When the world is uncertain you need even greater clarity in the centre so you can react quickly, look ahead, adapt and invest in the things that keep you strong.
“For a nation to be sustainable and strong, the economic policies that support it need to be inclusive and comprehensive. Misery increases discontent, ambivalence and illness. It affects our individual and collective performance and resilience, as well as the strength of our collective decision-making and our national security.” Nancy Hey – Levelling Up Life in the UK Dec 2021
The UK House of Lords Select Committee on Covid-19 was appointed on 13 May 2021 to consider the long-term implications of the Covid-19 pandemic on the economic and social wellbeing of the United Kingdom.
In this blog, our Executive Director Nancy Hey, who was an advisor to the Committee, discusses the report’s findings and outlines why we welcome their overall recommendation – that the UK needs to move towards a Wellbeing State…
The House of Lords Select Committee on Covid-19 is an unusual Select Committee that tried a wide range of approaches to hear from many people, groups and organisations not normally heard. It encouraged Parliament to think more systematically as well as looking at trends and the future.
The Committee looked specifically at the pandemic and its long term impacts specifically focusing on:
- The existing trend of the switch to digital on the drivers of our wellbeing – our mental and physical health, our relationships and our work.
- The impact of the pandemic on parents, babies, children, of parental work and relationships and on education.
- The long-term impact of the pandemic on large towns and smaller cities, focussing particularly on housing and green spaces, the changing nature of employment and public transport provision.
Existing trends are accelerated by such shocks, which means there is a need to improve resilience and preparedness for a volatile and uncertain future and be ready for the likelihood of big unexpected changes to come.
The overall conclusion of the Committee was that our current understanding of national resilience and preparedness is not fit-for-purpose and that the role of the state needs focus on the resilience of our national wellbeing for the long term and to enable, support and coordinate action towards it:
- In making its policy decisions during the pandemic, the Government has had to balance the competing claims of keeping people alive and well, supporting the economy, educating our children, and maintaining the mental health of the community and more.
- It is becoming increasingly clear that to make these decisions well, competing claims like these must be evaluated against some overall criterion. This Committee’s view is that the best criterion, going forward, is the wellbeing of the people.
- This makes it operationally possible to use wellbeing as the criterion for choosing between policy options. This shift is at the core of what we mean when we propose moving to a Wellbeing State.
- Wellbeing is defined by the ONS as “how we are doing, as individuals, communities and as a nation and how sustainable this is for the future”. The definition of a ‘Wellbeing State’ is one which recognises that different people and communities will have different aspirations, and different needs.