Covid inquiry roundup: Lee Cain and Dominic Cummings provide worrying insight into No 10
Former home secretary Priti Patel has begun to give evidence to the Covid inquiry, facing questions about her approach to controlling the border and “heavy handed” policing of lockdown rules.
Ms Patel has told the inquiry that the government’s “hands were effectively forced” into putting strict border controls in place at the start of the Covid pandemic because of events in China.
Earlier today, former top police chief Martin Hewitt criticised localised Covid rules, the speed at which they changed, and the tier system of different regulations for different areas of the country.
The former National Police Chiefs’ Council chair told the inquiry that localised tiers made it “incredibly difficult for even a perfectly law-abiding and committed citizen to understand precisely what that meant for them in their own personal circumstances”.
Having different regulations “on opposite sides of the same road” made policing more difficult, Mr Hewitt said. Jun Pang, the policy and campaigns officer at Liberty, will also give evidence to the inquiry.
Just £27m allocated to domestic abuse charities after first lockdown announced
Just £27m of £750m announced for frontline charities in the wake of the first lockdown was allocated towards domestic abuse charities, former home secretary Dame Priti Patel’s evidence shows.
Of that, £15m was given to the Ministry of Justice for police and crime commissioners to allocate to domestic abuse charities, £10 was given to the Ministry for Local Government for domestic abuse accommodation, and £2m for the Home Office to give to domestic abuse charities.
System for deciding Covid regulations ‘sub-optimal at every level’, says Patel
Our political correspondent Adam Forrest reports:
Priti Patel has told the Covid inquiry that the process for deciding Covid regulations were “sub-optimal at every single level”. The former home secretary says it was the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) that come up with the regulations.
Ms Patel said she asked DHSC to give police more time before coming up with the rules, but said the process was “sub-optimal at every single level”, adding that there should be a “totally different system” in future.
Earlier, the ex-home secretary said she accepted there was no effective system in place to stop the Covid infection coming the border.
Asked if the UK lacked the “practical capability to be able to restrict the infection”, she said: “I think that’s absolutely correct and, with that, no technical capability. At that stage the skills and capabilities simply weren’t there.”
Priti Patel ‘not sure colleagues thanked me’ for work on safeguarding children
Former home secretary Dame Priti Patel has told the UK Covid-19 Inquiry that “I’m not sure colleagues in government thanked me” for her work on safeguarding children.
Questioned on whether children and abuse victims were considered as part of debates concerning protecting vulnerable people during lockdown in March 2020, Dame Priti said: “I can’t recall at that particular time, I cannot recall whether or not it was, but I do know that in terms of pressing for a wider definition of vulnerabilities and vulnerable people, I do know children came into it.
“The reason, as I’ve already touched on, is partly because of the work that I was pressing across government.
“I’m not sure my colleagues in government thanked me at the time, particularly around children, county lines, missing children. It’s a major part of our work in the Home Office.”
Priti Patel ‘began planning for hidden lockdown harms on 18 March 2020′
Priti Patel has said that she began having discussions in the Home Office about how vulnerable people could be affected by lockdown on 18 March 2020 – five days before the national shutdown was announced by Boris Johnson.
Asked when thinking about victims of hidden lockdown harms began, the former home secretary told th inquiry: “That was in March, that was in and around the time of lockdown.”
Citing prior ongoing work around domestic abuse and county lines – which inquiry counsel Hugo Keith KC had already told her not to focus on in her response – Ms Patel added: “So we were agile. We were able to work at pace.
“And we were able to start working across the sector with partners as soon as we were effectively locking down. The lockdown on 23 March, when that came, obviously changed [the] engagement dynamic, concentrated on how people were being affected.
“But just in that run-up to lockdown, I think it could have been even around possibly 18 March, around that time, I had already started to have discussions around vulnerable people, vulnerable groups … that is within the Home Office, this isn’t just across government.”
No ability to prevent Covid arriving in the UK through border control, says Patel
Priti Patel told the inquiry that early in the pandemic there was no ability to prevent coronavirus arriving in the UK through the borders.
Discussing February and March 2020, lead counsel to the inquiry Hugo Keith KC said: “There was a distinct absence of practical capability to be able to restrict the infection through the border and secondly there was no sophisticated or effective system already thought about, drawn up and ready to be put into place when the virus attacked.”
She replied: “I think that’s absolutely correct and, with that, no technical capability.
“At that stage the skills and capabilities simply weren’t there.”
Government’s ‘hands tied’ on border controls, says Priti Patel
Priti Patel has told the inquiry that the government’s “hands were effectively forced” into putting strict border controls in place at the start of the Covid pandemic.
Asked if decisions about restrictions and closures of airports and maritime ports with the Home Office or other departments, she said there was no “straightforward answer” and said some border moves crossed into “public health territory”.
She added: “Our hands were effectively forced really because of Wuhan and what was happening in China and that led to a series of measures.”
Priti Patel has started giving evidence
The former home secretary is answering questions at the Covid-19 inquiry.
Police delayed law after getting Matt Hancock’s sign off just minutes before midnight
Police had to put off enforcing new coronavirus laws because they only received the legislation signed off by Matt Hancock 16 minutes before it was meant to be enforced, the Covid inquiry has heard.
Martin Hewitt, said he had to tell then-home secretary Dame Priti Patel officers would need more time to act.
Mr Hewitt, who coordinated the coronavirus response between all the UK’s forces, also criticised ministers for confusing the situation further during media appearances.
On one night, he said there was regulation intended to come into force at 12.01am but “we received the regulations signed off by the secretary of state for health and social care (Mr Hancock) at 11.45”.
“So we had precisely 16 minutes,” he said, despite briefing documents needing to be drawn up and then translated into Welsh before they could be shared with forces.
“I had a conversation and was very clear with the home secretary at the time (Dame Priti) that we would not be enforcing that regulation on that day and it was going to take us probably … 24/36 hours to actually get to a place where I was confident police officers out there knew what they needed to do.”
More problems would arise at 7am the following morning when ministers were “spinning round” the television and radio studios would be talking about this, he said.
Mr Hewitt said politicians would on “many occasions” go on to “throw a whole degree of confusion out” by mixing up regulation and laws, so he would have to correct the record.
I had ‘very strong words’ with the government over how to police protests in the pandemic – Hewitt
The top police chief during the pandemic had “very strong words” with the government over how to police protests at the time, the UK Covid-19 Inquiry has heard.
Martin Hewitt, the former chairman of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, said protests presented a “great challenge” for forces.
“There was a confusion around which of the competing legislations took priority,” he said.
“It’s important for people to understand how that felt for police officers when we are in a pandemic where we are talking about the requirement for people to remain distanced, and then are being told to go and police a protest.
“I used very strong words behind closed doors in discussion with the Home Office and the Home Secretary at the time in relation to the situation.”
He added that the safety of officers and protesters was a key consideration.
Martin Hewitt critical of localised Covid rules
Former top police chief Martin Hewitt criticised localised Covid rules and the the speed at which they changed.
The former National Police Chiefs’ Council chairman told the inquiry: “Once it started to change and then once it was really changing quite rapidly and you were getting tiers and you were getting localised, it became incredibly difficult for even a perfectly law-abiding and committed citizen to understand precisely what that meant for them in their own personal circumstances.”
Having different regulations “on opposite sides of the same road” made policing more difficult, he said.
He also said people becoming “fed up with the regulations” had the effect of sapping “away at the morale of the officers who are just trying to do their job in pretty difficult circumstances”.
