Rishi Sunak’s allies believe the Covid inquiry has already decided his Eat Out to Help Out scheme was harmful, it is claimed.
The prime minister, who was chancellor during the pandemic, will be grilled over the hospitality scheme from 10.30am by the probe’s lead counsel Hugo Keith KC.
Mr Sunak will also face questions over whether he opposed measures to contain the virus and his failure to hand over WhatsApp messages from his time as chancellor to the inquiry.
Allies of the former chancellor argue the probe has already decided the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, which offered taxpayer-funded half-priced meals in a bid to boost the hospitality sector, fuelled the virus.
The scheme initially saw Mr Sunak, having been widely praised for the furlough scheme, dubbed “dishy Rishi”. But it has been criticised by chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty, who called it “Eat Out to Help Out...the virus”.
And it contributed to Mr Sunak being described by chief scientific advisor Professor Dame Angela McLean as “Dr Death the chancellor”. Britain’s two top scientists during Covid Professor Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance have both told the probe they were not consulted about the scheme before it was launched.
A Treasury insider who worked with Mr Sunak during the pandemic told The Daily Telegraph the scheme was beneficial, and said “hindsight is a wonderful thing”. “By summer 2020, hospitality was in a pretty dire state. We’d already helped considerably and [Eat Out to Help Out] was an attempt in the summer months when risks were less to support that sector and maximise economic activity,” they said.
As Mr Sunak faces a grilling by Mr Keith, just miles away in Westminster his MPs will be deciding whether to back his latest plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda ahead of a vote on Tuesday which could decide the future of his premiership.
It comes as a poll revealed twice as many people now think Mr Sunak handled the pandemic badly than well.
Ahead of his highly anticipated evidence session, the YouGov survey found 56 per cent of people said he handled the pandemic “badly”, while just 29 per cent said he did “well”.
Meanwhile more than half of people said Eat Out to Help Out was a “bad idea”, with just under a third saying it was a good idea. The poll, conducted for The Times, did however show strong support for Mr Sunak’s financial support schemes, such as the furlough programme which funded companies to keep paying staff while they could not work during the pandemic.
Mr Sunak is expected to mount a robust defence of the Eat Out to Help Out scheme and his wider response to the pandemic when he takes the stand this morning.
But he is bracing for a backlash, with one source telling The Times: “He’s going to get absolutely slaughtered over his failure to provide WhatsApps.”
He has told the probe that having changed his phone multiple times since entering government he did not have access to the relevant messages.
