Are the devolved nations coping better with Covid?

One advantage of devolution is that it sets up some useful additional incentives for each authority to outperform the other, writes Sean O’Grady

Nicola Sturgeon announced restrictions in Scotland (Getty)

The Covid pandemic has demonstrated both the strengths and the weaknesses of the devolution of powers over public health to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – though most of the specific effects of different rules in different parts of the UK are far from clear.

Such questions are being asked again as seasonal restrictions are announced by first minister Mark Drakeford in Wales, following Nicola Sturgeon in Scotland and now similar decisions by the power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland. Thus, Drakeford is reinforcing the “rule of six” for gatherings, closing venues on Boxing Day, introducing table service in bars, social distancing of two metres, and fines for not working from home where it is possible. Scotland has similar new restorations, including mandatory face coverings, the effective cancellation of public Hogmanay events and limits on spectators at sporting events, and Northern Ireland is broadly following suit, but without limits on sporting events. England, by contrast, has as yet made no decisions beyond modest plan B precautions.

These different approaches should yield different results in the data for infections, hospitalisations and mortality in the coming weeks, but this is far from a tightly controlled laboratory experiment. Nearly two years into the pandemic and there is no clear evidence that any single administration of the four in the UK has been markedly superior in its response over the medium term. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a “winner”, and common sense suggests that the more cautious the rules, the less social contact and the better the Covid outcomes – but even that is not obvious. Data would need to be adjusted for demographics, for example, or the fact that some regions and nations are more rural, say, less tourism or contain major transport hubs or hosted big sporting events, and so on. Put it this way; if there was a clear public health policy “winner” by now, one that either made the case for independence/separation or more UK centralisation, then we’d have heard about it by now.