Unravelling the Covid State: From parliamentary democracy to the regulatory state?

Britain’s past and current ‘Plan B’ responses to Covid-19 marks the emergence of a new phase in the growth of ‘the regulatory state’ – a new report published by Civitas suggests – in which, crucial decision-making is outsourced to leading quangos.

In this new report, Jim McConalogue finds ‘Future reforms need to recognise that the Covid-19 government decision-making process has appeared to be arbitrary, opaque, inadequately scrutinised and subject to pressure by insulated expertise within central state committees and quangos, beyond regular means of democratic accountability.’

Counter our dependence on scientific advisers

• The author finds ‘that ministers’ near-total dependence on one committee, namely SAGE, has produced a network so much greater than an advisory group.’

• ‘The subsequent structures put in place between minsters, SAGE and the Cabinet Office produced a set of policies that often avoided many of our democratic standards and conventions, and should be reformed without delay’.

• ‘It is for the Cabinet Office to ensure that the Covid-19 Cabinet committees are provided with an institutional framework that integrates health, social, economic and other advice in coordinating the response to the pandemic.’

• The report argues for the roles of SAGE and its subcommittees to made ‘more directly accountable to the public and parliament’.

• It argues that we should ‘invite a vastly expanded panel of lay members – from retired GPs through to former parish chairpersons to finance managers – to serve on their boards in order to respond to particular policies or guidance in the documentation presented.’

• To remedy the fact that SAGE did not have a parallel specific economic group, the report argues that this ‘should suggest to the government that they build a parallel committee of economists and social scientists. A Social & Economic Advisory Group for Emergencies (SEAGE) would provide economic and social advice to support government decision-makers during emergencies.’

• ‘The importance of social scientists and economists being involved is that they should illustrate the public trade-offs – setting out a balance of harms – for each of the different courses of action that could be pursued.’