Lifting lockdown 2021

Inside Briefing with the Institute for Government

Institute for Government

News, Politics, Government

4.6 • 252 Ratings

🗓️ 19 February 2021

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ahead of the Prime Minister producing his new ‘roadmap’, we discuss the plans, priorities and politics for lifting the lockdown. Does the government know what its objectives are? What does ‘data, not dates’ mean in practice? What still needs to be done and what should we look out for when the plan lands? In this edition of Inside Briefing Extra, IfG Senior Fellow Dr Catherine Haddon is joined by Conservative MP and Covid Recovery Group chairman Mark Harper, the New Statesman’s political editor Stephen Bush, Christina Pagel, Director of the Clinical Operational Research Unit at UCL and Tom Sasse, Associate Director at IfG. Audio production by Candice McKenzie See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to this inside briefing podcast special.
0:13.5	I'm Catherine Haddon, senior fellow at the Institute for Government.
0:16.7	With 15 million people vaccinated in the UK in two months and the latest data suggesting that the vaccine rollout is ahead of target, the Prime Minister is due to set out plans next week for how the UK government will start to ease lockdown restrictions in England over the coming weeks and months.
0:33.7	But they're already warning there is a long way to go.
0:36.9	This is the third time that the UK government has lifted a national lockdown since the start of the pandemic.
0:42.8	And like last May, the government will be publishing a roadmap on how they are going to go about it.
0:47.8	So what should we expect to hear next week?
0:49.7	What are the objectives the government should be guided by?
0:52.5	What are the biggest risks for getting this
0:54.4	right? And how is the Prime Minister going about keeping his party and the public confidence
0:59.0	in his approach? Our panel today will discuss all this and more. We have Christina Pargo,
1:05.0	Professor of Operational Research at UCL, a member of Independence Age and frequently on the airwaves explaining COVID data.
1:12.7	Hi, Christina. Thanks for joining us. Hi.
1:15.4	Also joining us is Mark Harper, MP for the Forest of Dean, former Minister and Chief Whip,
1:20.2	and currently chair of the COVID recovery group of MPs. Hi Mark. Welcome.
1:24.4	Hi, Catherine. And we're also pleased to have Stephen Bush, political editor of the
1:28.6	new statesman. Hello, Stephen. Always nice to talk to you. Hello, lovely to talk to you. And finally,
1:33.7	a warm welcome to my colleague Tom Sass, associate director at the IFG and our in-house expert on all
1:39.1	things, science advice and government, vaccine rollout and more latterly, co-author of our latest paper on how the
1:45.2	government should go about lifting the lockdown. Tom, thanks for joining.
1:49.0	Okay.
1:49.8	Okay, lots to talk about, so let's dive in.
	...

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