Rishi Sunak Covid Inquiry live: PM to face claims Eat Out to Help Out scheme spread coronavirus

In October, we reported how Rishi Sunak had told the Covid-19 Inquiry that he had been unable provide WhatsApp messages from his time as Chancellor because he failed to back them up.

In a witness statement, the prime minister said he did not have access because his phone changed several times, The Guardian claimed.

It comes after Boris Johnson was also quizzed over missing WhatsApp messages during his appearance before the inquest last week.

A government spokesperson said: “The prime minister and government is fully cooperating with the inquiry. We have submitted more than 55,000 documents in support of their work. We are clear that to ensure the integrity of the inquiry, evidence submitted should be heard in context and in full.”

The Eat Out to Help Out scheme, which was launched by the government in August 2020, offered diners 50% off food and non-alcoholic drinks at restaurants and cafes across the country.

It applied from Monday to Wednesday from 3 to 31 August 2020.

The idea was to drive up businesses – restaurants, cafes, hotels and members’ clubs – which had been heavily impacted by the Covid pandemic.

Overall, £849 million was claimed under the scheme across 78,116 places, according to the government. Over 160 million individual meals were claimed with the average claim being £5.24.

And according to figures provided by booking website OpenTable, the number of diners eating out on two applicable days toward the end of the scheme was double the amount eating at the outlets in the same days the year before.

At the time, then chancellor Rishi Sunak thanked diners and restaurants for making the scheme a success.

The use of lockdowns and their impact on the death toll remain fundamental questions: how effective were they in reducing the spread of the disease and if – or when – a similar pandemic hits us, what role should they play?

As a professor of infectious disease epidemiology, I spent the pandemic analysing the data on these questions.

As if Rishi Sunak didn’t have quite enough to worry about, he will spend his entire Monday at the Covid inquiry taking questions from various barristers, including Hugo Keith KC. The prime minister obviously played a key role during the pandemic, as he was chancellor of the Exchequer for most of it.

What did Sunak do during Covid?

He was promoted from chief secretary to the Treasury to chancellor on 13 February 2020, and so was in place just as the concerns about the Covid crisis were reaching a critical point.

He won much praise for the packages of measures that the Treasury, with the Bank of England, put in place to support the economy during the emergency restrictions on economic activity; conventional borrowing limits were disregarded in what was treated as a wartime situation. For that, and his empathetic and competent manner, Sunak enjoyed a boost to his image.

Read the full article from Sean O’Grady here

Prime minister Rishi Sunak will appear before the Covid inquiry at 10am today, where he will be grilled over claims the Eat Out to Help Out scheme spread the disease.

Earlier it emerged in diary evidence from aides that Mr Sunak allegedly argued against strict lockdowns.

A diary excerpt from Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser during the pandemic, suggested that Mr Sunak was keen to let the virus run through the population.

WhatsApp messages shown to the Covid-19 Inquiry also revealed that government advisers referred to Mr Sunak as “Dr Death” during the pandemic, because of concerns about the impact of his push to keep economic activity going.

Baroness Michelle Mone has conceded she made an “error” in publicly denying her links to the PPE Medpro firm being investigated by the National Crime Agency.

PPE Medpro was awarded government contracts worth more than £200m to supply personal protective equipment after she recommended it to ministers.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has since issued breach of contract proceedings over the 2020 deal on the supply of gowns.

Lady Mone told a YouTube documentary that she and her husband Doug Barrowman would be cleared, arguing they have “done nothing wrong”.

She had initially denied having any links to PPE Medpro but admits in the film: “I made an error in what I said to the press.

“I regret not saying to the press straight away, ‘Yes, I am involved.’ And the government knew I was involved.”

Rishi Sunak is expected to be questioned about his previous claims that scientific advisers were handed too much power, and his views on the damage done by lockdowns.

In an interview during the Tory leadership contest last August, the former chancellor said the “problem” had been: “If you empower all these independent people you’re screwed.”

Mr Sunak also told The Spectator that he “wasn’t allowed to talk about the trade-offs” of Covid lockdowns – including its impact on the economy, schools and NHS waiting lists.

The Tory leader, Boris Johnson’s chancellor during the Covid crisis, is viewed as pushing against a second lockdown in the autumn of 2020, advocating for the opening up of the economy.

The Independent’s chief political commentator John Rentoul writes about why he believes the then chancellor had to protect public health and the economy – and why the Covid inquiry’s rewriting of history is dangerous.

The prime minister will be questioned at the covid inquiry by lead counsel Hugo Keith KC in west London on Monday.

However, he will also have to face lawyers representing bereaved families from the four UK nations, long Covid groups and the Trades Union Congress.

The union’s assistant general secretary Kate Bell said: “The Prime Minister must come clean about why these decisions were taken – especially when senior government advisers were warning that people couldn’t afford to stay home when sick.

“The failure to provide proper financial support was an act of self-sabotage that left millions brutally exposed to the pandemic.”