choice at either A-level or university. The pandemic’s impact on language provision disproportionately affected deprived areas. If the Government are serious about levelling up, language teaching would be a good place to start.

Finally, Covid had an adverse impact on the administration of justice, because lockdown measures prompted a large shift towards remote court hearings, which required the use of public service interpreters in virtual proceedings. A series of major reports found significant concerns about the suitability of remote interpreting, including misunderstandings, delays, poorly performing technology and missed verbal and non-verbal cues. The APPG recommends that the MoJ should caution against any systematic trend towards more widespread use of this practice until and unless the right lessons have been learned from the Covid experience. Guidance on best practice has been provided to the MoJ by the Chartered Institute of Linguists and the Association of Translation Companies. The same concerns and caution also apply to the suitability of remote interpreting in healthcare settings.

I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments on all these issues.