Chapter 1: The context for pandemic decision-making – key structures and concepts

Introduction

¶1.1. This chapter provides the context for the decisions that were taken during the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic – namely, the complex devolutional structures and the key scientific concepts.

Key structures

Devolution in the UK

¶1.2. The UK has a complex structure of government. The Prime Minister is the leader of the UK government and is ultimately responsible for all policy it implements and decisions it takes. The Prime Minister is supported by the UK Cabinet, which is made up of the senior members of government. Government departments and their agencies are responsible for putting government policy into practice. While some departments (such as the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Ministry of Defence) cover the whole of the UK, others do not. This is because some aspects of government are devolved to the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive (also referred to in this Report as the Executive Committee). The UK Parliament typically does not legislate on devolved matters without the consent of the relevant devolved legislatures: the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly.¹¹ The Sewel Convention is a constitutional principle stating that the UK Parliament will not normally legislate on matters within devolved competence without the consent of the relevant devolved legislature.

¶1.3. The devolved administrations are responsible for many domestic policy issues and their legislatures have law-making powers for those areas. For example, the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive are responsible for education, culture, the environment and transport in their respective nations. Critically for this Inquiry, they are also responsible for policy and laws in relation to health.²² INQ000083096

¶1.4. In the UK, powers that are not specifically reserved to the UK Parliament and UK government are devolved as follows:

In Scotland and Wales, the devolution model follows a 'reserved powers' approach, where all powers are devolved unless explicitly reserved to the UK Parliament.
In Northern Ireland, powers that are retained by the UK government, such as foreign policy and defence, are categorised as 'excepted'. 'Reserved' powers in Northern Ireland have a different meaning from elsewhere in the UK. These are areas (such as firearms and telecommunications) where legislative authority generally rests with the UK Parliament, but the Northern Ireland Assembly may legislate with the consent of the UK government's Secretary of State for Northern

¶Ireland. Powers that are fully devolved are categorised as 'transferred' – this is where the Northern Ireland Assembly has full legislative competence and is equivalent to 'devolved matters' in Scotland and Wales.

¶Professor Ailsa Henderson, expert witness on devolution and the UK's response to Covid-19, told the Inquiry that the differing degrees of autonomy among the devolved legislatures stemmed from their distinct origins, varying public appetite for devolution and the ad hoc, reactive changes to the devolution settlements over time.³³ INQ000269372_0010 para 26

¶1.5. The arrangements for the governance of Northern Ireland are distinct because they bring together politicians of different parties who are in opposition to each other (in terms of their designation as nationalist or unionist), along with politicians who are not aligned in this way. Together, they form an Executive Committee. This is a form of coalition government – but it is a multi-party, 'coerced' coalition.⁴⁴ INQ000472398_0006 Because of the way power is shared among the political parties, there is no unified government of the day. Each Executive Department operates with significant autonomy, and individual ministers have authority to determine policy and operations within their departments without needing to maintain a collective Cabinet position. These power-sharing arrangements are not merely a framework for devolved governance but are fundamental to sustaining peace in Northern Ireland. They hold the highest constitutional significance, stemming from the Belfast Agreement of 1998 (also known as the Good Friday Agreement) and endorsed through referendums. This Inquiry does not seek to question or critique these arrangements, their structure or their rationale.

Local services

¶1.6. Local services are the responsibility of local councils and local authorities, as well as a number of directly elected regional mayors in England who chair combined authorities (ie groups of local councils) with specified functions and budgets. As set out in the Inquiry's Module 1 Report, this includes regional and local activities related to civil emergencies such as pandemics.⁵⁵ Module 1: The resilience and preparedness of the United Kingdom, UK Covid-19 Inquiry, July 2024, Chapter 2 (https://covid19.public-inquiry.uk/documents/module-1-full-report)

Understanding the implications for a public health emergency

¶1.7. In a public health emergency, relevant powers span both reserved and devolved areas. For example, emergency powers, air transport and immigration are reserved to the UK government, while policing and justice are reserved in Wales but devolved in Northern Ireland and Scotland.⁶⁶ For full lists of reserved matters, see Schedule 5 of the Scotland Act 1998 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/46/ contents); Schedules 2 and 3 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/47/contents); and Schedule 7A of the Government of Wales Act 2006 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/32/contents). Key public services in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland affected by the pandemic – in particular, public health services and education – are the responsibility of the devolved administrations.

