MSPS must follow MPS’ lead on Covid

The Scottish Parliament's committees must take this chance to redeem themselves

Despite being chaired by two senior Conservative MPS, two Commons’ committees have produced a joint report into the UK government’s handling of the Covid pandemic that does not shirk from the truth, however hard it may be for Boris Johnson to read.

The report, by the Health and Social Care, and Science and Technology Committees, describes a “fatalistic” decision to adopt what was effectively a strategy of “herd immunity by infection” – largely because it was thought that the public would not accept a prolonged period of lockdown – as a “serious early error”.

The government failed to consider the “emphatic and rigorous approach” to stop the virus from spreading that was adopted by many East and South-east Asian countries, where deaths have been much lower.

One judgement in particular – about the number of deaths in care homes – will chime with many in Scotland. While it was “understandable” that ministers moved quickly to avoid hospitals being overwhelmed, the report concluded that failing to manage the process of transferring elderly patients to care homes with sufficient “rigour” and failing to test care staff “led to many thousands of deaths which could have been avoided”.

The initial decisions on lockdown and social distancing “rank as one of the most important public health failures the United Kingdom has ever experienced”, it added.

So it appears that Jeremy Hunt and Greg Clark, the former Cabinet ministers who chair the two committees, have put national interest above party loyalty.

But it may strike some people as odd that two SNP MPS, as members of the committees, have sat in judgement on the handling of the Covid pandemic in one part of the UK, but not Scotland.

So the question now is whether the same process will happen here.

There has been much written about the failure of the Scottish Parliament’s committees to be as robust as their Westminster counterparts. However, they now have a chance to redeem themselves by holding a parliamentary inquiry with similar speed, thoroughness and impartiality.

Politicians may fear the apportioning of blame, but the rest of us would like to think that such a process might save lives in the event of another public health emergency or a resurgence of the current one.