Covid-19: Lockdown Costs and Benefits Debate
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Lord Allan of Hallam
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Covid-19: Lockdown Costs and Benefits
Lord Allan of Hallam Excerpts(8 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)
My Lords, I am sure the Minister would agree that policy-making is best done based on hard evidence rather than on opinion and speculation. In that respect, can she say whether the Government will publish a review independent of the inquiry of all the many academic studies taking place on the impact of lockdowns in the UK and elsewhere? And—who knows?—whichever side we start on, some of us may even change our minds on the basis of reading such a study.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I agree that hard evidence is important and I too value academic studies. A lot of academic studies and reviews of the pandemic in other countries have already been published and are generally available. We are focusing on responding to the Covid inquiry. Clearly, we hope that it will cover all these different points and make sure that future pandemics are tackled as expeditiously and as well as possible, looking at the broader impacts.