Six things we learned from Rishi Sunak’s Covid inquiry evidence

Rishi Sunak spent more than five hours at the Covid public inquiry being grilled on his role in the government’s response to the pandemic

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak spent more than five hours at the Covid inquiry being grilled on his role in the government’s response to the pandemic. Here are six things we learned from his testimony:

Mr Sunak had barbecues with Boris Johnson in the early stages of the pandemic

The PM appeared to land himself in it, when he may have inadvertently revealed that he and the then prime minister broke lockdown restrictions by chatting to each other in the No10 garden at weekends while his family had a barbecue.

Discussing the spring of 2020, when discussions were being made about the pandemic, Mr Sunak said: “If I was having lunch with my family in the garden at the same time that the prime minister was, on a typical weekend in Downing Street, then we would obviously be chatting as we were barbecuing.”

Given households were not permitted to mix throughout much of 2020, and a family barbecue could not be considered a “work event”, did these social occasions breach lockdown rules? Surely they were not held before 23 March, when lockdown came into effect, as it would have been too cold to have a barbecue outdoors.

Rishi Sunak can’t recall being warned about Eat Out To Help Out risks

Mr Sunak insisted to the inquiry that he did not recall being warned about how risky the Government’s opening-up measures were in summer 2020, ahead of the launch of his controversial Eat Out to Help Out scheme that August.

He was shown an email to him from an aide suggesting that scientific advisers were warning the wider measures were “at the riskier end of the spectrum” when it came to infection rates, but the former chancellor insisted he did not “recall” that email.

He went on to explain that he did not need to seek scientific advice before launching the policy as it was a “micro-policy” sitting within the wider reopening of the hospitality sector, and suggested he did not discuss it with former health secretary Matt Hancock because it was a “fiscal measure”.

“As would be completely normal for all economic policy before fiscal events – that’s longstanding practice, it always has been so – I wouldn’t have discussed the VAT cut on the hospitality sector with the Secretary of State for Health, or the stamp duty cut,” he said.

The Prime Minister also passionately stated that scientists had a month to raise concerns about Eat Out to Help Out before it started. “I know there’s been a lot of commentary on this point, but there was almost a month between announcement and commencement,” he said.

“I’ve outlined my reasons for why we implemented the policy and why I thought it was the right thing to do […] but in none of those moments in those meetings […] I do not recall and the minutes do not suggest that it was raised at all.”

Sunak denies he avoided creating a ‘paper trail’ of discussions with Boris Johnson

Mr Keith asked Mr Sunak about an August 2022 interview in The Spectator, in which it was suggested he would “say a lot of stuff to him [Boris Johnson] in private” because there was a “written record of everything” and he wanted to avoid leaks.

Mr Sunak insisted that he did not say he wanted to avoid creating a paper trail, and he would always write to Mr Johnson on important issues “so that he could have it in one place”.

He added that it was not possible to avoid having formal conversations with Mr Johnson as they lived next door to one another in Downing Street.

“You just work with colleagues and if you happen to be neighbours, it’s impossible not to see each other outside of a formal Covid S meeting, that’s just the practical reality of being neighbours and sharing a garden and living in the same building,” he said.

“But in terms of decision-making structures, I’m very clear that there was rigorous and proper debate and deliberation with colleagues in those structures.”

Sunak wanted to safeguard retail and hospitality to protect ‘most vulnerable’

As reported prior to Mr Sunak’s evidence, the Prime Minister defended his decision to implement the Eat Out to Help Out scheme by claiming he was concerned about the impact of lockdown on the retail and hospitality sectors.

He claimed these sectors employed “people who were the most vulnerable in society”, including “people coming off welfare, women, ethnic minorities”, so it was “particularly important” to “safeguard” those jobs.

“From an economic perspective, we are a consumption-driven economy, and therefore people’s jobs and livelihoods and ability to pay for public service is a function of consumption being strong,” he said.

“If you have a situation like this, where we’ve actively shut down or discouraged consumption centres from operating, once they reopen it was a point of concern for me and anyone thinking about the economy […] as to the pace of return.

“Because if [people] didn’t [return to consumption-based businesses], that would have significant implications for many people’s jobs and those sectors of the economy.”

Sunak denies Treasury was ‘pro-death squad’ under his leadership

Mr Sunak was asked by Mr Keith whether he was aware that some No 10 officials had referred to the Treasury as “the pro-death squad”, suggesting it was opposed to maximum public health interventions.

Entries in the diary of Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser at the time, refer to a meeting in No 10 in early 2021 setting out plans for the gradual easing of lockdown restrictions.

Sir Patrick claims that Mr Johnson told the meeting that “the team must bring in ‘the pro-death squad from HMT’ in order to get their support for the timetable of lifting restrictions.

The Prime Minister said he wasn’t aware that the Treasury was referred to in that way during his time there, adding: “I do not think it is a fair characterisation on the incredibly hardworking people that I was lucky to be supported by at the Treasury.”

Sunak says too many people worked from home during the pandemic

The former Chancellor also said that Government communication errors meant that too many people ended up working from home unnecessarily during the pandemic.

Mr Keith said Mr Sunak’s statement explained how the Treasury had expressed concern there had been “over-compliance with the government stay-at-home messaging during the first lockdown”.

Mr Sunak said the public had not understood “sufficiently clearly that they should go to work only if they could not work from home”.

He said: “You’re right in summarising the situation. Perhaps the best example of it is in the construction industry […] and we’d seen what had happened in other European countries. More activity was able to be continued in Europe than was the case in the UK.

“So, that was a good example of the messaging being slightly lost. I don’t think there was anything we could do about it particularly.”

The Prime Minister added that there was work to get Government communications “right” on this issue after the first lockdown as the scientific modelling had been based on a certain number of people working from home and there were “fewer people were out at work than had been anticipated.”