Here are seven things we learned from Day Six of Lady Hallett’s Covid inquiry:
George Osborne defends austerity
The former chancellor was the star witness of Tuesday’s hearings, and, as expected, defended the public spending cuts he and David Cameron introduced when they were in power from 2010 to 2016. But Mr Osborne’s vehemence on this issue was striking. He was asked by Kate Blackwell KC, for the inquiry, if he accepts that “by the time that Covid-19 hit the consequences of austerity were a depleted health and social care capacity and rising inequality in the UK”. Mr Osborne replied: “Most certainly not. I completely reject that.”
He said that “Britain would have been more exposed” to future shocks if the government had not engaged in a policy of austerity.” He also did not accept the suggestion from Ms Blackwell that NHS funding in the run-up to the pandemic “simply wasn’t enough”.
Treasury did not plan for full nationwide lockdowns
Mr Osborne said China gave the world the idea of lockdowns, which were not part of the UK government planning for a pandemic – which, as the inquiry has already heard, were focused on a flu virus. During his time in charge at the Treasury, and after that, there was no economic plan for full nationwide lockdowns, involving “asking the entire population to stay at home for months and months on end, essentially depriving large sectors of the economy like hospitality of all their customers for months and months to come”.
He said that if “expert community” had pointed out that this might be needed as part of pandemic planning, the Treasury would have responded and set out plans for one. He said that there was a “groupthink” around this.
UK still ‘wildly under-resilient’ to emergencies like pandemics
Sir Oliver Letwin, Cabinet Office minister under Mr Cameron, was critical of the national infrastructure designed to protect the country against threats such as pandemic viruses, which he said remained “wildly under-resilient”. He called for a dedicated minister, at Cabinet level, to have sole charge of emergency preparedness – recalling his time in the Cabinet Office as having to be a “Jack of all trades”.
Sir Oliver said it was an “error” not to have an emergencies minister and that the high turnover of ministers and officials who had those responsibilities was a “disaster for the country”.
He also said he regretted not challenging experts over their focus on a flu pandemic, and that it was “ludicrous in retrospect” that he was told that the issue of stockpiling of antibiotics for a non-flu pandemic was “under control”.
Covid pandemic ‘damaged a generation’
Professor Dame Sally Davies, England’s chief medical officer between 2010 and 2019, gave powerful evidence on the impact of lockdowns and school closures on children. The effect of the pandemic on education is expected to be investigated in another module of Lady Hallett’s inquiry later on. But Dame Sally, now master of Trinity College Cambridge, said: “The damage I now see to children and students, and the educational impact, tells me that education has a terrific amount of work to do.
“We have damaged a generation, and it is awful – as head of a college in Cambridge – watching these young people struggle. I know in the pre-school they haven’t learnt how to socialise and play properly. They haven’t learned to read at school. We must have plans for that.”
Former chief medical officer: ‘I am sorry to relatives who lost families. It was horrible’
Dame Sally, echoing Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne, admitted there was “groupthink” around planning for a flu pandemic, which was seen as the biggest threat to the UK, rather than a different virus. She added: “There was groupthink, but it wasn’t just us, this was a whole global norm for the Western world. Clearly we could have done more thinking.
“The system, which included me in that way, needed more challenge. I tried, following a visit to Hong Kong where I learned about [the virus] Sars. I did ask: ‘What about doing a Sars review,’ and was told, ‘Oh no, it won’t come here.’ I went to Korea, I came back and I asked for a Mers [another virus] practice, and we did Exercise Alice.”
Dame Sally, sounding close to tears in the witness box, added: “So I did put some challenge into it, but maybe this is the moment to say how sorry I am to the relatives who lost their families. It wasn’t just the deaths, it was the way they died; it was horrible, and I heard a lot about it from my daughter on the front line, as a young doctor. It was harrowing and it remains horrible.”
David Cameron ‘wanted to reform WHO but civil servants advised against it’
In David Cameron’s written statement to the inquiry, published following his oral evidence to Lady Hallett on Monday, he said that while in No 10 he tried to reform the World Health Organisation (WHO) after they were “too slow to respond” to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014 due to its “politics and bureaucracy”.
Mr Cameron, US president Barack Obama and other world leaders “overrode the WHO and took matters into their own hands” to help countries that were grappling with Ebola. In No 10, he explored “whether reform of the WHO would be necessary and worthwhile”, but added: “When I suggested this, I was strongly advised by officials that such reform would take years and likely come to nothing.”
After the outbreak of Covid in 2020, Mr Cameron again called for reform of WHO in an article for The Times, saying it was still “slow to react, mostly because of politics, pride and capacity”.
Cameron unhappy that measures to boost emergency preparedness were weakened by Theresa May
In his witness statement, Mr Cameron makes clear his unhappiness that extra steps he took as prime minister to boost government oversight of emergencies were weakened by successive premiers. He does not identify Theresa May by name, but points out that the job of national security adviser – a post he had set up – was merged with that of Cabinet Secretary in 2018 – when she was in Downing Street.
He also says the decision, after he left government, to disband the National Security Council’s Threats, Hazards, Resilience and Contingency Committee was not one he would have made.
