Call for Evidence

The House of Lords COVID-19 Committee has been established to look at the long-term implications of the pandemic for our economy and our society.

We are starting by gathering people’s thoughts about how we can ‘press the reset button’, especially in light of the systemic inequalities in society that the pandemic has highlighted and deepened.

Tell us about your long-term hopes and fears for what COVID-19 means for your daily lives, our work and at home, and for how we function as a society. What might it mean for social cohesion, for (in)equality, for our environment or for arts and culture?

If you want to make a video, photo or audio submission then you can tweet us at @HLCOVID19Com using the hashtag #LifeBeyondCOVID. Please note that if you post using this hashtag we will take this as permission to use the content as part of our inquiry (including on our website and in any publications we produce).

Or write down your thoughts in a Word document and send them to us by clicking on the button below (it doesn’t have to be formal text – you can use bullet points, or even get creative and send us a poem, or song lyrics – we want you to use whatever medium you feel most comfortable with).

We’ve also produced two discussion packs – one for schools and organisations that work with people under the age of 18, and one for groups of people over the age of 18. These provide some suggestions for how you can have a group discussion about the issues that the Committee are looking at and a form you can use to then feed back the main points to the Committee.

Because of the volume of material that committees receive, we cannot promise to reflect every contribution in our work. But we will look at all of them, and use them to inform our thinking.

What do we mean by “long-term implications”?

There are lots of other committees in Parliament looking at the direct impact that the pandemic is having on our lives today. We want to look into the future and think about those things that, several years from now, will be (or should be) different than they would have been if the pandemic had not happened. That could be because of rules in place that mean we have to do things differently, or it could be because experiencing the pandemic has changed how we think or feel, or because the immediate impact that has been experienced is so strong that is has consequences for the long term.

Questions

If it helps, you can use the following question to shape your response.

We’re asking you to think several years ahead. For you as an individual (or organisation), and for us all as a society,:

• Are there any positives you would take from this pandemic?
• What are the things that you are most worried about?
• What do you most hope changes for the better?

We won’t feel we’ve done our job properly unless we hear from as wide a range of people as possible. If you can, help us by telling other people that they can share their views with us, and if you need us to do anything differently in order for you to respond then please email us at HLCOVID19CMTTEE@parliament.uk