The country’s top scientists were never told about the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, despite Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak claiming they were consulted, the pandemic inquiry has been told.
In potentially damaging testimony, England’s chief medical officer Sir Chris Whitty said he and Sir Patrick Vallance, the Government’s former chief scientific adviser, were never told about the plan, adding: “I think we should have been.”
And England’s former deputy chief medical officer, Professor Sir Jonathan Van-Tam, told the UK Covid-19 Inquiry that he first heard about Eat Out to Help Out on television and said the scheme “didn’t feel sensible to me”.
Sir Chris said he raised objections to Number 10 about how the issue was handled, adding “this was aimed at the centre.”
Earlier this week, Sir Patrick told the inquiry he would be “very surprised” if Rishi Sunak, then chancellor, had not learned about objections to his plan to help the hospitality industry.
In evidence submitted to the inquiry, Mr Sunak said he “(did) not recall any concerns about the scheme”.
During Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Mr Sunak was asked about Sir Patrick’s comments that advice on the plan had not been sought, and about Mr Johnson later saying scientific advice was sought at all steps in the Covid crisis.
Mr Sunak said: “It was the case that the Government took advice from scientific advisers and, again, that’s exactly what this inquiry will go over.”
Under questioning from Hugo Keith KC, lead counsel to the inquiry, on Wednesday, Sir Chris said: “My written statement makes clear there was no consultation.”
Mr Keith said: “I need to put to you that in his witness statement, Boris Johnson says ‘It was properly discussed, including with Chris and Patrick’, do you agree with that?”
Sir Chris replied: “On this one, neither Patrick nor I can recall it and I think we would have done.”
He continued: “I made fairly firmly to Number 10, not to the Prime Minister, the view that it would have been prudent, let’s put it that way, for them to have thought about discussing it (the EOTHO scheme) before it was launched.
“And this was aimed at the centre.
“I was unsurprised that the Treasury and many other ministries were coming up with those schemes – it is perfectly legitimate.
“Number 10 held the ring and… so it may well be correct that the Prime Minister was under the impression we had been consulted, but it was not the fact that we were consulted and that difference, I think, is probably worth just highlighting.”
Sir Jonathan was also asked whether he was consulted on the scheme.
“Absolutely not, the first I heard about it was on TV,” he said.
When asked what view he would have taken had he been consulted, Sir Jonathan added: “Had I been consulted I wouldn’t have made any distinction between Eat Out to Help Out and any other epidemiological event that brought different households into close contact with each other for the purposes of socialising, eating and consuming alcohol.
“But I would have said ‘this is exactly encouraging what we’ve been trying to suppress and get on top of in the last few months’. So it didn’t feel sensible to me.”
The inquiry also heard about Sir Jonathan’s “instinct” which told him in mid January 2020 that the new virus found in China would lead to a global pandemic.
But Sir Jonathan, known for his quirky metaphors during pandemic-era press conferences, said that he agreed with Sir Chris’s approach to wait for more data before sounding the alarm.
“I’m the one who chases the ball, Chris is the one who would look at the ball first and make a more qualified and thoughtful decision about whether it was worth chasing,” he said.
“There is that difference, and I understood entirely that I was conveying my instincts at that point.
“But I think Sir Chris was entirely right, given his much more profound experience of government, that he knew when to press buttons that I didn’t. In any case, I was subordinate to Chris, and I respect the chain of command, so I was perfectly content with the response that I received.
“And it wouldn’t have been possible to kind of wake up Sage and wake up Cobra because I was getting a bit excited about something based on instinct and there wasn’t a lot of data at that point.”
However, he did say that measures introduced to curb the spread of the virus in March arrived “not a day too soon”, and with hindsight could have been introduced sooner.
Elsewhere, Sir Patrick also told the inquiry the second lockdown in November 2020 was not “inevitable” though ministers “did not have much choice” by the time it came around.
“By the time it got to the stage of the second lockdown, given the principal aims of ministers to minimise mortality, I couldn’t see many options,” he said.
However, Sir Chris added if measures such as a “circuit-breaker” to limit contact were introduced earlier in September, or tiered restrictions were imposed earlier and had time to work, “there remains the possibility that the second lockdown might not have been necessary or might not have been as long”.
I don’t think I ever saw anybody on the record, or anybody sensible, aiming for it (herd immunity) as a goal— Sir Chris Whitty
He said the fact the third lockdown was in response to the spread of a new variant meant there were very limited options, but that the “onerous” second lockdown was “not necessarily inevitable had previous decisions been different”.
Regarding the first lockdown, Prof Whitty said the UK was already in “deep trouble” and could not afford to wait to see if earlier measures would bring the R number for the rate of infection below one.
He explained: “It wasn’t just a matter of trying to pull it down just below one.
“It was really trying to shrink this wave as fast as possible. So I think I don’t recall any serious debate that said at this point ‘let’s wait’. I think the debate at this point was the numbers here are looking reasonably stark.”
Sir Chris also told the inquiry that making herd immunity – via people catching the infection – a policy goal at the start of the pandemic was “inconceivable”.
He said he argued against the idea and it was never a Government aim.
Former senior adviser to then-prime minister Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings, has dismissed as “bullshit” the insistence of Matt Hancock, former health secretary, and other ministers, that herd immunity was not considered.
Mr Cummings has said “herd immunity by Sep” was “literally the official plan in all docs/graphs/meetings until it was ditched.”
Speaking to the inquiry, Prof Whitty said it would have been “very dangerous” to adopt such a plan.
He said public debate about this led to “considerable confusion” where there was a “large amount of chatter” by “people who had at best half understood the issue”.
Sir Chris explained it would have been “inconceivable” to make herd immunity through natural infection as an actual policy goal as “it would have led to extraordinarily high loss of life.”
People in risk categories, such as older people, people with disabilities and people with immunosuppression, had a very significant risk of mortality, he added.
He said: “I don’t think I ever saw anybody on the record, or anybody sensible, aiming for it (herd immunity) as a goal.”
Sir Chris also told the inquiry:
– Putting in restrictions in mid-March 2020 were the “antithesis” to Boris Johnson’s “whole philosophy”, but he made the move as he recognised how dire things were getting.
– Sir Chris was not convinced that “all parts of the Downing Street machinery” were “seized of the urgency” of action against coronavirus in early March 2020.
– Elaborating on which part of the “system” may not have fully understood, Sir Chris said: “I think actually it was a relatively widespread lack of understanding of where we were going to head. I think the people who had been heavily involved in looking at this, and you know certainly Mr Cummings, and many others, I think had realised by now that this was heading in a very difficult direction. But I don’t think everybody in the building did.”
– Everyone wanted to avoid closing schools but it became clear keeping them open did not look like a safe option.
– Sir Chris said comments he made on the risk of “behavioural fatigue” – where people would stop adhering to restrictions – were his “most prominent communications error”. He said he was “told off” by his behavioural science colleagues for his phrasing.
