Thread by @KellerZoe

Treasury Committee report on handling any future pandemic.
- the Govt must produce impact assessments quantifying harms and benefits of each policy choice
- economists, as well as epidemiologists and health experts, should have a seat where social restrictions are decided

https://twitter.com/lukejohnsonrcp/status/1361210281909776390

At present, we do not have the right machinery of govt to make good decisions. Ministers need multidisciplinary, competitive expert advice, and Parliament must be empowered to do its job. Otherwise, scientists will continue to be dragged into the political domain.

We need a set of checks to prevent Govts from overreaching.
Require proper impact assessments, forcing ministers to engage in a rigorous, cross-departmental exercise, weighing up benefits and harms of each proposed restriction on health, education, economy and personal liberty.

Combined with reforms to the quality of modelling and the structure of expert advice, these protections would dramatically improve the advice given to ministers, the quality of policy, and the functioning of our democracy, which in turn boosts public confidence and compliance

Ministers produce better results when held to account at the despatch box. So too will scientists, when their monopoly on advice comes to an end, and when they are rigorously examined by devil’s advocates.