Addressing Britain's Covid-19 Commission of Inquiry on Monday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak defended his decisions that have been accused of contributing to the spread of the virus and put his role during the pandemic into perspective.
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The prime minister's statement comes at a time when his authority within the Conservative Party is being undermined, on the eve of a crucial vote on his new plan to deport migrants to Rwanda, which is seen as too weak by the Tories' right wing.
Rishi Sunak, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer during the pandemic, was questioned days after former prime minister Boris Johnson apologized to the victims' families and admitted he should have realized the seriousness of the crisis “much earlier”.
The current Downing Street resident, who has been in office for a year, also began his statement with an apology, saying he was “deeply sorry for all those who have lost loved ones and family members, and for all those who have suffered during the course of the “Suffered in different ways this year.” Pandemic.
The latter caused more than 230,000 deaths in the UK and the Commission of Inquiry is currently investigating governance and political management during the virus outbreak.
From the start of his speech, Mr Sunak stressed that it was Boris Johnson who made the decisions and that his role as Chancellor of the Exchequer was to provide information on the economic consequences of the planned measures.
He dismissed any “clash between public health and economics”: “There have been a range of impacts, many socio-economic impacts, educational impacts, mental health impacts, the justice system impacts as well as purely economic impacts.” “He insisted, believing that it is important for the authorities to check them all.
Rishi Sunak has been particularly criticized for the measures taken in the summer of 2020 to encourage people to go to restaurants, such as the “Eat out to help out” system, which was criticized by government-advising scientists.
He estimated before the investigative commission that this contributed to the extent of the second wave of the epidemic in autumn 2020.
“Dr. Death”
One of these scientists, Angela McLean, nicknamed Mr Sunak “Dr. Death,” the inquiry heard, while former England chief medical officer Chris Whitty had renamed the system “Eat out to help out the virus.”
Rishi Sunak assured there was no evidence that his program, launched in August 2020, had led to more infections over the winter.
“My main concern was to protect the millions of jobs of particularly vulnerable people who worked in this sector,” he said.
During the inquiry, advisers also accused Rishi Sunak, who campaigned on supporting Britain's economy based on restrictions, of wanting to ignore or downplay advice from scientists during the pandemic.
This is evidenced by a memo from the government's former scientific adviser Patrick Vallance, in which he echoes comments from Boris Johnson's former chief of staff Dominic Cummings in which he claims that Rishi Sunak “thinks we can just let people die and do that.” does not matter.” .
In August 2022, at the heart of the campaign to succeed Boris Johnson as Conservative leader, Rishi Sunak also described the handover of power to scientists as a “problem” in an interview with The Spectator newspaper.
The work of the independent commission of inquiry, chaired by former judge Heather Hallett, is expected to last until 2026.
They brought to the fore the allegations against Boris Johnson's government, which had been slow to recognize the extent of the health crisis.
Since then, the conservative press has been very critical of the restrictions imposed during the pandemic, which it sees as anti-freedom, destructive to the economy and of no real impact, arguing that other countries with less strict guidelines would have suffered less heavy burdens on the United Kingdom .