Rishi Sunak spent £2m on focus groups for ‘eat out to help out’ scheme

Rishi Sunak ‘could not have cared less’ what the scheme would do to Covid infection rates, said Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/PA

Rishi Sunak ordered multiple taxpayer-funded focus groups and polls to craft the messaging of his planned “eat out to help out” campaign in July 2020, despite keeping the UK’s top medical and scientific advisers in the dark about the scheme.

The Treasury negotiated five public opinion contracts worth more than £2m from June 2020 throughout the pandemic, while Sunak was chancellor, including those to establish how best to “sell” the hospitality scheme to voters.