Covid inquiry live: Rishi Sunak says the government was advised against moving ‘too early’ on Covid decisions | Covid inquiry
The government ‘couldn’t let perfect be the enemy of the good’, Sunak says
Responding to a question from the chair about having to devise policies quickly, Sunak says the government “couldn’t let perfect be the enemy of the good”.
He said:
There was an acknowledgment early on when I was talking to the team that, of course we weren’t going to get everything right straight away.
That would have been, you know, surprising given the speed at which we were operating and the scale of the interventions we were designing, and putting in place.
And so there was a recognition upfront and I, you know, encouraged the team to be comfortable with that, that that was OK. Right? We couldn’t let perfect be the enemy of the good. And we were going to have to acknowledge that we would iterate as we go.
Sunak has stressed that one of the priorities was to prevent unemployment and said that in the context of a pandemic there should have been a recognition that things had to get “out fast” as otherwise the consequences would have been “severely negative”.
Key events
Sunak says the impact of the pandemic on household incomes and living standards, particular for the most vulnerable people in society, were not as negative as had been forecasted. He said he would get into the details in a later section of the hearing.
It wasn’t going to be possible to save every single job during the pandemic, Sunak says
Sunak says that in the early days of the pandemic his priority was to protect people’s jobs, household incomes and to ensure businesses did not fail.
He said there was no “perfect science” to the decisions he made and acknowledged he was constantly weighing difficult economic trade offs when formulating policy.
“It wasn’t going to be possible to save every single person’s job, and people were going to experience economic hardship as a result of what was happening,” Sunak said.
“I thought it was important to be honest with people about that upfront.”
Government advised against moving ‘too early’ on Covid decisions, Sunak says
Sunak recalls that in early conversations the “medical and scientific community” were advising the government against moving “too early” as they wanted the Covid measures to be sustained for a “period” of time so the timing had to be “right” in order to keep the public onside.
He said:
Then ultimately, even at the end that last few days, I think the prime minister said to people it was a voluntary social distancing and to avoid, hospitality and leisure on the basis, on the advice from the scientists. And schools were not closed at first. Then the advice was that they should be closed. And that was followed, immediately.
And then even at that point, there was a belief that that voluntary social distancing, together with school closures, if there was, I think the number was 75%, compliance, would be sufficient to manage the virus, to deliver the health outcomes.
And then 2 or 3 days after that was said, it was decided that wasn’t going to be, achievable, which is why you had to move to a full mandatory lockdown.
He stressed that the scientific advise was rapidly changing in the early period of the pandemic in 2020 and there was thinking that the virus could be contained.
Sunak says officials were not set up with Teams in early days of pandemic
Sunak said in the early couple of weeks people were “all new to working from home” so had to adjust to the new technology.
“We were not set up with all the things like teams and everything else. There wasn’t, I think, even the right set of plug sockets … in the Chancellor’s meeting room in number 11 Downing Street,” he said.
Sunak said people, in the first couple of days, were “crowding round kind of almost sitting room” because that was where you could “plug in all the various things and have a conference call”.
He went on to express his gratitude to his team who got him what “he needed’” to do his job.
The government ‘couldn’t let perfect be the enemy of the good’, Sunak says
Responding to a question from the chair about having to devise policies quickly, Sunak says the government “couldn’t let perfect be the enemy of the good”.
He said:
There was an acknowledgment early on when I was talking to the team that, of course we weren’t going to get everything right straight away.
That would have been, you know, surprising given the speed at which we were operating and the scale of the interventions we were designing, and putting in place.
And so there was a recognition upfront and I, you know, encouraged the team to be comfortable with that, that that was OK. Right? We couldn’t let perfect be the enemy of the good. And we were going to have to acknowledge that we would iterate as we go.
Sunak has stressed that one of the priorities was to prevent unemployment and said that in the context of a pandemic there should have been a recognition that things had to get “out fast” as otherwise the consequences would have been “severely negative”.
Sunak cautiously says the government will be in a better position to deal with a future pandemic, but stresses that all pandemics will be unique and will require an agile response to specific circumstances.
Sunak said:
My overarching reflection would be we have learned an enormous amount, having been through this once, and we have a set of tools that we developed, we iterated and no doubt can be improved in the future.
But I would slightly guard against the idea that whatever happens next time, you can pull something off the shelf.
And as you said, just kind of go right, line one line two, plug it into a machine and off you go. Each economic shock. Each economic crisis is going to be slightly different. And it’s important for policymakers at that moment to be agile and responsive to the situation they face and not be so mechanically thinking, OK, just as we did this last time, it’s the right thing to do in exactly the same way.
