Inclusive Society

Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick Excerpts

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, on securing this important debate on how government, both central and local, and the community and voluntary sector should work with the public to achieve a more inclusive society in this pandemic world. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, that now is the time to go back to Beveridge and update it and create that “better place for all” as we learn the lessons from the pandemic.

The noble Lords, Lord Brooke and Lord McKenzie, referred to the British Academy policy document published in March, which is instructive because it provides all of us with a structural framework for how that rebuilding should take place and how the reshaping of our society should take place.

However, to be clear, prior to the pandemic we did not have an inclusive society, with a growing percentage of people with a dependency on food banks, piercing levels of austerity, poverty, marginalisation and a social security system that seems fixated with penalising those least able to pay. The Government talk about levelling up—surely this should mean the development of greater levels of equality through the location of services, and addressing unemployment and investment issues, outside London and working with the devolved Administrations to bring about better levels of social inclusion and cohesion.

It is worth noting that attendees at a United Nations summit more than 25 years ago defined an inclusive society as a “society for all”. Policy responses have been introduced in the years since, although questions remain about how progress can be measured. The Covid-19 pandemic has represented a setback towards realising that goal in many areas, but there is now a compelling need to address the further development of a more inclusive, cohesive and fairer society as we move out of the pandemic, with the implementation of the vaccination programme, intensive testing and tracing programmes, and the government’s policy objectives for the levelling-up agenda.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has noted that the Covid-19 pandemic is

“affecting every aspect of our societies”.

It is also revealing the extent of exclusion that the most marginalised members of society experience. In that March report, the British Academy looked at the long-term societal impacts of Covid. It covered several areas: increased importance of local communities; low and unstable levels of trust; widening geographical inequalities; exacerbated structural inequalities; worsened health outcomes; and growing health inequalities. More importantly, the report stated:

“The pandemic offers an opportunity to adapt and improve the resilience and responsiveness of our economic structures. A different economic structure could be more inclusive, sustainable and green.”


In view of the challenges set down today by many noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, can the Minister indicate what the Government’s real policy and operational objectives are in terms of the levelling-up agenda for the location of resources and investment to bring about social inclusion and cohesion?