Former Cabinet Office minister Lord Michael Gove has apologized on behalf of the then government and the Conservative Party for “mistakes made” during the coronavirus pandemic.
In its long-awaited report published, Baroness Hallett says Boris Johnson, the then prime minister, oversaw a “toxic and chaotic” culture at No 10 during Covid.
Lord Gove told the BBC's Today program that some “relationships” in Downing Street were “less than ideal” but added that in a crisis “government affairs cannot be conducted in the manner of a Jane Austen novel”.
He also said an earlier lockdown would have been “sensible” but questioned the report's assertion that it would have meant fewer deaths.
Responding to the report, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the government would learn from the report and was already “taking action to make sure that not just the NHS, but the government as a whole, is prepared for any number of eventualities.”
The 800-page inquiry report is highly critical of the government's decisions and says the introduction of a Covid lockdown a week earlier could have saved 23,000 lives during the first wave in England, although it does not suggest the overall death toll would have fallen.
It also said the lockdown could have been avoided if the government had earlier introduced restrictions such as social distancing, and concludes that lockdown “has only become inevitable because of the actions and inactions of four governments” in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
The report described February 2020 as a “lost month” and said the government's lack of urgency was “inexcusable”.
It said lessons had failed to be learned from the first wave of Covid and that restrictions were introduced too slowly in autumn 2020.
The investigation alleges that on Christmas Day that year, governments took no action “until infection levels became critical.”
Johnson, who was prime minister from 2019 to 2022. and configure the request, accused in the report of failing to make decisions quickly enough in the fall of 2020 – and changing his mind repeatedly.
He has been contacted for comment.
Lord Gove rejected the suggestion that the findings of the Covid report would end any future political ambitions of Johnson.
He said Johnson's decision-making style “may not be to everyone's taste” but added that he is “grappling with the extremely difficult question of limiting freedom and preserving access to health care.”
“Moreover, without his persistence, we would not have had his vaccine rollout, which would have ensured that we were the first country to take the shots.”
Dominic Cummings, then a senior aide in Downing Street, is criticized in the report, which says he exhibited “destabilizing behaviour” and contributed to a “culture of fear” that was “poisoning the atmosphere”.
It also said the loudest voices in government prevailed and many were ignored “to the detriment of good decision-making”.
Cummings, who left No 10 at the end of 2020, blamed the investigation for allowing history to be “significantly rewritten”.
In the early months of 2020, he said, “it is important that the public realizes that on most important issues the 'experts', including senior scientists, have been completely wrong.”
Lord Gove said Cummings was responsible for ensuring the data was “accurate and thoroughly checked”.
He also said the report noted Cummings' intervention was “critical to taking the steps needed to suppress the virus.”
Asked about the culture in Downing Street, he said: “This is a case where we, like everyone else in the world, are faced with an unprecedented crisis… and of course, under the pressure of imperfect information, mistakes are made, voices are raised.”
Rishi Sunak, who has been chancellor during the pandemic, told BBC 5 Live's Matt Chorley that both the government and scientists were “operating in a highly uncertain environment”.
“I think we really need to look at the decisions we make through that lens, but it's important to learn lessons so we can be better prepared if there's ever another pandemic.”
Baroness Hallett also criticized Sir Chris Wormold – who is currently cabinet secretary, the government's most senior civil servant, but has been permanent secretary at the health department during the pandemic.
She said he had failed to take action to “correct the over-enthusiastic impression” then Health Secretary Matt Hancock had about the department's ability to handle the pandemic.
Asked on Radio 4's Today program whether Sir Chris should remain in his job given criticism of the report, Science Secretary Liz Kendall said “yes”, adding that he was “doing an excellent job across government, including learning lessons from this pandemic”.
