‘Devastating to think of the lives that could have been saved under a different prime minister’
Brenda Doherty (right) who lost her mother on March 24, 2020, and Lauren Mallon, who lost her uncle during the pandemic, speaking out at the National Covid Memorial Wall in London tonight. Photograph: Jaimi Joy/Reuters
Here’s the first reaction from a bereaved families group. The Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK says:
“The evidence from the inquiry is clear, and while it is vindicating to see Boris Johnson blamed in black and white for the catastrophic mishandling of the pandemic, it is devastating to think of the lives that could have been saved under a different prime minister.
“We now know that many of our family members would still be alive today if it weren’t for the leadership of Boris Johnson and his colleagues.
“As the report has found, the government’s approach to the pandemic was undermined from the beginning.
“If Johnson had listened to scientific advice and locked down even a week earlier, around 23,000 people could have been saved. Instead, throughout the pandemic, Boris Johnson put his political reputation ahead of public safety.
“He pandered to his critics when the UK needed decisive action.
“In delaying lockdowns he made them longer, more damaging to the economy and less effective, he ignored scientific advice that didn’t fit his agenda, and he ignored the impact of his decisions on the front line, repeating the mistakes of the first wave and prolonging the second.”
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Updated at 12.18 EST
Key events
5m ago
‘Had the lockdown been a week earlier, my mother would have been saved’
19m ago
Starmer responds to findings
31m ago
A quick recap of key findings
54m ago
‘Devastating to think of the lives that could have been saved under a different prime minister’
1h ago
Sturgeon criticised for ‘extremely wide’ powers in Scotland’s response
1h ago
Mistakes repeated with delayed restrictions
2h ago
February 2020 ‘a lost month’ with Johnson uninformed on growing crisis
2h ago
All four governments failed to respond in time
2h ago
Pandemic not taken seriously until it was ‘too late’
2h ago
Lockdown a week earlier could have saved 23,000 lives
2h ago
Covid inquiry report released
2h ago
Former Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle joins Greens
3h ago
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‘Had the lockdown been a week earlier, my mother would have been saved’
Brenda Doherty (right) lost her mother on March 24, 2020. Ruth Burke was the first female COVID-19 death in Northern Ireland. Photograph: Jaimi Joy/Reuters
I just want to go back again to Brenda Doherty, who lost her mother Ruth Burke in the first weeks of the pandemic. She’s been speaking in the freezing cold this evening to media at the Covid memorial wall along the Thames in London.
The report lays blame squarely at the feet of governments who acted too slowly, she says. Boris Johnson did not enact a lockdown until 23 March.
“My mummy died on 24 March 2020,” she said, her voice breaking.
“The report made it clear that had the lockdown been a week earlier, people like my mummy would have been saved.”
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Starmer responds to findings
In a written parliamentary statement, Keir Starmer has addressed the failings identified in today’s report of the previous government.
“[It] has found that the Government fell short, with advice lacking proper economic and social modelling, the impact on vulnerable people not sufficiently considered, and the culture in the centre of government described as “toxic”.
He notes that decisions were made in the context of the UK being not properly prepared.
He says: “Since then, improvements have been made to the way the government would respond to a major crisis. That said, it is clear that local government and our public services, including the NHS, are under immense pressure and in many cases have not fully recovered from the pandemic.”
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A quick recap of key findings
Frances Mao
About 23,000 deaths could have been prevented if the first Covid-19 lockdown was introduced even a week earlier
Chaotic government response summarised as “too little, too late”. All four governments failed to recognise scale and threat of the virus
Boris Johnson, cabinet ministers and government scientists underestimated or ignored warning signs of the virus’ spread in Italy and China
They made repeat mistakes in delaying action on lockdowns and restrictions, an “inexcusable” action given repeat waves
Johnson was too “optimistic” over pandemic’s trajectory and presided over a “toxic culture” at Downing Street which prevented clear action
Special adviser Dominic Cummings singled out for “destabilising behaviour”
Early health advice to public was “weak”, focusing largely on hand hygiene. Face masks were “positively discouraged”
Key scientists failed to act with enough urgency in government advice
Alcohol-filled parties in Downing Street “undermined public confidence in decision-making”
Children “were not always prioritised” and “suffered greatly from the closure of schools and requirement to stay at home”. The pandemic “brought ordinary childhood to a halt”.
