Ministers have been active in ensuring a human rights-based approach to the development of our policy response, the legislative approach and the range of guidance in relation to this unprecedented threat to public health.

I have held round-table meetings with the older people’s strategic action forum to ensure that our response has been directly informed by lived experience, while ensuring that the standards and the principles of human rights are integrated into all our policymaking.

Our immediate priorities fund has ensured that members of our older people’s strategic action forum have received more than £1.1 million additional funding to provide direct support for older people during the pandemic.