Additional lives were lost during Covid because of “bad faith” by Boris Johnson’s government in excluding London’s representatives from early emergency meetings about the pandemic, denying ministers vital knowledge, the city’s mayor has said.
This had a particular impact on poorer and minority ethnic communities, Sadiq Khan told the Covid inquiry, because it meant the Cobra committee did not properly consider the virus’s impact on them.
“I think there was bad faith on the part of some members of the government,” the Labour mayor told the hearing, saying this also affected other metro mayors and the leaders of devolved nations.
The hearing was shown a private letter Khan sent Johnson on 22 March 2020, the day before a UK-wide lockdown was imposed, in which he warned the prime minister that if tough action was not taken he would unilaterally tell Londoners to stay at home.
The lack of any representation from London, or other major cities, in Cobra meetings on 2 March and 9 March meant there was no voice to stress how the spread of the virus was likely to be much quicker in such places, Khan argued.
“I could have pointed out some of the reasons why community transmission was going to accelerate in London,” Khan said. “Those views weren’t heard.”
London was at particularly high risk from the virus because of its demographic and income mix, Khan argued, something most likely not understood by ministers at Cobra meetings, who tended to represent very different types of constituencies.
“One thing I reflect upon is the difference we could have made if we had been trusted earlier to be part of that process,” he said.
“How many around Cobra knew about issues around diversity, co-morbidity, intergenerational households, overcrowded accommodation?” he said. “How many around Cobra knew that in London there are more people who work in the gig economy, work in frontline jobs where they can catch this virus?
“The GLA [Greater London authority], the mayor of London, we weren’t around that table. I think lives could have been saved if we were [there] earlier.”
The inquiry was shown an extract from Khan’s witness statement to the inquiry about his experience on being allowed to attend a Cobra meeting on 16 March, in which he described it as “a moment I will never, ever forget”, with Johnson describing the crisis facing the nation as unparalleled since the second world war.
“I simply could not understand why, particularly given the increased severity of the outbreak in London and my repeated requests to attend previous Cobra meetings in order to be kept informed, this information was only being shared with me at this stage,” he wrote.
“I was both deeply worried, and furious that London had not been involved in conversations at this point.”
Asked about his recollections, Khan told the hearing he was left feeling “almost winded in relation to what was happening in London”.
The inquiry has previously been told that the decision to exclude Khan from earlier Cobra gatherings was justified by No 10 because it decided it would be wrong to include him and not the mayors of other big cities. Khan said these could and should have joined as well.
Later in the hearing, the inquiry was shown the private letter Khan wrote to Johnson the day before the lockdown was announced, saying people in London “must be told to stay home unless they are an essential worker, are buying food or collecting medication from pharmacies”.
If a national lockdown was not put in place, Khan added: “I will be left with no choice but to speak directly to Londoners with a tougher message, if it means thousands of people’s lives could be saved.”
The inquiry also saw another letter Khan wrote to Johnson, in September 2020, urging the prime minister to impose another lockdown as cases rose into the autumn.
It read: “I am of the firm view that we should not wait for this virus to again spiral out of control before taking action, and the best thing for both public health and the economy is new restrictions imposed early, rather than a full lockdown when it’s too late.”
