Ex-civil service head apologises for proposing chickenpox party-type approach to Covid – UK politics live

Keith shows Sedwill an email from Simon Case (who succeeded Sedwill as cabinet secretary) in which Case praised for Sedwill for arranging not to let Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser, and Prof Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, to attend a meeting where the lifting of restrictions was discussed in May 2020. Case said the decision to exclude the two was a “genius” move which helped a decision to be taken.

Sedwill says Johnson was at his best in small meetings. He says Vallance and Whitty had plenty of access to Johnson anyway, and he says Vallance was happy with what was agreed.

They have now stopped for lunch.

Sedwill says Boris Johnson was often at his best in small meetings.

Downing Street has rejected claims that Rishi Sunak’s comment this morning about holding the Metropolitan police “accountable” for its decision to allow the pro-Palestinian march to go ahead on Saturday amounted to putting pressure on the commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley.

When this claim was put to him, the PM’s spokesperson replied:

No, that’s part and parcel of how government and the Met operate. The Met are operationally independent, it’s the job of the prime minister and the government to hold them to account for their approach. So, that is what the prime minister will be doing.

Keith asks Sedwill about a note he wrote to the PM as the first wave of Covid was coming to an end saying it appeared the UK was doing worse than other countries.

Sedwill says he was referring to the excess deaths figures, which seemed to show the UK doing worse than comparable countries.

Keith is now asking about what happened when Boris Johnson fell ill.

Sedwill says it was clear that Dominic Raab, the first secretary, should take over in the event of Johnson being incapacitated.

Q: When Johnson came back to work, to what extent was he affected by his illness?

Sedwill says there is a broader point about Johnson’s decision-making style.

Keith says they will come back to that.

Sedwill says he will leave that for now.

But he says it took Johnson a long time to recover. The issue was stamina, he says.

Sedwill accepts that the “stay at home” order given on 16 March could have been given earlier.

Q: And if it had, the lockdown could have been avoided?

Sedwill says that is possible. But he says he is “highly sceptical” about whether the lockdown could have been avoided entirely.

He says proper academic research is needed to show what might have happened if the soft lockdown had happened earlier.

But he says he accepts that acting early would probably have had a “positive effect” on casualties.

It might not have avoided the need for lockdown. It is more likely to have had an impact on the duration of the lockdown, he says.

Keith is now asking about the lockdown decision announced on Monday 23 March.

He says Boris Johnson started work on what he was going to say at 2.05pm on the Monday.

But the Cobra meeting where this was discussed did not take place until 5pm, and the cabinet meeting to discuss this did not take place until the following day.

He says this implies the decision was not taken by cabinet – even though Sedwill said earlier cabinet should be the key decision-making body.

Sedwill accepts this. But he says the decision to have a lockdown had been taken in a separate Covid-S meeting. He says that was constitutionally proper.

Keith asks about the comment from Sedwill implying a chickenpox party approach might work for Covid.

Sedwill says this remark was made before the meetings had taken place where No 10 realised a new approach was needed. He says when Ben Warner, another official, challenged what he said, he realised the chickenpox analogy was inappropriate. He says this was a remark made in private.

He says:

These were private exchanges and I certainly had not expected for this to become public.

I understand how, in particular, the interpretation that has been put on it, it must have come across as someone in my role was both heartless and thoughtless about this, and I genuinely am neither. But I do understand the distress that must have caused and I apologise for that.

Keith is now asking about the switch to a suppression strategy.

Sedwill says did not see this as a switch from plan A to plan B. He says he thought this was an acceleration and intensification of measures Sage had already said might be necessary.

Keith is now showing the inquiry an exchange of emails between Dominic Cummings and Sedwill on 11 March 2022. Cummings wanted to set up a new meeting to deal with Covid decisions.

In his reply, Sedwill said he objected to the idea that key decisions would be taken by “a bunch of No 10 Spads (special advisers)“ and the PM, with no ministers, no experts and no scientists there. “We are not running a dictatorship here,” he said.

We are not running a dictatorship here and the PM is not taking nationally significant decisions with a bunch of No10 SpAds and no ministers, no operational experts and no scientists. If necessary, I will take over the 8:15 slot and chair a daily meeting myself.

Sedwill says the email expressed “pretty pungently my views about collective government”.

At the inquiry Keith showed Sedwill this document, from a report from the civil contingencies secretariat, illustrating possible deaths from Covid. It was drawn up on 28 February 2020.

Keith asked why levels of alarm in government were not higher as a result. “They should have been,” Sedwill said.