"Real terms cuts and underinvestment in public services from 2010 to 2020 undermined the UK's ability to provide an effective and coherent response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Safe staffing levels in health and social care were damaged by multiple years of pay caps and pay freezes, which impeded recruitment and increased staff turnover. This left both health and social care dangerously understaffed when the pandemic began.

Public service capacity was damaged by steep cuts to almost every part of the public sector. In 2020 when the pandemic hit, spending per capita was still lower than in 2010 in social care, transport, housing, childcare, schools, higher education, police, fire services, and environmental protection. This limited the ability of services to contribute to civil contingencies, and to continue essential activities effectively such children's education.

A strong social safety was damaged by direct cuts to social security through benefit freezes, and by reforms that reduced entitlement and narrowed eligibility to fewer people. This increased poverty levels, which was associated with greater risks of exposure and transmission, and greater levels of vulnerability to more serious health consequences from Covid illness.

Robust health and safety enforcement was compromised by cuts that decimated public health and safety regulators, and confusion over authorities remit. During the pandemic, instead of raising the number of inspections and enforcement notices, they fell to an all-time low, despite widespread workplace linked cases of infection.

The Covid-19 Inquiry provides the UK people and our government with a vital opportunity to learn important lessons that could save lives in a future pandemic."

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