Jeremy Hunt tells Covid inquiry quarantining individuals sooner ‘might need averted’ first lockdown – because it occurred | Politics

By Robert Murray Last updated Jun 21, 2023

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Hunt says quarantining individuals sooner ‘might need averted’ the primary lockdown

Former well being secretary Jeremy Hunt stated quarantining individuals sooner “might need averted” the primary coronavirus lockdown.

He stated:

If there was one factor that might have slowed the progress of Covid when it really arrived, it was to grasp the significance of early quarantining to cease the illness spreading, and to grasp there are forms of pandemic the place it’s value placing a large quantity of effort into slowing the unfold.

One of many very first [uestions] we should always have been asking ourselves is: ‘Is this a kind of pandemics you could really sluggish and save lives early on or not?’ And I don’t assume we had requested these questions.

The chancellor added that lockdown within the UK didn’t occur till March 2020, including:

In that interval, transmission had elevated to about 5,000 a day, after which it was inevitable that you just had been going to have to make use of a lockdown. Had we obtained on the case a lot earlier with that method, we would have averted that.

Key occasions

Abstract of the day

Rachel Corridor

From the “mortgage disaster” to Jeremy Hunt’s revelations from the federal government’s pandemic preparedness, there’s been loads occurring in Westminster. Listed here are the important thing factors:

Polling urged that most individuals wrongly assume that Rishi Sunak’s pledge to halve inflation would both imply costs happening (32%) or staying the identical (31%). Solely 23% stated that this nonetheless meant costs would go up. Later within the day, Downing Road claimed the federal government continues to be heading in the right direction to fulfill its goal of halving inflation by the tip of the yr.
On the Ukraine restoration convention this morning Sunak gave a speech saying “Russia should pay for the destruction that they’ve inflicted”.
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP chief, wrote to Sunak urging him to scrap controversial laws to deal with the legacy of Northern Eire’s Troubles. Later within the day, Eire stated it could take into account taking authorized motion in opposition to the UK if parliament passes the Northern Eire Troubles (legacy and reconciliation) invoice.
In PMQs, Keir Starmer stated the price of the Tory mortgage penalty is an additional £2,900 a yr. Sunak replied that rates of interest are at comparable ranges in Canada and the US and Australia and New Zealand, including that the federal government has a plan to cut back inflation. The Guardian’s political correspondent, Andrew Sparrow, opined that Starmer received within the change, noting that he was “on very sturdy floor right now as a result of he devoted all his inquiries to what he referred to as the Tory ‘mortgage disaster’”.
Jeremy Hunt appeared earlier than the Covid-19 inquiry, the place he dropped a number of bombshells, together with that quarantining individuals sooner “might need averted” the primary coronavirus lockdown, the UK didn’t sufficiently be taught from the experiences of Asian nations which had handled virus outbreaks, and that pandemic preparation workouts had “too slender a spotlight”, solely thought of mitigation fairly than prevention, and didn’t “ask the appropriate questions”.
Mark Walport, David Cameron’s chief scientific adviser who additionally appeared earlier than the Covid-19 inquiry, warned him in 2013 that the UK’s evaluation of dangers, together with from pandemics, was not getting used correctly to forestall and mitigate risks and was being stored too secret.
Labour insisted it nonetheless needs to abolish the Home of Lords regardless of planning to swell its measurement with new friends in an effort to push via coverage if it kinds a authorities.
Dwelling Secretary Suella Braverman rejected calls to maneuver duty for the Windrush compensation scheme from the Dwelling Workplace, saying it could trigger “delay and pointless forms”.
Greater than 1m households throughout Britain are anticipated to lose at the least 20% of their disposable incomes due to the surge in mortgage prices anticipated earlier than the subsequent election.
Downing Road declined to say whether or not Shaun Bailey, the previous London mayoral candidate for the Conservatives, ought to take up the peerage given to him in Boris Johnson’s resignation honours after a video emerged of him participating in a mid-lockdown Christmas get together.

Thanks for following right now. Andrew Sparrow will likely be again tomorrow morning to replace you on all of the political information of the day.

Senior MPs have backed requires the International Workplace to do extra to assist a British citizen jailed for 25 years in Russia for opposing the invasion of Ukraine.

PA studies:

British-Russian dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza was sentenced to 25 years in jail in April, after he had been convicted of excessive treason by a Moscow court docket.

Kara-Murza has already survived two poisoning makes an attempt by Russian brokers, and has developed a medical situation that has deteriorated throughout his imprisonment to the purpose the place he has misplaced feeling in his toes and one in all his arms.

His spouse, Evgenia Kara-Murza, now fears that he’ll die if he’s not launched from jail and has referred to as for extra motion from the British authorities.

