Lack of ‘female perspective’ in No 10 created problems with Covid policymaking, inquiry hears – as it happened

5.46pm GMT

Afternoon summary

• Helen MacNamara, a former senior Downing Street civil servant, has criticised Boris Johnson for failing to act against his former top adviser Dominic Cummings when he used what she described as “violent and misogynistic language” against her. She has been giving evidence to the Covid inquiry. Matthew Weaver has the highlights from her evidence here.

• The UK, US, EU and China have all agreed that artificial intelligence poses a potentially catastrophic risk to humanity, in the first international declaration to deal with the fast-emerging technology.

• Scotland’s devolved government has been beset by poor decision-making for the past decade because of an obsession with constitutional disputes, a thinktank says.

Helen MacNamara leaving the Covid inquiry after giving evidence. Photograph: Tayfun Salcı/Zuma Press Wire/Shutterstock

Updated at 5.48pm GMT

5.27pm GMT

Kemi Badenoch claims 'safetyism' holding back British growth

Kemi Badenoch, the business and trade secretary, has claimed that what she calls “safetyism” is helping to hold back British growth.

She made the comments today in a Q&A at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London, a three-day event with rightwing international speakers, particularly from the US.

In a news release summarising her remarks, the ARC says:

Speaking at the third day of the inaugural ARC conference, business and trade secretary Kemi Badenoch MP called for the UK to scale back government intervention and roll back a culture of ‘safetyism’ in a bid to boost the UK’s entrepreneurship.

In an interview with the UnHerd editor, Freddie Sayers, Badenoch said that “the state itself is doing more than it ever used to do before. We ask the government to intervene in things that it never used to intervene before.”

“There has been a fundamental cultural shift around our attitude around risk and what I call safetyism,” Badenoch said, responding to a question on causes of the UK’s economic malaise. “We talk about risk as if it’s a bad thing rather than something that generates [reward].”

She was also asked if she wanted to emulate the sort of “war on woke” being waged in the US by the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis. In response, she did not fully endorse his approach, but she said she would like the UK government to be less “shy” about setting out its vision.

"There is a role for government in shaping culture...and we have become a little bit shy about doing that for several decades... However we must again be careful about overcorrecting."

UK Business Secretary @KemiBadenoch speaking with @freddiesayers on good governance and free… pic.twitter.com/2F9YJzQYzB

— The Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (@arc_forum) November 1, 2023

Updated at 5.29pm GMT