Children paid ‘huge price’ for others in Covid, Boris Johnson says

Children have paid a “huge price” to protect others during the Covid pandemic, Boris Johnson told an inquiry examining its impact on young people.

The former prime minister repeated an earlier apology for the government's mistakes but said he was proud of what teachers and schools had done to cope with “incredibly difficult” circumstances.

He denied earlier suggestions that there were no plans to close schools at the start of 2020, saying he believed the decisions had already been carefully considered and carefully considered by then.

But he said he also hoped schools would remain open, calling closing them a “nightmare idea” and a “personal horror.”

Former Education Secretary Gavin Williamson gave his testimony to the investigation last weekin which he said the government had made a mistake by “sticking with the plan” to keep schools open in March 2020.

The investigation was told that the plan was only drawn up on March 17, 2020 – the day before schools were announced to close.

Mr Johnson told the inquiry on Tuesday he accepted criticism about the lack of planning but added that making changes to schools would have required “much greater knowledge about Covid and what might happen”.

“The speed at which the disease has progressed” has complicated planning, he added, saying the focus was on trying to avoid a “terrible public health crisis.”

The investigation also previously reported several disagreements between Williamson and Johnson, including over the decision to close schools again in 2021.

Last week Williamson faced a scathing message he sent to the then prime minister in February 2021, in which he said he had been “abused” by the government's decision to close schools a day after they reopened.

On Tuesday, Johnson told the inquiry he wanted to implement “mass testing” in schools as a way to keep them open.

But he “will never be a runner” because of a new alpha variant that emerged at the same time and accelerated the spread of the disease, he said.

One of the biggest challenges of the pandemic for both Johnson and Williamson was the August 2020 exam results fiasco.

The Department for Education (DfE) was forced to revert to using a results-awarding algorithm that was designed to prevent grade inflation but instead resulted in 40% of predicted results being downgraded.

The public outcry led to a U-turn that meant students ended up getting the grades their teachers predicted they would receive after GCSE and A-level exams were canceled earlier this year.

During Tuesday's inquiry, Johnson was faced with his own leaked messages in which he told then advisers Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain that the DfE needed “better ministers”.

“We can't continue like this. I'm thinking about going to number 10 and firing people,” he said.

Johnson said he was in a “completely murderous mood” at the time.

Referring to the exam fiasco, inquiry lawyer Clare Dobbin K.S. suggested to Johnson that “the whole thing was a disaster.”

“If you mean, has Covid been a disaster? Yes. Was the loss of education a disaster? Yes. Was the loss of exams a disaster? Yes. Was the disappointment, the anger, the disappointment of so many children—the added disappointment—a disaster? Yes, it happened,” Johnson said.

“But it has to be seen in the context of our attempts to cope with a much larger disaster,” he added, referring to the loss of learning and exams.

“Overall,” he said the DfE had done a fairly “heroic job” in dealing with the pandemic.

Later, speaking on Tuesday, Johnson said lockdown and social distancing rules had “probably gone too far” and that children could be exempted from them.

While “hopefully this never happens again,” he said that in the event of any future pandemic, closing schools “really should be a last resort.”

This Covid inquiry into the impact of the pandemic on children and young people is due to conclude later this week.

You can listen to the latest episode of the Covid Inquiry podcast on BBC Sounds.

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