Evgenia Kara-Murza’s calls have acquired cross-party help from MPs together with Labour’s Sir Chris Bryant and Tories Bob Seely and Alicia Kearns, chair of the International Affairs Committee.

Rowena Mason

Ministers could also be bringing in political “super-spads” via the backdoor by placing them on the boards of Whitehall departments, a number one committee of MPs has discovered, because it referred to as for an overhaul of appointment guidelines, writes the Guardian’s Whitehall editor, Rowena Mason.

The general public administration and constitutional affairs committee, led by the Conservative MP William Wragg, referred to as for brand new steerage to forestall “private and political” pals of ministers being put in as non-executive administrators of presidency departments.

It launched its inquiry into civil service boards a yr after Matt Hancock was discovered to have appointed his unpaid adviser Gina Coladangelo to the board of the Division of Well being and later began an affair along with her. The committee stated it was “tough to not query her independence on this function”.

Kiran Stacey

The Guardian’s political correspondent, Kiran Stacey, has the complete report on Labour’s plan to nominate dozens of friends to the Home of Lords if it wins the subsequent election, regardless of promising to abolish the higher chamber altogether.

Angela Smith, Labour’s chief within the Lords, stated Labour’s precedence could be to get laws via parliament if it received the subsequent election, even when that meant growing the scale of an establishment it had promised to scrap.

The get together has come underneath hearth from some, together with the Scottish Nationwide get together, who’ve accused it of hypocrisy, given the Labour chief, Keir Starmer, has beforehand warned about peerages being handed to “lackeys and donors”.

Smith advised Instances Radio on Wednesday:

There are 90 extra Conservatives than Labour [members]. The precedence for Keir will likely be guaranteeing he will get the Labour programme via.

[Starmer] is on the lookout for people who find themselves fascinated with doing a job of labor, or from a specific space of experience. Once we see appointments from Keir, that’s the sort of standards he will likely be utilizing.

Talking to the Covid-19 inquiry, former well being secretary Jeremy Hunt stated the legacy of the 2008 monetary disaster made it unattainable to spice up NHS funding sooner to raised put together for the pandemic.

The Chancellor admitted feeling “involved” in regards to the “fragility” of the NHS and Social Care methods after Train Cygnus in 2016 and introduced a rise in funding in June 2018.

Requested whether or not this funding announcement was too near the pandemic to deal with issues within the NHS, he stated:

Once I arrived NHS price range was £101 billion; once I left it was £124 billion. That was negotiation for an extra £33 billion.

As a rustic, we had very fragile funds in 2010 following the worldwide monetary disaster, and we needed to do some work in an effort to get ourselves ready the place we might afford the large improve that I negotiated in 2018.

I don’t assume it could have been potential to negotiated that improve any earlier as a result of I don’t assume the funding existed to take action.

The’s some response to the Institute for Fiscal Research report, which warns that rate of interest rises might imply that 1.4 million mortgage holders lose at the least a fifth of their disposable earnings.

Talking in Parliament, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt stated:

We won’t hesitate in our resolve to help the Financial institution of England because it seeks to strangle the inflation within the economic system – and one of the best coverage is to stay to our plan to halve it.

However I additionally need to be certain that we do the whole lot potential to assist households paying larger mortgage charges in methods that don’t themselves feed inflation.

So later this week I will likely be assembly the principal mortgage lenders to ask what assist they may give to individuals struggling to pay for dearer mortgages and what flexibilities could be potential for households in arrears.

Tom Wernham, a analysis economist at IFS and an writer of the report, stated:

Many households purchased houses – usually with sizeable mortgages – when rates of interest had been very low. As individuals’s fixed-term gives come to an finish, they’ll be uncovered to a lot larger rates of interest.

For a lot of, the rise in month-to-month repayments goes to come back as a severe shock – on common it is going to be equal to seeing their disposable earnings fall by round 8.3%.

And for 1.4 million mortgage holders – half of whom are underneath 40 – mortgage funds are set to rise by an eye-watering 20% of disposable earnings or extra.

The shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, Pat McFadden, stated:

With inflation staying excessive and these new warnings that the Tory mortgage penalty will proceed to painfully squeeze household funds, it’s clear this authorities can’t repair these issues as a result of they’re the issue.

As a substitute of squabbling over peerages and events and ruling out any motion on mortgages, the Tories ought to be taking duty and performing now.

Hunt says quarantining individuals sooner ‘might need averted’ the primary lockdown

Former well being secretary Jeremy Hunt stated quarantining individuals sooner “might need averted” the primary coronavirus lockdown.

He stated:

If there was one factor that might have slowed the progress of Covid when it really arrived, it was to grasp the significance of early quarantining to cease the illness spreading, and to grasp there are forms of pandemic the place it’s value placing a large quantity of effort into slowing the unfold.

