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5 things learnt about lockdown policing at the Covid inquiry

The former home secretary was highly critical of the Department for Health and Social Care

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The former home secretary Priti Patel gives evidence to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry (Photo: UK Covid-19 Inquiry/AFP)
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The Covid inquiry focused on the formulation and implementation of the rules and regulations used to police lockdowns during the pandemic in Thursday’s evidence session.

It heard from Martin Hewitt, former chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council and Dame Priti Patel, the former home secretary.

These are the main talking points:

A 16-minute heads up

A former policing chief told how he had to put off enforcing new coronavirus laws because he had only received the legislation from Matt Hancock 16 minutes before it should have come into force.

Martin Hewitt, the former chairman of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, told the Covid inquiry: “There was a regulation that was going to change at one minute past midnight and we received the regulations signed off by the secretary of state for health and social care (Matt Hancock) at 11.45 so we had precisely 16 minutes.”

No border plan

Dame Priti said that early in the pandemic there was no ability to prevent coronavirus arriving in the UK through the borders.

Discussing February and March 2020, lead counsel to the inquiry Hugo Keith KC said: “There was a distinct absence of practical capability to be able to restrict the infection through the border and secondly there was no sophisticated or effective system already thought about, drawn up and ready to be put into place when the virus attacked.”

Dame Priti replied: “I think that’s absolutely correct and, with that, no technical capability.

“At that stage the skills and capabilities simply weren’t there.”

A sub-optimal process

The former home secretary said the Home Office often pushed back against the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) when they wanted to introduce another set of coronavirus regulations at the 11th hour, describing the process as “sub-optimal”.

Mr Keith suggested that the role of home secretary is a “very important beast in the jungle”, adding: “When the DHSC presented at the 11th-hour another set of regulations, you must have screamed at them and said ‘you cannot do this again. This is unacceptable. These are matters of criminal law, these are matters of regulating the populace’?”

Dame Priti responded: “And we did.”

Asked what happened after pushing back against DHSC, the former home secretary said: “They would proceed.

“The Department for Health and Social Care would say ‘we need these regulatory changes’ and they would go ahead with it.”

Dame Priti continued: “It was sub-optimal at every single level.”

Rule breakers

A divergence in regulations in different areas of the UK and people travelling to beauty spots put pressure on policing, Mr Hewitt said.

He said people were “travelling in some cases hundreds of miles” to go to beautiful parts of the UK, making locals “quite angry” about “lots of people from other parts of the country coming into those communities when they are they are abiding by all the rules”.

“People’s preparedness to comply is eroded when I think that the other person over there is having an easier time than me.

‘Unchartered territory

Policing during the pandemic was “largely uncharted territory” for forces in terms of trying to achieve compliance with the regulations, Mr Hewitt added.

He said that the response “was going to clash with our normal way of operating as the police service in this country.

“Looking at the other countries where the virus had spread ahead of this country, you could see the kind of measures that were being taken were measures that, as far as I’m aware, in policing terms, nothing like that had happened since the Second World War.

“So we were going to be into positions where we were going to be imposing on people’s liberty and movement and their lives in a way that was totally out of our experience at that point in time.”

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