Chamber and committees

We have touched on this before, but I am interested in the significant impact that the attitude to work and the work-life balance, and changing working patterns such as hybrid working, are having on the city centre workforce. Are we going to have to redesign city centres? In this meeting, four witnesses are appearing remotely and one is in the room. Previously, when you had a business meeting, you were in a coffee shop somewhere or you had lunch or whatever, but that does not happen as much any more. Are we going to have to rethink the way in which we employ people in city centres? I will go to Dr Randolph first.

Good morning, panel. On that point about the impact of long Covid on the economics of the labour market, do you agree that it is difficult for the statistics to highlight those people with long Covid who do not come into the office but who work part time from home and so are still potentially partially active? There are suggestions that 80,000-plus people live with long Covid, which presents a limitation. How do we look at the statistics and plug that point into our thinking? I will ask David Freeman, as he brought this up.

Does anyone else want to come in? That was my final question.

It has been interesting to listen to the discussion, although it has made my questions more complicated.

I want to ask about the impact of early retirement. Tony Wilson mentioned that furlough had acted almost as a driver of early retirement. There are certain industries with a higher age demographic. For instance, a friend of mine owns a haulage company, many of whose employees are 50 plus or—Professor Fothergill mentioned this—from eastern Europe, and especially Poland, strangely enough. During furlough, a lot of those eastern Europeans went home and did not come back, because there is a shortage of drivers in eastern Europe, so the company has to pay more. After furlough, many of the drivers over 50 did not come back or came back to do only a couple of shifts a week, because that gave them a better work-life balance. As a result, the wages in that industry have grown exponentially.

I will start with you, Tony, as you raised the issue. Have you done any work on the impact that early retirement has had on specific industries?

Good morning. Professor Morris, in your introduction, you mentioned that a global pandemic is one of the highest risks that we continually face. I think that we always knew that a global pandemic would happen at some point. It is kind of like an asteroid strike—you just hope that it does not happen during your tenure. It is fair to say that most, if not all, Governments were not properly prepared for it. As we watched the pandemic move around the globe, we recognised that age, obesity, diabetes and other conditions made people more vulnerable. Therefore, in recognising that we need to prepare better, are you considering a more focused approach to dealing with the pandemic and where behavioural science fits in to that, both from a Government perspective and with regard to what we can expect to ask our population to do?

Same.

Cabinet secretary, I fancy putting a question to you that I put to Professor Morris. You alluded to this. A global pandemic is continually—and it has been—in the high-risk category. My analogy was that we know that an asteroid will hit the earth at some time, but we really hope that that does not happen during our tenure.

Governments across the world have shown that they were not as prepared as they could have been for a pandemic. As we watched the pandemic move across the world towards us, we started to learn that age, obesity, diabetes and other conditions made people more vulnerable and meant that they were more affected by Covid. In hindsight—hindsight is 20:20, and we have to use it as we plan—I wonder whether we can use that information and be more focused on how we can prepare for a pandemic in the future, given that we recognise that vulnerability had such a huge impact on Covid outcomes. Can we slim down our approach?

Thank you, convener. I am delighted to have the opportunity to ask Professor Morris another question.

If you were to ask a clinician how we prevent the spread of a pathogen, they would say, “Don’t go outside and don’t meet anybody else. That will definitely do it.” There is a tension between the pure health science that is involved in dealing with a pandemic and what we are continually learning about the non-Covid-related impact of the Covid response. How is that being baked into your thought process and the development of the study?

Yes.

That is very helpful, cabinet secretary. I decided to take that line of questioning because the Christie commission report has been out for some time. Quite frankly, it is a failure of all of us in this place that it has not been implemented in the way that it should have been.

In evidence to the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee on health inequalities, it was noted that the Covid pandemic had exacerbated health inequalities that were already on a rising trajectory, and concern was expressed that we would just go back to business as usual. At a health inequalities reception that I hosted a couple of days ago, one of the deep-end doctors described the delivery of our health services in a way that I had never heard before—they said that they are designed on demand, not on need. I am warmed by the thought that we might have an opportunity here to grasp a hold of the way in which we deliver health services in order to tackle this kind of health inequality, but is the Government really committed to taking it? You will know of the inverse care law, which is that the 20 per cent of our population who do not access health care are the ones who are most in need. How is the Government going to tackle that?