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‘Devastating to think of the lives that could have been saved under a different prime minister’
Brenda Doherty (right) who lost her mother on March 24, 2020, and Lauren Mallon, who lost her uncle during the pandemic, speaking out at the National Covid Memorial Wall in London tonight. Photograph: Jaimi Joy/Reuters
Here’s the first reaction from a bereaved families group. The Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK says:
“The evidence from the inquiry is clear, and while it is vindicating to see Boris Johnson blamed in black and white for the catastrophic mishandling of the pandemic, it is devastating to think of the lives that could have been saved under a different prime minister.
“We now know that many of our family members would still be alive today if it weren’t for the leadership of Boris Johnson and his colleagues.
“As the report has found, the government’s approach to the pandemic was undermined from the beginning.
“If Johnson had listened to scientific advice and locked down even a week earlier, around 23,000 people could have been saved. Instead, throughout the pandemic, Boris Johnson put his political reputation ahead of public safety.
“He pandered to his critics when the UK needed decisive action.
“In delaying lockdowns he made them longer, more damaging to the economy and less effective, he ignored scientific advice that didn’t fit his agenda, and he ignored the impact of his decisions on the front line, repeating the mistakes of the first wave and prolonging the second.”
Share
Updated at 12.18 EST
Sturgeon criticised for ‘extremely wide’ powers in Scotland’s response
Severin Carrell
Nicola Sturgeon has been chastised for failing to consult the Scottish cabinet about “very significant” decisions she took during the pandemic, such as the decision to close schools, which diminished the cabinet’s role and reduced her accountability, the inquiry found.
The report said Sturgeon, then Scotland’s first minister, and her deputy John Swinney, who is now first minister, had taken “extremely wide” powers and used a gold command structure rather than consulting fellow ministers about their decisions.
“The use of the informal gold command meeting structure diminished the role of the Scottish cabinet and reduced the transparency of the Scottish government’s decision-making during the pandemic. It also deprived decision-makers of a wide range of views. The Scottish cabinet frequently became a decision-ratifying body, not the ultimate decision-making body.
“The Scottish cabinet should have been involved to a greater degree in decision- making in Scotland. This would have ensured greater transparency and enhanced accountability for decisions taken by the gold command and, increasingly, Ms Sturgeon.”
Lady Hallett’s report said the cabinet had previously found the evidence for closing schools was “not yet clear” but the next day Sturgeon and Swinney decided to close them, despite cabinet agreeing to keep that decision under review. It said:
“Although the situation was rapidly deteriorating, the cabinet should have been sufficiently agile and engaged to play its central role in decision-making and not be sidelined in this way.”
Kate Forbes, the current deputy first minister, told MSPs on Thursday the government would carry out a “thorough and thoughtful review” after it had time to study the report and its findings.
She did not comment directly on the accusations of sidelining cabinet, but said: “we are committed to learning from the past” and acknowledged “the loss, hurt and suffering of people right across Scotland” during the pandemic.
Murdo Fraser, speaking for the Scottish Conservatives, said Forbes had admitted to the Covid inquiry she was often shut out of significant decisions during the pandemic, even though she was then finance secretary.
This meant “the absurd boast that this government is committed to transparency is an insult to those who lost loved ones out of respect to them and all Scots.”
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Updated at 12.11 EST
Mistakes repeated with delayed restrictions
Jessica Murray
Even after a lockdown was imposed on 23 March, the report said, mistakes were repeated, including what it called an “unwise” exit from restrictions that summer, pushed in part by Rishi Sunak, the then-chancellor.
People eating out in Yorkshire in summer 2020, during the Eat Out To Help Out scheme. Photograph: SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images
When a second wave swept the UK, a new lockdown was again delayed, with all the four UK governments saying restrictions could ease over Christmas, giving people “false hope”, as the report put it.
It’s “inexcusable” that the mistakes were made again, says Baroness Heather Hallett, author of the report.
ShareThe National Covid Memorial Wall in London Photograph: James Manning/PA
Just some background for readers, although most likely we all remember it well: The UK suffered one of the deadliest Covid outbreaks in Europe, with about 240,000 virus-related deaths.
This report today is the second from Baroness Heather Hallett, who is overseeing a national inquiry into all aspects of the response and handling of the pandemic.
The inquiry began two years ago and is due to run until 2027. The current focus is on children.
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Updated at 11.44 EST
February 2020 ‘a lost month’ with Johnson uninformed on growing crisis
Jessica MurrayBoris Johnson announced the first lockdown on March 23, 2020 – an action taken too late says the report. Photograph: Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images
It was “surprising” that Johnson did not do call a Cobra meeting before March, the report’s authors say, with some understatement.