One of many very first [uestions] we should always have been asking ourselves is: ‘Is this a kind of pandemics you could really sluggish and save lives early on or not?’ And I don’t assume we had requested these questions.

The chancellor added that lockdown within the UK didn’t occur till March 2020, including:

In that interval, transmission had elevated to about 5,000 a day, after which it was inevitable that you just had been going to have to make use of a lockdown. Had we obtained on the case a lot earlier with that method, we would have averted that.

The federal government ought to have appeared to Asian nations to cope with the pandemic

The UK didn’t sufficiently be taught from the experiences of Asian nations which had handled virus outbreaks, the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, advised the Covid-19 inquiry.

Hunt stated:

I feel there was a groupthink that we knew these things finest and there was a way, with maybe the exception of america, that there wasn’t an unlimited quantity we might be taught from different international locations.

And definitely, that is with the good thing about hindsight, I don’t assume individuals had been actually registering notably Korea as a spot we might be taught from. I feel it is rather notable that Korea didn’t have a lockdown within the first yr of the pandemic. They averted a lockdown in any respect.

And what I feel is attention-grabbing is that the explanation that they had that excellent response — within the second half of the pandemic, numerous east Asian international locations didn’t do very properly as a result of they didn’t get their vaccines out as shortly as we did right here — however in that first yr I don’t assume there was any doubt that locations like Taiwan and Korea did extremely properly.

The federal government didn’t ask ‘the appropriate questions’ in pandemic preparation

Talking on the Covid-19 public inquiry, Jeremy Hunt urged the federal government had “too slender a spotlight” when making ready for a pandemic as a part of Train Cygnus in 2016.

Talking in regards to the train, Hunt, who was well being secretary between 2012 and 2018, advised the inquiry’s lead counsel, Hugo Keith KC:

We didn’t ask the opposite query which was: what can we do to cease it attending to that time the place 200-400,000 individuals have died?

I don’t assume we had been asking the appropriate questions. What we should always have completed is assumed far more extensively in regards to the query. I feel that operation had a really slender focus, a too slender focus.

He added that there was not “practically sufficient thought” put into making ready Britain for a pandemic not based mostly on flu.

He stated:

There was one other assumption that we had been superb at coping with pandemics. All of us thought it.

By the way in which, it wasn’t simply us. Johns Hopkins College in America stated that the UK was the second-best ready nation on the earth within the world well being safety index in 2019.

That they had subcategories and one in all their subcategories was which international locations had been finest ready for stopping the unfold of a virus and scaling up therapy shortly, and we had been high. We weren’t second finest, we had been high.

And so there was I feel a very incorrect assumption and I feel the reality is we had been very properly ready for pandemic flu as a result of we had put plenty of pondering into it. Train Cygnus was an enormous factor.

However we hadn’t given practically sufficient thought to different forms of pandemic that may emerge and that was, with the good thing about hindsight, a completely mistaken assumption.

Robert Sales space

The Guardian’s social affairs correspondent, Robert Sales space, has the complete report on this morning on the Covid-19 public inquiry:

David Cameron’s chief scientific adviser warned him in 2013 that the UK’s evaluation of dangers, together with from pandemics, was not getting used correctly to forestall and mitigate risks and was being stored too secret, the inquiry has heard.

Professor Sir Mark Walport, the federal government’s chief scientific adviser till 2017, wrote to the then PM about his considerations, and advised the inquiry that the nationwide danger evaluation “was locked in departmental safes more often than not and I felt that that wasn’t the best means”.

“The entire level of [a] danger evaluation is that it is possible for you to to make use of it to see in the event you can cease one thing taking place within the first place,” he stated. “If it’s going to occur – to mitigate your numbers, cut back its results.”

Walport, a member of the prime minister’s council for science and expertise till 2020, backed calls from Oliver Letwin, the previous Cupboard Workplace minister, for the creation of a brand new submit of minister for resilience.

Labour has insisted it nonetheless needs to abolish the Home of Lords regardless of planning to swell its measurement with new friends in an effort to push via coverage if it kinds a authorities.

PA studies:

Keir Starmer’s spokesman stated he was standing by the pledge to eliminate the higher home within the first time period of a Labour administration, however stated there could possibly be “interim reforms”.

Underneath the present make-up, Labour would wish 90 extra friends to surpass the Tories’ 263 members and grow to be the most important get together within the higher home.

The get together conceded that it could take multiple time period to shift the steadiness however stated it nonetheless needs to interchange the “indefensible” Lords with a brand new elected chamber in a primary time period.

Starmer’s spokesman stated:

Each authorities once they first come into energy should not have a majority throughout the Home of Lords due to the character of the appointments course of.

