Austerity architect George Osborne has admitted Britain had no economic plans for an extended lockdown for a pandemic.
During an 80-minute grilling at the Covid inquiry, the ex-Chancellor claimed it is not "particularly fair to apportion blame" for the lack of planning.
The senior Tory was also accused of "rewriting history" after he "completely" rejected claims that austerity depleted health and social care capacity and inequality.
Speaking under oath, Mr Osborne said that without his economic policies the country would have been "more exposed" to fiscal crises in the wake of the Covid crisis.
Quizzed on the Treasury's measures - the department he led between 2010 and 2016 - Mr Osborne said there were plans for an influenza pandemic.
But he revealed there were no plans in place to ask the population to remain at home.
He said: "You're absolutely right that there was no planning done by the UK Treasury, or indeed as far as I'm aware, any western treasury for asking the entire population to stay at home for months and months on end, essentially depriving large sectors of the economy like hospitality of all their customers for months and months to come."
Responding to inquiry barrister Kate Blackwell KC, Mr Osborne said: "You're right that there was no planning in Britain - or indeed as far as I'm aware in France, Germany, the United States, or anywhere like that.
"It wasn't a groupthink unique to this country.
"There was no assumption that you would mandate that the population stay at home for months and months on end so there was no planning for a lockdown."
Asked whose fault it was, he said that "I don't think it's particularly fair to apportion blame" when scientists were not "elevating" the threat of such a virus spreading rapidly.
Pressed on whether there should have been a blueprint or a playbook for such an emergency, he conceded: "In hindsight, yes".
The former Chancellor also used his evidence session to argue austerity had made the country better prepared to weather the Covid crisis.
He argued that it was key to ensure that the economy after the "massive economic shock" of the 2008 financial crisis was able to "flex in a crisis".
Asked by barrister Ms Blackwell KC whether austerity had "depleted health and social care capacity and rising inequality" by the time Covid hit, Mr Osborne said: "Most certainly not, I completely reject that.
"I would say if we had not done that Britain would have been more exposed, not just to future things like the coronavirus pandemic, but indeed to the fiscal crisis which very rapidly followed in countries across Europe."
But the Trades Union Congress hit back, saying the former Chancellor was "attempting to rewrite history and gaslight the British public".
General Secretary Paul Nowak said: “Everyone can see the damage austerity did to the nation. From social care to schools and hospitals, our public services were decimated.
“Austerity disastrously slowed the UK’s economic recovery. George Osborne’s needless obsession with shrinking the state left us dangerously exposed to the pandemic – and we all paid the price.”
The British Medical Association had also argued the cuts put the nation "severely on the back foot" with not enough beds or staff as the virus surged.
During the inquiry session the former minister Sir Oliver Letwin also said that failing to appoint a minister - close to a Prime Minister - with sole responsibility over planning for emergencies such as a pandemic had been an "error".
He admitted that it is a "lasting regret" that he had not focused more on pandemics while in the Cabinet Office.
Labour said the comments were "too little, too late from a Government that has been asleep at the wheel for far too long".
During a later evidence session Dame Sally Davies, the Chief Medical Officer between 2010 and 2019, also issued an emotional apology to the bereaved families affected by Covid.
Close to tears, she told them: "Maybe this is the moment to say how sorry I am to the relatives who lost their families.
"It wasn't just the deaths, it was the way they died. It was horrible."
"I heard a lot about it from my daughter on the front line as a young doctor in Scotland. It was harrowing and it remains horrible."
Dame Sally later told the Inquiry the decision to shut down the country should have been a "week earlier" but it was "clear no one thought about lockdown".
She added: "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 pre-schools 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."
Ministers faced intense criticism in 2021 for a "feeble" recovery plan for children from the Government's own catch-up tsar Sir Kevan Collins, who resigned from his post amid a row over the cash made available.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt - a key figure at the heart of Rishi Sunak's Government - will give evidence on Wednesday over his role as Health Secretary between 2010 and 2016.
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