Boris Johnson ‘clearly bamboozled’ and ‘confused’ about science, Patrick Vallance notes reveal – UK Covid inquiry live | Politics

The Covid inquiry’s afternoon session has started. Andrew O’Connor, counsel for the inquiry, is asking about suggestions that there should have been an economic version of Sage (the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) to conduct economic modelling.

Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s former chief scientific adviser, says he thinks there should be an academic centre for pandemic preparedness in the UK. It should be very multi-disciplinary, he says. It should include economists, who could model the economic impact of interventions like lockdowns, he says.

But he says he would not be in favour of getting Sage to do economic modelling itself. He says that would lead to it having to take decisions, balancing health and economics, which involved trade-offs which should be determined by ministers. And, given the uncertainties in pandemic modelling and economic modelling, what would come out would be “one almighty uncertainty”.

But he says he would be in favour of having a standalone “economic Sage”, providing advice on the economic impact of pandemic measures. He says he would be in favour of that, if the Treasury wanted it.

Sunak says he will cut taxes ‘over time’ as he announces new economic priorities

Ben Quinn

Rishi Sunak has pledged to cut taxes “over time” in a speech that risks incurring the wrath of Conservative MPs impatient to see personal tax cuts announced as early as this week.

However, the prime minister’s announcement of what are intended to be five new key economics priorities almost went unnoticed at an event that was overshadowed by questions about the scale and type of tax cuts the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, may make in Wednesday’s autumn statement.

Britain faced a choice between a “big government” of high spending and taxes, which Sunak said was necessary in recent years, and a change in approach which would see an attempt to grow the economy through the “dynamism” of the private sector.

Now that inflation had been halved, he said, the government would take long-term decisions as part of the “next phase” of the government’s economic plan following a fall in inflation to 4.6% in October.

He listed them as reducing debt, cutting tax and rewarding hard work, building domestic and sustainable energy, backing British business and delivery world class education.

The priorities went largely unnoticed by the media until journalists approached Downing Street afterwards and were told that they were intended to be a significant moment.

They do not replace Sunak’s “five priorities” – ranging from halving inflation to “stopping the boats” – but were outlined in a speech at a north London college where the Conservative leader previewed the ways in which he is likely to differentiate his party from Labour in an election campaign.

As Hunt and a range of other ministers listened in the front row, Sunak used the speech to hint at business tax cuts to boost economic growth, promising to reduce the tax burden “carefully and sustainably”.

Sunak said:

Now that inflation is halved and our growth is stronger, meaning revenues are higher we can begin the next phase, and turn our attention to cutting tax.

We will do this in a serious, responsible way based on fiscal rules to deliver sound money and alongside the independent forecasts of the Office for Budget Responsibility.

And we can’t do everything all at once. It will take discipline and we need to prioritise. But over time, we can and we will cut taxes.

After the speech to an audience of local business and community leaders, Sunak claimed that the welfare system is not currently “sustainable” when asked about a possible squeeze on welfare payments in the autumn statement.

Declining to “pre-empt” any announcements on Wednesday, the PM said:

Our view on the welfare system is that it should be compassionate, it should be fair and it should be sustainable …

With over 2 million people of working age who are not currently working, that isn’t a good situation. It’s not sustainable for the country, for taxpayers. It’s not fair. But it’s also not compassionate to write people off.

In other section of his speech, Sunak sought to portray Labour as being in the pockets of trade unions and attempted to contrast his own and Hunt’s experience of being in business to his opponents, who he said “have no experience whatsoever over running a business”.

Just before the hearing broke for lunch Andrew O’Connor, counsel for the inquiry, asked about eat out to help out (EOTHO) – the Treasury subsidy for restaurants in the summer of 2020, which was subsequently blamed for helping to spread the virus.

Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser at the time, said that he and other scientists were not asked about it in advance. If they had been, they would have advised against, he said. “I think our advice would have been very clear on that.”

O’Connor presented an extract from Vallance’s witness statement in which he says it would have been “obvious to all involved” that scientists would have said, if they had been asked, that the scheme would increase infections.

O’Connor then presented an extract from Rishi Sunak’s witness statement, in which he claims that government scientists did not raise any objections with him to the EOTHO scheme.

O’Connor put it to Vallance that there was “a certain inconsistency” between Vallance saying it was obvious that scientists would not have backed the scheme, and Sunak saying no one raised objections.

Vallance replied:

Well, we didn’t see it before it was announced and I think others in the Cabinet Office have also said they didn’t see it before it was formulated as a policy. So we weren’t involved in the run-up to it.

And around that time lots of measures were being released. You’ll see repeated references in various minutes and notes and emails, and in my private notes, to our concern that people were piling on more and more things and this would come to drive R (the reproduction number) above one. I think that was discussed at cabinet as well.

So I think it would have been very obvious to anyone that this was likely to cause, inevitably would cause, an increase in transmission risk. And I think that would have been known by ministers.

O’Connor asked if Sunak would have known this too.

Vallance said he could not recall which meetings Sunak attended. But he went on:

I’d be very surprised if any minister didn’t understand that these openings carried risk.

O’Connor then presented extracts from Vallance’s diary in which he describes ministers trying to sideline the scientists.

In this extract, from June 2020, he says No 10 did not understand the 2- metre rule.

In this extract, also from June 2020, Vallance recalls an issue where he says No 10 wanted the science “altered”.

And in this extract, from July 2020, Vallance recalls Rishi Sunak, the then chancellor, talking in a meeting about the need to manage the scientists, not the virus. Sunak did not realise Chris Whitty was in the meeting too. Vallance says:

In the economics meeting earlier today they didn’t realise CMO (chief medical officer Sir Chris Whitty) was there and CX (then-chancellor Rishi Sunak) said ‘It is all about handling the scientists, not handling the virus’. They then got flustered when the CMO chipped in later and they realised he had been there all along. PM blustered and waffled for five mins to cover his embarrassment.

