Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Tuesday 28th April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

I agree with the noble Lord that transparency, including on the evidence informing the views of SAGE, is important in helping to maintain the public’s trust and helping to grow understanding of the disease. As I said earlier, and as is normal procedure except in cases of national security, the minutes of SAGE will be published at the end of the pandemic.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, the Government have said that they are following the science, but SAGE does not include people from three very relevant sciences: public health, social science and molecular virology. Why not? Does the Prime Minister read the full minutes of SAGE? If not, who briefs him? Is it the Chief Medical Officer or is it Dominic Cummings, whose understanding of the deliberations may be very different?

[Lord Callanan]

As I said earlier, SAGE does not have a specific membership. The people attending SAGE vary depending on the subjects under discussion; something like 100 participants in total can be called on. BEIS holds a central list of appropriate experts in the different sciences, academia and industry. They are brought into particular meetings when their expertise is required, and that is the call of the Chief Medical Officer and the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser.