Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden has said he was reassured during his time in the Cabinet Office that the UK was in a “pretty strong state of preparedness” for any future pandemic.
And he told the UK Covid-19 Inquiry that preparations for a no-deal Brexit put the country in a “strong position” to respond to other challenges.
Mr Dowden, who was minister for the Cabinet Office from July 2019 to February 2020 and had previously worked in the department, said he had taken an interest in planning, including for a possible flu pandemic.
He said: “I asked for further specific briefing on that – received that briefing – and indeed, throughout my time as a minister, received further briefings, all of which were consistent with advice that we were broadly in a pretty strong state of preparedness.”
Hugo Keith KC, counsel to the inquiry, asked Mr Dowden about a 2019 memo about the National Security Council THRC (threats, hazards and resilience contingencies programmes) which suggested that work on pandemic influenza was expected to be affected by the “step-up in planning for a no-deal exit from the European Union”.
Mr Dowden said: “We had to ensure that we allocated resources according to where the greatest risk lay.
“Now, it was the case at that time that ‘no deal’ was the default position of the Government, so – and this is worth remembering the kind of frankly, apocryphal warnings that were being delivered about the consequences of no-deal Brexit, for example in relation to medicine supplies and elsewhere – it was appropriate that … we shifted the resilience function to deal with this.
“Secondly, it was not a permanent shift; we knew that this thing would come to an end since we had an endpoint for if we didn’t reach a deal, no deal would happen.”
He added that there was a “flip side” to the preparations for a no-deal Brexit – known as Operation Yellowhammer – which made the UK “match-fit” for the pandemic.
There was a flip side to this, which was that the preparation, particularly through the Yellowhammer structures, made us match-fit for when ... we did have to deal with the the actual materialisation of the Covid pandemic— Oliver Dowden
“There was a flip side to this, which was that the preparation, particularly through the Yellowhammer structures, made us match fit for when … we did have to deal with the the actual materialisation of the Covid pandemic – that is to say it forced Government departments to work together closely, so there’s a lot more cross-government co-ordination.”
He said around 15,000 extra staff had been employed for work on Brexit “who then were able to be redeployed once the threat of no deal had passed in order to further step up our preparedness, to contribute to our Covid response”.
Asked if the preparations had an impact on the majority of work programmes to deal with a flu pandemic, Mr Dowden said: “No, I don’t actually, I didn’t fully accept that.
“The core responsibilities that certainly I had respect for in Cabinet Office, in terms of our areas under the pandemic flu preparedness continued – namely the excess deaths work and the work in respect of pandemic flu Bill drafting, both of which then, subsequently, the learnings from that we used when the Covid crisis hit us.
“It was also the case that there was this constant flexing that that happened, and, when one takes it in the round, in terms of how it essentially tested our ability to work together.”
He added: “There’s countless other examples of that. So, for example, the battle rhythm of having these daily ‘exos’, the fact that we had realtime data coming in and going out again, all of those things actually put us in a strong position.
“The advice that I received was the the core stuff that we had to do was continuing, but in line with a normal reprioritisation that happens; for example, when Salisbury hit there was a reprioritisation – there is always a flex, if we didn’t have that flex we would not be in such a strong position to respond to challenges as they hit the Government.”
I think operation preparedness is another matter. I think it’s clear that we were not operationally prepared— Professor Sir Mark Walport
He said if resources were not reprioritised the UK “would have been in a much worse position to deal with Covid when it hit had no deal actually occurred”, especially “in terms of medicine, supplies, and so on”.
Mr Dowden insisted that he was reassured over the Government’s flu pandemic preparedness despite being read a document from January 2020 which highlighted “workstreams” – separate units tasked with dealing with an aspect of preparedness – were “running into problems and being paused or stopped over a matter of months”.
He said: “I can point throughout the bundles of the document that the inquiry has where I am reassured about the progress that has been made in respect of pandemic flu preparedness.”
He said that he received a submission from the ethical and advisory group created by the Government which “provided updates and reassurances” saying “we are one of the best prepared in the world”.
The Government set up a moral and ethical advice group – made up of health experts and civil servants – “to tackle the extremely difficult moral and ethical issues” which may arise when hospitals are making decisions about patients who may need treatment in the event of a flu pandemic, the inquiry heard.
According to the documents produced at the inquiry, this group held its first meeting in October 2019 but it was unclear if it met again at a later date.
Mr Dowden’s evidence contrasts with that from the Government’s former chief scientific adviser, who also gave evidence on Wednesday morning.
Professor Sir Mark Walport said the UK was “not operationally prepared” for a pandemic.
“I think, scientifically, the country was quite prepared then in the sense that it was recognised,” he told the inquiry.
“I think operation preparedness is another matter. I think it’s clear that we were not operationally prepared.”
He added: “I think that focus in richer countries had moved away from infectious diseases after the Second World War.
“With the rise of chronic inflammatory diseases, cardiac disease, hypertension, diabetes, there was much more of a focus on those and away from infection.”
It came after a Conservative former health minister said “making money is not a crime” as he defended the VIP lane for coronavirus-related contracts which saw some politically-connected firms make huge profits.
Lord Bethell also blamed “longstanding” inequalities for the NHS not being sufficiently prepared for the pandemic.
The Tories didn't invent the inequalities in this country, they are longstanding— Lord Bethell
He was speaking after former prime minister David Cameron and his chancellor, George Osborne, rejected claims at the inquiry that their austerity measures left the UK exposed to the pandemic.
Medics and unions have argued that cuts to public services under their leadership between 2010 and 2016 depleted health and social care capacity.
Lord Bethell, who was health minister throughout much of the pandemic, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Wednesday: “We didn’t have enough of that capacity, but we haven’t had for a very long time.
“It has been the British way to try to muddle through on health, with the slimmest, lowest-cost health system that we can have with a large amount of rationing and with a very, very low-cost public health and social care system.
“The Tories didn’t invent the inequalities in this country, they are longstanding.”