“Mr Johnson should have appreciated sooner that this was an emergency that required prime ministerial leadership to inject urgency into the response.”
This was explained in part by the PM “acting in accordance with his own optimistic disposition” and accepting assurances that everything necessary was being done.
Many of these assurances came from Matt Hancock, the health secretary, described by the report as having as reputation “for overpromising and underdelivering”.
February 2020 was “a lost month” and the lack of urgency overall in government was “inexcusable”, the report found.
During the February school half-term, Johnson spent the whole week at the government’s Chevening country retreat, the report says, adding: “It does not appear that he was briefed, at all or to any significant extent, on Covid-19 and he received no daily updates.”
By the second week of March, the report said, the situation was “little short of calamitous”, with no proper plan, no testing taking place and thus no understanding about how far the virus had spread.
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Updated at 11.26 EST
All four governments failed to respond in time
Peter Walker
While perhaps the most stinging criticism is directed at Johnson and his team, notably his then adviser Dominic Cummings, the report also targets the three devolved governments and scientific advisers.
The inquiry finds that the response of the four governments repeatedly amounted to a case of ‘too little, too late’.
The failure to appreciate the scale of the threat, or the urgency of response it demanded, meant that by the time the possibility of a mandatory lockdown was first considered it was already too late and a lockdown had become unavoidable.”
Many of the same mistakes – reacting too slowly and underestimating the speed and impact of Covid’s spread – were then repeated later in 2020, as restrictions were lifted and then belatedly reimposed in the face of infectious new strains, the report adds, calling this “inexcusable”.
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Updated at 12.20 EST
Pandemic not taken seriously until it was ‘too late’
Peter Walker
The first volume of the report gives a chronology of the crisis, from the start of 2020 to the final lifting of restrictions, pointing to a consistent picture of inaction despite ever-mounting evidence about a new virus that was spreading around the globe and could be transmitted between people.
Events like the early Covid crisis in Italy “should have prompted urgent planning across the four nations”, the report said, adding:
“Instead, the governments did not take the pandemic seriously enough until it was too late. February 2020 was a lost month.”
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Lockdown a week earlier could have saved 23,000 lives
My colleagues Peter Walker and Jessica Murray have more detail:
The UK’s response to Covid was “too little, too late”, a damning official report into the handling of the pandemic has concluded, saying the introduction of a lockdown even a week earlier than happened could have saved more than 20,000 lives.
Detailed in more than 750 pages across two volumes, the findings of the second part of the Covid inquiry’s hearings, into how Boris Johnson’s government handled the pandemic, paint a consistent picture of delay, inaction and a seeming inability to learn lessons.
The narrative about the start of the pandemic in early 2020 is particularly brutal, describing February as “a lost month”. It questions why Johnson failed to chair a single meeting of the Cobra emergency committee that month, noting also that the response to Covid essentially halted during the half-term holiday week.
While acknowledging that the decision to impose a lockdown was unprecedented and hugely difficult, taking other action to curb the spread of the virus sooner could have meant one might have been avoided, or at least have been shorter, it said.
By the time a lockdown was inevitable, the inquiry authors went on, if it had been imposed on 16 March, a week earlier than took place, modelling suggested this could have cut the number of deaths in England in the first wave of the virus by almost half, equating to 23,000 lives saved.
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Updated at 11.49 EST
Covid inquiry report released
The official report into how the UK government tackled the coronavirus pandemic has just been published.
It is a damning assessment, and finds that there were multiple delays and inaction, and failures by those in charge to learn lessons through successive waves.
More detail soon.
ShareAndrew Sparrow
Sonia Lenegan has posted a good analysis of the earned settlement plans at Free Movement, a blog covering immigration law. This is her conclusion.
The paper is fairly explicit that the target here is the number of people on health and care visas. So it is low earners and our carers who the government is proposing to force into additional expensive applications and a longer period of instability before they are able settle, contrary to the rules under which they made the decision to uproot their lives and move to the UK.
I am aware that there is a view that people who are already here but have not yet reached the point where they are eligible for settlement are fair game, and some will argue that their inclusion means these changes are not retrospective. But I think that it is important to remember that many if not most of these people will have had a choice about where to move. They chose the UK, based on rules which would allow them to settle after five years. Changing those rules on them now is simply unfair and transitional arrangements are essential.
That is all from me for today. Frances Mao is now taking over.
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