By Scott Wright
Lord Karan Bilimoria, the president of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), has declared that the “top down” approach adopted by the UK Government to manage conronavirus has failed.
Speaking as the UK Government launched a three-tier Covid alert system to manage the disease in England, now expected to be followed by a similar strategy in Scotland, Lord Bilimoria said: “We at the CBI have been saying for a while that we should have a tiered system with lockdowns. At the moment, we have got 30 per cent of the country in some form of restriction or lockdown.
“As we go forward, with infections rising, with the second wave, people need clarity, businesses need as much clarity as possible, and also to work locally within England with the different cities and regions, and with the devolved nations. It needs to be done in a collaborative, partnership way, with the central government.”
Lord Bilimoria added: “That’s what I’ve seen throughout this whole pandemic since March. What has not worked is central, top-down [decision making], whether it is NHS [or] Public Health England. What has worked is collaboration.”
Lord Bilimoria noted that the most successful aspects of managing the pandemic have come when the UK Government has worked in collaboration with business, citing the drive to manufacture ventilators earlier this year and the development of the Nightingale hospitals. A similar move, he said, should be taken to ensure UK companies play a role in the development of LAMP mobile testing, which would allow people to have test results delivered straight to devices such as laptops.
Lord Bilimoria said: “These are boxes that can be manufactured in the UK. We had the ventilator challenge, and look at how British industry and business rose to that challenge, and we never had any ventilator shortage. If we had the affordable test and these LAMP tests, you are really able to do that testing that keeps people safe, that picks up the disease and allows the economy to fire on all cylinders.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here