Calls for new approach to resilience and well-being

The House of Lords COVID-19 Committee has called for improved resilience and preparedness for a volatile and uncertain future.

The committee concludes that the pandemic has shown that our current understanding of resilience and preparedness is not fit-for-purpose and that a focus on robust supply chain and critical national infrastructure alone will not secure the national resilience that we so desperately need.

To be resilient, the report argues that the UK must have strong social capital and community connection within, and between, diverse communities, higher levels of social and economic equity, and resilient and adaptable public services.

To achieve this, the committee says that now is the time to reconsider the role and purpose of the state, by placing a new emphasis on governing for the long-term and new focus on well-being. Any new system of government must have the well-being of its people at its heart – moving from a Welfare State to a Wellbeing State.

The committee’s report sets out a range of recommendations to improve resilience and preparedness, reconsider the role and purpose of the state, and move from a Welfare State to a Wellbeing State. This includes: prioritising narrowing the gap in healthy life expectancy so that no one group is left behind; renewed efforts to build trusted relationships between the state and all groups within society, including racial and religious groups, young people, disabled people and others; and building social capital through community-level public service innovation.

Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho, chair of the committee, said: “As we begin the process of living with the pandemic it reminds us that the cycle of politics does not cope well with long-term problems. This is a wake-up call which must be heeded. Political leaders and policy makers must begin to think about ways to deal with long-term issues, where the problems and possible solutions will extend beyond the life of one parliamentary regime or single electoral cycle.

“Our ability to plan and to co-ordinate has been shown to be wanting; now is the opportunity for us to reset the state and build it back to be more adaptable, more resilient, more devolved, and more collaborative so we can effectively deal with any disasters, crises or systemic shocks that may occur in the future. Wellbeing and resilience must be at the heart of this reset for it to be successful.”