DHSC Answers to Written Questions

Lord Randall of Uxbridge Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I regret enormously that the noble Lord feels that we have, in any way, avoided the facts. We are absolutely committed to learning the lessons of Covid, which will be profound. I note that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State was in front of the House of Commons Select Committee on health for two and a half hours yesterday, answering exactly those questions. It was an illuminating and important discussion and I very much hope that this House will have an opportunity to do the same.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

My noble friend is, I am sure, aware of the frustrations that the House has just heard. Here is a question to which I do not expect an answer, perhaps, at the moment. How many officials are actually involved in having to provide these answers? Does my noble friend agree that accuracy of responses is more important than speed?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, before the pandemic the parliamentary affairs team was made up of nine people; it has grown to 15. The ministerial correspondence and public inquiries team has grown from 51 people to 111. I think the noble Lord would agree that, at a time when we are trying to deal with test and trace along with programmes on therapeutics, restart, seasonal flu, PPE and vaccines, having 111 people working on correspondence seems the outer limit of what would be proportionate.