Afternoon summary
George Osborne, the former chancellor, has said he completely rejects claims that austerity weakened the UK’s health and social care capacity before Covid. (See 2.47pm.)
David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, has said that Labour will not try to rejoin the single market or the customs union because it needs to be “pragmatic”. In a speech at Best for Britain’s Trade Unlocked conference, he said:
The next Labour government will not rejoin the EU, the single market or customs union.
I know that disappoints some people here today.
But I’ve spent the last 18 months travelling around Europe, meeting counterparts, building relationships, talking to our sister parties.
It’s mistaken to think that after such a messy divorce it is possible to propose marriage again even before two ex-partners have gone on a date.
The next Labour government will be focused on what is pragmatic, turning the page on the era of acrimony that this government has overseen, which has seen trust undermined, cooperation stall and our economy damaged.
But Lammy also said that it was a “fantasy” to think the relationship with the EU was not important. He explained:
Last week the Conservative party press office attacked me for saying that improving our relationship with the EU will be a priority of the next Labour government.
I have no qualms about repeating this.
Reconnecting Britain must start by reconnecting with our European neighbours.
Because the EU are our biggest trading partners.
And our allies as we face war on our continent.
If you do not think Britain’s relationship with Europe is of fundamental importance to our future, you are living in a fantasy.
Nadine Dorries, the Boris Johnson cheerleader and former culture secretary, has suggested that Harriet Harman’s revelation last night that No 10 wanted her to carry on as chair of the privileges committee, despite people claiming that she had posted tweets implying she was biased against Johnson, showed that Downing Street was engaged in some sort of anti-Johnson conspiracy. She posted this on Twitter.
Harmans speech was very revealing and effectively threw No10 under a bus.
— Rt Hon Nadine Dorries (@NadineDorries) June 20, 2023
It implied, that despite the fact that she had already tweeted in advance of the hearings that Johnson was guilty, that she had the full backing of the PM and therefore the Gov to chair the committee. https://t.co/IYV88V6tVN
But Dorries seems to have forgotten when she posted her tweet that it was not Rishi Sunak who was in No 10 when it approved the Harman appointment, but Johnson himself.
Updated
Generation of children have been damaged by experience of lockdown, former chief medical officer tells Covid inquiry
Dame Sally Davies, who was chief medical officer for England between 2010 and 2019, told the Covid inquiry this afternoon that a generation of children had been damaged by Covid, and the experience of lockdown.
Davies, who is now master of a Cambridge college, said that, in planning for a possible pandemic, no thought had been given to the prospect of lockdown, said:
It’s clear that no one thought about lockdown. I still think we should have locked down, although a week earlier. But during that we should have thought do we need to further. The damage I now see to children and students from Covid 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 preschools they haven’t learned how to socialise and play properly, they haven’t learned how to read at school. We must have plans for them.
