Sunak Covid Inquiry: Five things we learnt as PM says he's 'deeply sorry' for deaths and defends Eat Out To Help Out
11 December 2023, 17:57 | Updated: 12 December 2023, 1:00
Rishi Sunak appeared at the Covid-19 inquiry on Monday, discussing decisions he made as Chancellor, including Eat Out To Help Out and funding the pandemic response.
1. Eat Out To Help Out was 'safe' and was designed to 'protect jobs', says Sunak
Rishi Sunak told the inquiry today that he believes the Eat Out To Help Out scheme was safe and that it was designed to "protect millions of jobs".
He added that the "onus" should have been on those who felt strongly about the policy to raise concerns "when something could have been done about it".
Eat Out To Help Out was announced on July 8 2020 and was implemented the following month. The scheme subsidised food and non-alcoholic drinks at 50 per cent, up to £10, from Monday to Wednesday throughout August.
The probe heard previously that scientists, such as former chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance and England's chief medical officer Sir Chris Whitty, were not aware of the scheme until it was announced.
Defending the scheme at the inquiry, Sunak said: "I'm very clear that I don't believe that it was [a risk] because hospitality had been deemed to be safe to reopen with a considerable - as I said - hundreds of pages of guidance, changes in practice, and had been recommended by think tanks, and had been done by countries elsewhere.
"This was a very reasonable, sensible policy intervention to help safeguard those jobs in that safe reopening. That was my view. I didn't believe that it was a risk. I believe it was the right thing to do.
"But if others are suggesting that they didn't, they had ample opportunity to raise those concerns in forums where I was there, or where the Prime Minister or others were, and they didn't."
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2. Sunak contradicts Matt Hancock over Eat Out To Help Out
Sunak contradicted Matt Hancock's claim that the then-Health Secretary had warned the Treasury that Eat Out To Help Out was causing problems.
Lead counsel Hugo Keith asked the former chancellor whether he was aware Hancock had raised concerns about the scheme to the Treasury, as he claimed he had in an August 2020 message as he was arguing against the extension.
"I have no recollection of him raising that nor do I have any record of him doing so with me at the time," Mr Sunak said.
"But I do know he has said that there has been undue focus on this one item in his evidence to the inquiry."
3. Former Chancellor had 'enormous anxiety' Treasury would not be able to fund pandemic response
Sunak admitted that the Treasury had "enormous anxiety" as to whether the government would be able to deal with the pandemic response.
Following the failed gilt auction in March 2020, Sunak said the Treasury were concerned they would not be able to deal with the "extremely serious and rare" event.
"It happened once before in the financial crisis and it unsurprisingly caused enormous anxiety inside the Treasury and with me, because it was a very worrying development," Sunak told the inquiry.
He said the treasury then had to "enter an overdraft facility at the Bank of England", to deal with the cost of the pandemic.
4. Sunak's missing WhatsApp messages and not recalling details from his decisions
Sunak said he was unable to provide WhatsApp messages to the previous Covid probe because he was forced to change his phone so often.
He told the inquiry that he had changed his phone "multiple times over the last few years" and the messages from the old ones had "not come across".
He added that no one had advised him to save messages for an inquiry, even when Boris Johnson announced its establishment in May 2021, he said. He also stressed he was not a "prolific" WhatsApp user and recorded official decisions elsewhere.
The prime minister was challenged over his hazy memory of an early meeting about the first lockdown on March 23 2020.
"I can't precisely recall that particular meeting," he said.
Hugo Keith KC responded: "This was, of course, one of the most momentous decisions in the history of this nation."
5. PM is 'deeply sorry' to those who lost loved ones in the pandemic
As then-Prime Minister Johnson did last week, Sunak used his opening remarks to the inquiry to issue an apology.
The Prime Minister said he was "deeply sorry" to those who lost loved ones and who suffered during the pandemic "as a result of the actions that were taken".
He added that "it's important that we learn the lessons so that we can be better prepared in the future".