Exercise Cygnus

Baroness Wheeler Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell [V]]

I assure the noble and right reverend Lord that operation Cygnus happened in 2016 and the recommendations were completed by spring 2018. However, it is possible that nothing could have prepared us for the ferocity of Covid. Operation Cygnus prepared us for a flu pandemic and not for something with the savagery of Covid-19.

[Baroness Wheeler (Lab) [V]]

The Secretary of State for Health said in relation to Cygnus and the failure to implement key recommendations and warnings on PPE stocks, ventilators, testing and tracing, and scaling up the public health system, that

“everything that was appropriate to do was done.”

To demonstrate this clearly and with evidence, why are the Government not prepared to be open and transparent and to publish the report and recommendations, or to show what action they took on findings of two subsequent major planning exercises with similar warnings: Exercise Iris in 2018, covering a possible pandemic in Scotland, and last year’s crucial national security risk assessment?

[Lord Bethell [V]]

My Lords, it is necessary for the preparations for such civil emergencies to be made in a confidential fashion so that the unthinkable can be thought and plans can be made in a trusted and benign environment. Publication of these reports is not in the national interest and we do not have plans to publish them in the future.