My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice president of the Local Government Association. The report by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, UK Covid-19 Inquiry Module 1: The Resilience and Preparedness of the United Kingdom, is an effective and thorough distillation of the difficulties, and of the failures by Ministers, officials and perhaps even by wider society as well. She and the Minister remind us that we must always remember the bereaved, those who lost their lives, survivors and those on the front line who dedicated their lives, sometimes literally, to dealing with the crisis that we perhaps failed to deal well with. From these Benches, I start by remembering the hundreds of thousands who died, including some Members of your Lordships’ House, families and friends, those who survived and those whose lives changed for ever as a result. This inquiry and its reports must be the action we need to take to ensure that we do not make the same mistakes again.

My noble friend Lady Tyler reminded us of the scandal of hospitals releasing patients into care homes, bringing Covid with them. I remember the “do not resuscitate” orders placed on disabled patients’ files without their or their family’s knowledge, until that was stopped. I thank Ministers for dealing with that as soon as it appeared to be an issue. We also want to thank the many NHS front-line staff as well as the people in public health, local government, transport and food chains, who, in those earliest and darkest days in March and April 2020—often without PPE, and, for many, with enormous sacrifice—ensured that everything could be done to keep the country going. These people were selfless and are our heroes. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser, for her focus on those with cerebral palsy and other disabilities. She is right that they are still living with the consequences.

This inquiry has got the measure of those issues. Recommendations must be accepted and acted on as soon as possible. As others have said, who knows when the next pandemic will arrive? The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, is clear, from the evidence, that it will.

Politicians, civil servants and public officials got it wrong. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, says in the report that

“the UK was ill prepared for dealing with a catastrophic emergency, let alone the coronavirus … pandemic”,

assuming that it would be like flu, as in the 2011 strategy and later: the wrong pandemic. Worse, Ministers instructed civil servants and officials to focus all their efforts on preparations for a no-deal Brexit, so pandemic exercises did not happen at the highest levels and those that did happen were ignored in Whitehall.

The report talks about the lack of leadership, appropriate challenge and oversight. I shall contrast our experience with what happened in Taiwan. I use this as an example to the noble Lord, Lord Frost, of how it is possible to have not just a learning Government but a learning society. That country learned from its previous experience of SARS and other national emergencies, and its pandemic system moved swiftly into action. The key was reminding citizens of what was expected every day and taking them with them. The spread was so low that Taiwan did not have to lock down. Every single day, there was a Minister and an official on TV not doing press conferences, but taking questions live from the public until all the questions were finished every day. Taiwan had six deaths in the first year.

I want also to raise a point on Sweden. Although I have heard the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, make many points about Sweden in the past, the one thing he never mentions is that Sweden’s culture is very like that of the Taiwanese in that the relationship between the governors and the governed is much more trustworthy than we have in this country. I am sure that is one of the main reasons that things worked.

The Taiwanese version of test, trace and isolate, including universal masking being totally accepted and digital technology helping people to isolate, was operated locally. If people were asked to isolate, they had a call every day from someone in their local council or nearby to ask what they needed from the shops or the chemist, and it was brought to their door. People knew they were supported—no civil emergency but a nation working together—and the key to their success was learning from SARS.

So I ask: have we learned from Covid? The noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, recounted the Premier League arrangements made possible by regular testing. He is absolutely right; that is an example of where we did get it right in this country, but we needed to get it right for everyone.

I believe that the recommendations must be accepted and acted on as soon as possible; that is one of the reasons why we need a module now that reports so that work can proceed, advising government, Civil Service, the NHS and other public bodies.

I am so pleased to see the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, in her place. She and I were the two Opposition Front-Benchers in January 2020 and, between us, we saw Covid through with the support of our colleagues. We covered over 580 pieces of legislation in Parliament, and well over 300 of those were on health. I give way to the noble Baroness.