And each authorities as a matter of customized and apply appears to make appointments to the Home of Lords nevertheless it’s not one thing that’s completed in a single fell swoop, it’s one thing that takes time and infrequently takes greater than a time period in authorities for that to occur.

That reform of the Home of Lords will likely be within the first time period of a Labour authorities.

He stated new Labour friends could be anticipated to again abolition, with the complete particulars of the coverage to be set out forward of the subsequent basic election.

There’s extra from the Covid-19 inquiry right now as Jeremy Hunt makes his look.

The chancellor stated that Train Cygnus, which was designed to evaluate the UK’s preparedness and response to an influenza pandemic, ought to have targeted extra on prevention, fairly than assuming that “you just about couldn’t cease it”.

Hunt, who was well being secretary between 2012 and 2018, stated the cross-government train in October 2016 was to not look at the UK’s preparedness however to “set up how properly the UK would cope in a scenario through which pandemic influenza had already taken maintain”.

He advised the inquiry’s lead counsel, Hugo Keith KC:

I do know it’s possible you’ll properly need to discuss in regards to the situation of groupthink, however I feel this was the primary instance.

Wanting again with the good thing about hindsight – this was not what I believed on the time and I, with retrospect after all – I want I had challenged on the time.

However there have been no questions requested at any stage as to how can we cease it attending to the stage of 200-400,000 fatalities.

It was an assumption that if there was pandemic flu, it could unfold, utilizing layman’s phrases ‘like wildfire’, and also you just about couldn’t cease it.

Suella Braverman has rejected calls to maneuver duty for the Windrush compensation scheme from the Dwelling Workplace, saying it could trigger “delay and pointless forms”.

PA studies:

The scheme, arrange within the wake of a scandal through which many British residents had been wrongly detained or deported, has been criticised, whereas the method of dealing with claims and providing payouts has been branded sluggish and inefficient.

However the house secretary stated modifications had been made to simplify the scheme for customers, and maintained it ought to be stored underneath the Dwelling Workplace remit.

In an interview with ITV Information as Britain prepares to mark the Windrush seventy fifth anniversary, she stated:

It’s proper that the Dwelling Workplace preserve possession over the scheme as a result of to do in any other case would trigger delay and pointless forms.

Campaigners and a lawyer who has helped claimants through the years have argued that folks should not have religion within the Dwelling Workplace, and stated it’s inappropriate to have the “perpetrators” of the scandal operating the compensation scheme.

In the meantime, Age UK has stated the scheme is letting down older individuals with “growing numbers dying earlier than ever receiving the compensation they’re due”.

The federal government has accused friends of attempting to delay strike reforms that unions worry will make it simpler to sack employees.

The Home of Lords had made a sequence of amendments to the strikes (minimal service ranges) invoice aimed toward defending employees and commerce unions, requiring the federal government to seek the advice of additional and conduct an influence evaluation on the modifications.

However right now, the Home of Commons overturned the amendments after pleas from the federal government frontbench to permit the invoice to grow to be legislation.

The invoice would permit ministers to impose minimal ranges of service throughout industrial motion by ambulance workers, firefighters, railway employees and people in different sectors deemed important.

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has referred to as for an “pressing rethink” by ministers and warned that the invoice, if not amended, will imply that employees who lawfully vote to strike could possibly be pressured to attend work or be sacked if they don’t comply.

Friends have been attempting to amend the invoice to make sure employees can’t be sacked in the event that they fail to adjust to a piece discover on strike days.

However MPs rejected the Lords modification aimed toward guaranteeing this safety 277 to 209, majority 68.

Friends’ makes an attempt to make sure the federal government seek the advice of additional on the invoice and conduct an influence evaluation had been rejected by MPs 283 to 205, majority 78.

A sequence of amendments from the Lords aimed toward guaranteeing unions usually are not tasked with guaranteeing their members obey work notices had been additionally overturned. MPs rejected them 280 to 214, majority 66.

Enterprise minister Kevin Hollinrake stated the amendments from friends weren’t a “significant try” to achieve settlement, including:

I worry we’re having a considerably repetitive debate which is delaying us from getting on with the necessary enterprise of minimising disruption to the general public during times of strike motion.

Justin Madders, Labour’s shadow enterprise minister, stated the Lords had been trying to make the invoice “barely much less draconian”, including that Labour opposes the laws as an entire.

He stated:

This invoice is the act of a weak authorities that has misplaced the authority and the need to control for everybody, a authorities that prefers laws to negotiation, prefers diversion to decision and prefers confrontation to session.

The proposals are at the moment within the stage of the parliamentary course of referred to as ping-pong, through which the unelected Lords and the Commons ship the invoice forwards and backwards till they’ll agree the ultimate wording.