Asked about these interventions, Vallance played down the significance of them, suggesting that that was just what politicians did. He says generally the scientists were listened to.

UPDATE: Vallance said:

I think there were definitely periods when it was clear that the unwelcome advice we were giving was, as expected, not loved.

And that meant we had to work doubly hard to make sure that the science evidence and advice was being properly heard.

Now, it doesn’t surprise me that there were meetings that we were not included in, that’s normal.

We were, as I said, in No 10 probably for 45 minutes or an hour, and there were things going on all day, and political decisions as well, so it’s not surprising that we were not invited to things sometimes.

O’Connor then showed some more extract from Vallance’s diary about Johnson.

In this one, from February 2021, Vallance says it was a “real struggle” to get Johnson to understand graphs from the Covid dashboard.

And in this extract, from September 2020, Vallance records “incredulity” in the room as Johnson described the graphs as a “mirage” in a meeting.

Vallance told the inquiry that Boris Johnson gave up studying science at the age of 15. He said Johnson would be the first to admit that science wasn’t his strong point.

But he said it is not unusual for politicians to have a poor grasp of science. He recalled a conversation with fellow scientists from other countries where one of them spoke about how hard it was to get their minister to understand exponential curves. They all laughed, because they had all had the same experience, he said.

Vallance said he thought Johnson may have deliberately pretended to misunderstand things, just as a means of checking his comprehension.

But he also said a poor understanding of science was “not unusual amongst leaders in western democracies”.

O’Connor asks about Boris Johnson’s understanding of scientific concepts. He shows the inquiry a series of extracts from Vallance’s diary which provide evidence of this.

This extract, from May 2020, describes Johnson as being “clearly bamboozled” by modelling on schools.

Here is another extract from May 2020 describing Johnson as being “confused” about different types of tests.

In this extract, from June 2020, Vallance says it is “awful” watching Johnson trying to understand statistics and that he finds the difference between absolute and relative risk “almost impossible to understand”.

In this extract, from July 2020, Vallance says Johnson did not understand the concept of doubling times.

And this one, from September 2020, says it is difficult getting Johnson to understand graphs – even when he has seen them before.

The hearing has resumed. Andrew O’Connor, counsel for the inquiry, asks about the repeated government claims that it was “following the science”.

Vallance says at first he welcomed this because it meant ministers were listening to the scientists. But the phrase implied that scientists all agreed, which was not the case, he says. And it misunderstood what science is, he says.

Science, by its definition, is a moving body of knowledge that tries to overturn things by testing the whole time.

He says ministers need to weigh up different types of evidence. He says those are “impossible judgement calls which the science can’t make and shouldn’t make”.

Here are some more lines from what Sir Patrick Vallance said to the Covid inquiry before the break.

In a sense, there were three broad possibilities. One: that the disease could be contained and eliminated.

The second: that the disease would run wild and not be controlled at all and people would make no effort to do anything. And the third was to try and control it in some way to minimise the impact.

And we didn’t know at that stage whether it was fully containable or not, but once it breaks out – and by the way, the breakout of containment domestically is dependent on the infrastructure you have, so the test (and) trace mostly – but once it breaks out, then my understanding from the beginning was the government did not want to do anything other than it didn’t want to let it run riot.

It didn’t think it could get to zero Covid, and therefore it was to control it and suppress the numbers in reference to the NHS being overwhelmed.

That was the closest we got to understanding the aims, coupled with a desire from the government not to impose overburdence and restrictions on liberty.

• He said in his witness statement that no minister gave an estimate for what might be an acceptable number of deaths or infections “other than by reference to avoiding the NHS being overwhelmed”, the inquiry heard.

What we did know was that the NHS runs at pretty much 100% capacity, which is quite unlike most other countries. So we knew that the NHS capacity was likely to be very full anyway.

And trying to get precise numbers on ICU beds and occupancy of other types of high dependency beds was pretty difficult during February and I think it culminated in a meeting, which I think I asked to be set up the first day of March, with the NHS modellers to try and see if we can resolve this logjam.

O’Connor then asked Vallance about Prof Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, and he put it to Vallance that Whitty was more keen than he was to delay the introducing of lockdown-type measures.

This extract says in January 2020 Whitty thought Covid could be contained.

This extract says in February 2020 Whitty was “worried about pulling trigger too soon”.

And in this extract, from February 2021, Vallance says Whitty was “a delayer”.

Asked about Whitty’s stance, Vallance says it is important to remember that, as chief medical officer, Whitty was very aware of the health downsides of a lockdown, for example, from people not getting treatment for other conditions.

Back at the Covid inquiry, Andrew O’Connor, counsel for the inquiry, is asking Vallance about the period in February and early March 2020, when the government was working out how to respond to Covid.

O’Connor shows an extract from the witness statement from Ben Warner, a No 10 aide. Warner said the government should have developed plans for a lockdown earlier.

Vallance says the government was not in a position to implement some of the NPIs (non-pharmaceutical interventions – lockdowns, social distancing, masks etc).

Q: Should Sage have been pushing for these measures earlier?

Vallance says the scientists thought these measures would be necessary. But he accepts they were wrong about timing.

Where we were wrong (was) our belief that we understood when to do that.

He says the data coming in on 14 and 15 March showed that Covid was much more advanced than they thought. The NPIs were needed urgently, he says.

He says there had been a data problem.

Rishi Sunak has finished his speech, and is now taking questions.

He says Labour would put up borrowing by £28bn a year. That means it would not be able to cut taxes, he says.

He says there will be a “clear contrast” at the election.