Sunak says he initially thought there would be a temporary ‘economic shock’ lasting ‘several weeks to a few months’
Sunak says officials knew there was “going to be an economic shock” from the pandemic but they understood these impacts were going to be “temporary”.
The former chancellor told the Covid-19 inquiry:
I think our understanding at the beginning was that it would last several weeks to a few months. And what we were focused on, on doing is making sure that the temporary shock did not have long term serious economic consequences.
Sunak said speed was “paramount” as “one thing that was crystal clear that this was happening very quickly” and was to have an “extraordinary impact” on millions of people across the country.
A damning official report on the handling of the pandemic found the UK’s response to Covid was “too little, too late”. It said the introduction of a lockdown even a week earlier than happened could have saved more than 20,000 lives.
The document criticised a “toxic and chaotic” culture inside Boris Johnson’s Downing Street – which it said the then prime minister actively embraced. You can read more about the finding’s here.
Sunak says there was not a ‘toolkit’ to deal with the pandemic and he was surprised to be made chancellor
Sunak, who had been appointed chief secretary to the Treasury in July 2019, admitted he did not have a “huge amount of time in that context” when appointed chancellor.
“I was obviously very new to senior government. And then it was a surprise to be made chancellor in the middle of February,” Sunak said.
He said his “immediate job” was to prepare a budget in the “space of a few weeks”.
Sunak told the inquiry:
As it turned out, that was really the one of the easier things I had to do, given what then unfolded over the next few days, weeks, months, and at that moment things were moving very quickly. So even during the budget preparations, it was clear that what was happening with the pandemic was escalating.
Sunak added that there was not a “toolkit” to deal with the pandemic amid a huge amount of uncertainty, including around what the public’s behavioural response would be and the potential economic impacts of lockdowns.
“There was not a playbook that you could pull off the shelf that said, well, this is how you, you know, tend to deal with pandemics in the same way you somehow have with other economic shocks or financial shocks.”
Sunak will be asked about a range of issues today including preparedness, the economic shock the country faced, funding for the devolved administrations, the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, the self-employed income support scheme, the economic impact of Long Covid, loans and the uplift to both the universal credit and working tax credits.
This is Sunak’s second appearance at the Covid inquiry.
Sunak confirmed that he was appointed as chancellor on 13 February 2020. He says he looks forward to providing evidence today and extends his condolences for all those who lost loved ones due to Covid during the pandemic. He said the inquiry should help with the UK’s preparedness in the future.
Covid inquiry starts with Sunak set to be grilled over economic response to pandemic
The hearing in Dorland House in central London, where the Covid inquiry is taking place, has just started.
You can watch the broadcast of today’s hearing in this feed, which is also attached to the top of the blog. We are expecting Sunak to appear in about ten minutes or so:
The Covid inquiry, which, according to the IFS, is likely to end up costing in excess of £200m, got under way in 2022 and its final report is not expected until 2027.
It covers decision-making by the UK government, and the administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, across a range of topics, including procurement, the care sector, children and young people, vaccines and the impact the pandemic had on the healthcare system.
Rishi Sunak will be grilled on the government’s economic response (module 9).
Just under 227,000 people in the UK died with Covid-19 listed as one of the causes on their death certificate between March 2020 and May 2023.
The pandemic caused a severe recession, with a huge drop in GDP during the first national lockdown in 2020.
As part of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, known as furlough, the government subsidised the wages of employees hit by the pandemic as sectors – such as hospitality, nightclubs and the travel industry – closed down to prevent the virus from spreading.
This massive level of state intervention covered about 11.7 million jobs between March 2020 and September 2021, at a cost of roughly £70bn.
The Covid inquiry has previously heard that furlough is estimated to have directly preserved four million jobs across the UK workforce.
The Treasury has estimated that total spending by the government across all its support measures amounted to £373bn.
Rishi Sunak to face questions on economic impact of the Covid pandemic
Former British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, is to give evidence at the Covid-19 inquiry today as it looks into the government’s economic response to the pandemic.
Sunak, who was chancellor at the height of the pandemic, has previously defended his “eat out to help out” scheme, rolled out in the summer of 2020, saying it prevented job losses.
He has denied that the £850m policy – which gave diners a state-funded £10 discount – drove a second wave of Covid infections, despite research showing it caused a rise of between 8% and 17%, while the economic benefits of the scheme were short-lived.
Sunak is due to be questioned between 10.30am and 4.30pm (with a lunch break), so stick with us as we provide you with the latest lines. We will have a feed attached to the top of the blog shortly.
