Key moments: Rishi Sunak’s Covid Inquiry evidence

It’s week nine of the UK Covid Inquiry – and time for the Prime Minister to face the music. Today, Rishi Sunak has his turn in the hot seat, as new polling shows that the public now belatedly disapprove of his lockdown measures. Quelle surprise. Meanwhile his ‘allies’ – including, er, Jacob Rees-Mogg, are cited in the Telegraph as arguing that the Covid Inquiry has already decided that Sunak’s push to reopen hospitality after the first lockdown was harmful. Find the highlights below…

Hecklers

Today’s session did not get off to the best start for Sunak after he was heckled upon arrival. ‘Lives are more important than money!’ cried one protestor, as other shouts could be heard in the background. Unlike with his predecessor’s evidence, however, Sunak has so far not had to deal with any protests inside the Inquiry room…

Sunak’s apology

The PM followed in the footsteps of Boris Johnson and Michael Gove by taking time at the start of his hearing to issue an apology. His voice catching a little, Sunak addressed ‘all those who suffered in various different ways’. The Prime Minister added that ‘it’s important we learn the lessons’ from the pandemic. ‘I look forward to giving evidence in the spirit of constructive candour.’ Was that a slight dig, perhaps, at the lead counsel? After all, some suggest that Hugo Keith is more interested in ‘gotcha’ moments than, er, actually finding out what went wrong…

The mystery of the deleted WhatsApps

WhatsApp messages – or the lack of them – have dominated much of the post-pandemic discourse. Sunak himself has been implicated as many of his own messages from the beginning of the pandemic have not been retained. The PM was adamant with the Inquiry that he was not a ‘prolific user of WhatsApp in the first instance’, but admitted that he has changed his phone a number of times, losing many messages in the process. Sunak was quizzed on whether he had received advice to keep WhatsApps after Johnson announced the formation of an inquiry in May 2021. Sunak’s response? That while those conversations may have been had in No. 10, nobody in his office had said anything to him. His private office, he said, recorded his official discussions. Hmm…

Dysfunctional decision making

From evidence sessions involving former top advisers and chief scientists, a constant theme from the Inquiry has been the somewhat flawed nature of the government’s decision-making process during Covid. Sunak, however, maintained that it was not his ‘strong recollection’ that cabinet was sidelined. On cabinet dysfunction, the former chancellor was emphatic that his interactions with No. 10 and the Cabinet Office felt ‘fine’. The PM was the ‘ultimate and sole decision maker’ he said.

Appearing fairly supportive of his former boss-turned-nemesis, Sunak says he was always able to find an opportunity to speak with Johnson, but rejected claims that major policy decisions were made during their informal conversations. He argued it would be ‘weird’ not to have had informal discussions about Covid given that they ‘shared a garden’ for much of the pandemic. It reached the point that ‘I saw the Prime Minister more than I saw my own wife,’ Sunak told the hearing – not altogether enthusiastically. 

Pushback 

Towards the end of the morning session, Sunak and Keith started to be become a little frustrated with each other. Sunak hit back at the lead counsel for suggesting that ‘debates raged’ within government during the pandemic. Sporting an expression of incredulity, the Prime Minister protested:

I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing? It’s right that there was vigorous debate because there were these incredibly consequential decisions for tens of millions of people…These were incredibly big decisions, the likes of which no prime minister had taken in decades, if ever. 

The fact that there was debate and that people were passionate about it, and they had different points of view is, I think, a) unsurprising and b) good. Because it would be worse if we were having this conversation where the commentary was ‘well, there was no debate about any of this whatsoever, it was all just signed off straightforward… I think that would actually be far worse.

Keith tried again, trying to push the Prime Minister on how often decisions were rowed back on. Sunak seemed bemused, icily telling the counsel that ‘many, many momentous decisions’ were made over the two-year period.

An atmosphere, Mr S reckons, that could have been cut with a knife…

Eat Out to Help Out

The Inquiry has begun querying Sunak’s infamous ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme. The measure to help restaurants in late 2020 was dubbed ‘Eat Out to Help Out the Virus’ by Sir Patrick Vallance and earned Sunak the nickname of ‘Dr Death’. The PM today told Hugo Keith that it would be right to open restaurants and bars venues before schools as it ‘would make schoolteachers feel better not to be first’.

A further tense moment came when Sunak and Keith clashed over the timeline of the scheme. According to Sunak, there were three meetings at which scientific advisers had the opportunity to raise concerns about an increase in Covid transmission – none of which they took. Keith pushed back, asking Sunak about why he didn’t communicate better about the scheme with anybody outside No. 10 – a ‘normal’ state of affairs, according to the Prime Minister. The atmosphere after Sunak reiterated a point made by Matt Hancock about there being ‘undue focus’ placed on this ‘one item’ at the Inquiry. ‘Excuse me?’ Keith shot back. 

PPE procurement

Keith acknowledged that the discussion regarding PPE would only be touched on lightly, given there is a whole other module of the Covid Inquiry that will focus on this at a later date. However, he pressed Sunak on the ‘funding envelope’ for personal protective equipment which expanded from £100 million at the start of March 2020 to £1 billion by April. Looking rather uncomfortable, Sunak said that the Treasury gave the Department for Health the funding it needed for PPE, but admitted that ‘there was a deliberate change to the normal processes to enable pace at the expense of the same normal amount of rigour and scrutiny that would go into those approvals’. 

Tiers

Was it fair to characterise Treasury officials as the ‘pro-death squad?’ Absolutely not, according to Sunak. The former Chancellor was then asked about the tiers system, introduced mid-pandemic to avert another national lockdown. The Prime Minister says that there was guidance at the time from the Chief Medical Officer that a national approach would be misguided and that a regional focus would work. He admits, in hindsight, that ‘clearly, in the event, it didn’t’. You can say that again…