What happened to Sunak’s missing WhatsApps?
At the start of his evidence session Sunak was questioned over missing messages from WhatsApp relating to the period of the covid pandemic. He told the inquiry that he didn’t have access to some messages sent during the pandemic, as his phone had changed “multiple times.” He added that he wasn’t a “prolific user” of WhatsApp and said that important messages were recorded elsewhere. Asked if he’d been advised that he should try to retain messages in case they became relevant—especially after the then prime minister Boris Johnson announced the covid inquiry in May 2021—Sunak said, “I don’t recall anyone in my office making that recommendation or observation to me at the time.”
Why did he not consult scientists before launching “eat out to help out”?
The government’s former chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance claimed in his recent evidence to the inquiry1 that neither he nor the chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, had known about Sunak’s controversial “eat out to help out” scheme until it was announced. The policy, unveiled by Sunak in July 2020 when he was chancellor, was designed to support the hospitality sector by subsidising 50% of the cost of food and non-alcoholic drinks at cafes, pubs, and restaurants. Whitty reportedly referred to the scheme as “eat out to help the virus.”
Sunak said in his evidence2 that the scheme had been designed specifically in the context of the safe lifting of social restrictions “that had already been signed off” by the government. He said that there was almost a month between the policy being announced and starting, during which ministers and advisers could have raised any concerns. He said that Vallance and Whitty attended three meetings after the policy announcement. “They considered specifically the forthcoming risks, and in none of them was it raised by them as an issue,” said Sunak.
Did Sunak try to block a national lockdown in late 2020?
Last month3 the inquiry heard that both Sunak and Johnson had pushed against enforcing another national lockdown during the second wave of covid in autumn 2020. In his evidence Sunak said that the characterisation of him as being “violently opposed” to lockdowns was “not an accurate characterisation of my position at that time.” He said that he’d been opposed in late September 2020 to a brief “circuit breaker” because he didn’t think it would work, but he said that he hadn’t opposed a November lockdown.
At the end of that October, he argued, it was “reasonable to believe” that a tiered system of regional restrictions could still work, even though “it turned out not to be right” with the benefit of hindsight. He said that the deputy chief medical officer, Jonathan Van Tam, had said at the end of October 2020 that he didn’t believe national action was warranted because it wasn’t consistent with the varied regional picture of covid cases.
Sunak said, “That demonstrates . . . that reasonable people believed . . . that the regional approach may still work and it was worth trying.”
Was he against paying people on low incomes to self-isolate?
Sunak was asked to comment on several references in Vallance’s diaries to the former chancellor’s alleged reluctance in summer 2020 to introduce significant financial support for people who were self-isolating and not able to work. On 27 July 2020 Vallance wrote, “Dido [Harding, then head of NHS Test and Trace] pushed to get financial support for people to get tested in low socioeconomic groups. Rishi reacted strongly against that and said basically just stop the social interactions. For Rishi it is all about personal responsibility and [getting] the state out.”
On 7 September 2020 Vallance wrote, “Chancellor blocking all notion of paying to get people to isolate, despite all the evidence that this will be needed.” Sunak said that these were not fair characterisations of his position and were “not borne out by the evidence” of the action taken. He highlighted the introduction of a pilot scheme in high incidence areas, where payments were made for people to self-isolate in August 2020, as well as a national scheme with a £500 payment that September. He said, “Like on most things, my job is to scrutinise—it’s right that there are debates over policy, and that was the same on this policy, like many others.”