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

Lord Bishop of London Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2023 Grand Committee

[The Lord Bishop of London]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. First, it is a pleasure to be participating in an important debate on this report. I thank all those involved in the committee, particularly the chair, for all the work they have done. This report rightly encourages us to increase our understanding of the lessons we can learn from the pandemic and to act on them in having a long-term view of the future.

This is a crucial topic. I support the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, in her view that our electoral system does not naturally lend itself to having a long-term view of the future. I shall focus today on recommendations 1 and 2. They are, in fact, interconnected. Those topics are first, inequalities, following the noble Lord, Lord Patel, particularly in health, and, secondly, community engagement.

Health inequalities have been a focus of many of my contributions in your Lordships’ House, and I welcome the understanding that the report demonstrates of why addressing them is so important. It says:

“The pandemic has shown that national level resilience is undermined by financial inequalities and health inequalities, which are often exacerbated by racial injustice”.


The moral argument for reducing health inequalities is an important one which continues to motivate me. However, the pragmatic argument is also shown here. If we are starkly unequal in our health, we as a society are more vulnerable to health and other challenges that we face. There is also an economic argument: improving the health of a population and reducing inequalities increases the ability of the population to contribute economically.

I do not need to impress on noble Lords the seriousness of the health inequalities we face. The gaping differences in life expectancy and healthy life expectancy persist. The trends in health inequalities were further exacerbated by the pandemic, as already mentioned. The Beyond the Data report, written by Professor Kevin Fenton and Public Health England in 2020, highlighted that during the pandemic some ethnic groups were more likely to be exposed to Covid-19 and, once infected, were more likely to contract a serious infection and die.

In their response to recommendation 1 of the Covid-19 Committee’s report, the Government pointed to the levelling-up White Paper and promised a White Paper on health disparities. I was and remain disappointed that the critical work that has been done on both these pieces of work has not been brought forward. In the absence of this, will the Minister tell us what the Government are doing to prioritise reducing health inequalities, especially since the report lays out so well why doing so is key to our preparedness and resilience as a country?

Secondly, the report places a heavy focus on sustained and long-term engagement with communities. This is an extremely welcome and important part of what is required for resilience. Recommendation 2 of the report is a call for

“Renewed efforts to build trusted relationships between the state and all groups within society, including racial and religious groups, young people, disabled people and others”.


In their response to this, the Government said that they are already acting to build trust in local communities. As an example, they said,

“the government established vaccination centres in 50 religious venues, worked with ethnic minority celebrities & influencers”,

and so on. Although I commend the setting up of vaccination clinics in these spaces, this is not a means of gaining trust but the fruit of trust.

After the worst of the pandemic, I convened a health inequalities action group to examine the role that faith groups had played in the pandemic and the role they could play in reducing health inequalities across London in the long term. During the town hall events that were held as part of our work, we heard stories of faith groups stepping in to promote health-seeking behaviour and provide for their communities during the pandemic. We heard that faith leaders hold the trust of their communities, often much more than government or other civic bodies. The Government’s health inequalities strategy, Core20PLUS5, shows us the importance of “plus”, that is, those who are not thought of by or engaged with public services.

There is a faith group in every community. Professor Fenton’s Beyond the Data report explains that faith leaders often have the understanding and trust of their communities. This trust is key. As the adage goes, “Change happens at the speed of trust”. However, in our work on inequalities, we found that since the vaccination centres were set up during the pandemic, the Government are no longer engaging with the health-promoting work that faith groups do and would like to do. The relationship has not been sustained, and I fear that the value of faith leaders is not recognised, certainly in respect of the significant difference that could be made within health inequalities. Faith leaders continue not to be regularly consulted at a local level and the truth is that there is some work to do to equip local leaders and faith leaders with the tools of engagement. It is in these sustained relationships that our interconnectedness and resilience is realised.

I just want to mention social prescribing. This is another key way that faith groups can be involved in the health of our community, especially in light of the report’s emphasis on well-being. There is an understanding of not just physical or mental well-being in many faith groups, but also of our well-being as whole people with social, emotional and spiritual needs, all of which contribute to health and, I believe, the resilience of our communities. At the heart of the report is our understanding of our mutuality and interconnectedness, which is key to our public health and well-being. In the light of this, will the Minister say what efforts the Government are making systematically to engage with faith groups and maintain relationships with them? What assessment have they made of the key role faith groups can and already play in public health?

Before I finish, I would like to mention the nod in the report to the long-term funding of public services. The Government’s response to recommendations 24 and 25 was to highlight the 10-year mental health plan which, at the time, was in consultation. Of course, that is no longer happening, in favour of the major conditions strategy. There also remain a number of questions about the major conditions strategy in the absence of the health disparities White Paper. I also suggest that spending on public health services does not feel like a long-term investment as things stand.

To conclude, I warmly welcome this report and its recommendations. I hope that we will hear from the Minister about the Government’s ongoing response to this and their efforts to build and hold relationships across difference for a more resilient society.