¶1.8. However, some devolved policy areas relevant to public health emergencies (such as health) may overlap with reserved policy areas (such as UK border control). Professor Daniel Wincott (expert witness on Welsh Government core political and administrative decision-making) referred to this overlap as the "jagged edges of devolution",⁷⁷ INQ000411927_0020 para 44 while Professor Paul Cairney (expert witness on Scottish Government core decision-making and political governance) noted that the boundaries between reserved and devolved responsibilities are "blurry" and "overlaps are inevitable when problems transcend individual policy sectors".⁸⁸ INQ000274154_0005 para 1

¶1.9. In addition to this overlap, the legal powers to deal with the spread of infection are set out in different pieces of legislation for the four nations of the UK. The decision to use pre-existing public health legislation and the bespoke Coronavirus Act 2020, which was passed with the consent of the devolved legislatures – rather than the UK-wide Civil Contingencies Act 2004 – meant the response to Covid-19 followed devolved responsibilities rather than being managed more centrally.⁹⁹ Coronavirus Act 2020 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2020/7/contents); Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/36/contents) As considered in more detail in Chapter 13: Legislation and enforcement, in Volume II, this had advantages and disadvantages. However, the pandemic necessitated shared responsibility between the UK government and devolved administrations.

¶1.10. The UK government relied on a range of decision-making structures and bodies to address the crisis, including:

COBR: convened to manage crises and coordinate responses across government departments, it acted as the central hub for decision-making in emergency scenarios;
the UK Cabinet and the Cabinet Office: responsible for overseeing the pandemic's strategic direction, ensuring consistency across departments and managing the broader implications of policy decisions;
Ministerial Implementation Groups: tasked with translating high-level policy decisions into operational plans and ensuring their timely execution; and
the Covid-19 Operations Committee (Covid-O) and Covid-19 Strategy Committee (Covid-S): Cabinet sub-committees that were created to streamline and coordinate the pandemic response, focusing on specific aspects of crisis management and ensuring alignment between government departments.

¶1.11. In parallel, each devolved administration established its own mechanisms to manage health and emergency responses, reflecting the devolved nature of public health responsibilities. This was done as follows:

The Scottish Government led the pandemic response in Scotland, with scientific and technical advice provided by the Covid-19 Advisory Group and oversight from the Scottish Parliament.
In Wales, the Welsh Government coordinated efforts through the Welsh Cabinet, with scientific and technical advice provided by the Technical Advisory Cell and the Technical Advisory Group.
The Department of Health (Northern Ireland) was the lead department for the response to the pandemic, and many of the operational issues that arose fell within its remit. However, the power-sharing arrangements require matters that are cross-cutting, significant or controversial to be referred to the Northern Ireland Executive Committee. Many of the important decisions taken during the pandemic fell within these categories. For that reason, the Northern Ireland Executive Committee, albeit with significant input and advice from the Department of Health, had a central role in determining the response to the pandemic in Northern Ireland.

¶1.12. Each of the devolved administrations has a Chief Medical Officer. The Scottish and Welsh governments also each have a Chief Scientific Adviser. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the Northern Ireland Executive did not have a cross-government adviser but had two departmental Chief Scientific Advisers. They worked with Professor (later Sir) Christopher Whitty (Chief Medical Officer for England from October 2019) and Professor Sir Patrick Vallance (later Lord Vallance of Balham), Government Chief Scientific Adviser from April 2018 to March 2023, to provide coordinated advice to government departments in all four nations.

¶1.13. There are a number of expert scientific advisory groups at UK level to advise the Chief Medical Officers for the four nations, health authorities and the devolved administrations directly. During the Covid-19 pandemic, these included the following:

the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE): comprising leading scientists and experts, SAGE provided evidence-based advice that informed the UK government's key decision-making throughout the pandemic;
the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (which became the Scientific Pandemic Infections Group on Modelling in 2022) (SPI-M): a sub-group of SAGE that provided expert advice to the UK government on Covid-19, based on infectious disease modelling and epidemiology; and
the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG): an expert committee of the Department of Health and Social Care that advised the Chief Medical Officer for England and, through them, ministers and government departments.

¶1.14. Although effective coordination between the UK government and devolved administrations was essential, established mechanisms for intergovernmental relations, such as the Joint Ministerial Committee – a set of committees that comprises ministers from the UK government and devolved administrations – were not used. Instead, at the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic, intergovernmental coordination was intended to function through COBR meetings and regular ministerial discussions. Ad hoc mechanisms were also introduced, including regular meetings chaired by Michael Gove MP (later Lord Gove), Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster from July 2019 to September 2021 and Minister for the Cabinet Office from February 2020 to September 2021, with the First Ministers of Scotland and Wales, as well as both the First Minister and deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland.

¶1.15. The pandemic therefore revealed both the strengths and challenges of the UK's devolved system. While devolution enabled tailored responses to local circumstances, it also exposed the limitations of ad hoc coordination and the lack of institutionalised mechanisms for intergovernmental cooperation during a national crisis. Divergent approaches, overlapping responsibilities and inconsistencies in communication highlighted the need for clearer frameworks to balance flexibility with unity. Future public health emergencies will require strengthened intergovernmental structures to ensure both effective collaboration and the ability to address regional needs.