Source · Select Committees · Health and Social Care Committee
Recommendation 98
98
Not Addressed
SAGE provides advice to Ministers, whose responsibility it is to make policy decisions.
Conclusion
SAGE provides advice to Ministers, whose responsibility it is to make policy decisions. However, witnesses to our Committees confirmed that during the early months of the pandemic the Government acted on the scientific advice it was given. Sir Patrick Vallance, for example, told the Science and Technology Committee on 25 March 2020 that there had been no significant disagreement between the Government and its scientific advisers on anything material.145
Government response summary AI-generated
The government provides a generic response welcoming the report and acknowledging the scale of the pandemic and the need to learn lessons, but does not address the specific conclusion regarding SAGE advice and government decision-making.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government · verbatim extract
Not Addressed
The government welcomes the opportunity to respond to the recommendations made by the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee and Science and Technology Committee in their joint report ‘Coronavirus: Lessons Learned to Date’, published on 12 October 2021.1 As the report recognises, COVID-19 has been the biggest crisis our country has faced in generations, and the greatest peacetime challenge in a century. The scale and extent of the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic have stretched across government and the government agrees that lessons should be learned. The government has worked relentlessly to respond to the pandemic, taking quick and decisive action to save lives and livelihoods and protect our National Health Service (NHS). This includes, of course, our world-leading vaccine roll-out programme. Throughout, we have adapted and learned lessons from the COVID-19 experience, in order to inform our preparedness for future crises.
Read the full response on Parliament ↗