21 October 2025
(9.59 am)
Lady Hallett: Ms Dobbin.
Ms Dobbin: My Lady, may I please call Mr Boris Johnson.
Mr Boris Johnson
MR BORIS JOHNSON (sworn).
Lady Hallett: Thank you for coming back to help us,
Mr Johnson.
The Witness: Absolute pleasure.
Questions From Lead Counsel to the Inquiry for Module 8
Ms Dobbin: Can I ask you, please, to give the Inquiry your full name.
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes, I’m Boris Johnson.
Lead 8: Mr Johnson, you ought to have before you a statement
that bears the number INQ000588008.
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: Can you confirm that the contents of that statement are
true to the best of your knowledge and belief?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: And I think, Mr Johnson, it’s right that this was your
fifth witness statement for the Inquiry?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: Is that correct?
Mr Boris Johnson: I think so, yes.
Lead 8: I want to start, if I may, by asking you about events
near to the start of the outset of the pandemic, please. It was the evidence of Sir Jon Coles to this Inquiry that when he read the witness statement of Sir Gavin Williamson about the preparation for school closures prior to 18 March that he almost fell off his chair. What was your reaction to reading Sir Gavin Williamson’s statement about that?
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, I’ve got every respect for Sir Jon Coles and his views. I read Gavin’s statement with interest. Was there any particular aspect of his statement that you wanted to raise?
Lead 8: Well, let me – perhaps let me develop this and explore it a bit further. What, in essence, Sir Gavin Williamson was saying – and I hope that this is a fair summary of his evidence – is that he didn’t seek assessment of the impact of school closures, and nor did he seek to develop planning for mass school closures because – and these were the words he used in his oral evidence:
“… [the] steer … I was hearing from, whether it was in cabinet or anything else, was to keep things open, not about closing things.”
And he went on to confirm what he had said in his statement.
And let me read it to you:
“The position across the whole of the government in
February was largely monitoring the situation, and there
was no suggestion that [the Department for Education]
should prepare a plan or a policy for mass school
closures. It was very much a case of the whole of
government waiting for Number 10 and [Cabinet Office] to
give a lead and clear direction.”
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, I’m not sure I agree with the idea that there was
no planning for school closures, because if you look at
the sequence from February onwards, it’s clear that SAGE
is talking about the possibility, the cabinet is
discussing it in March, certainly. I remember the
subject coming up repeatedly, and then if you look at
the paper of a – I think it’s – there’s a sighting
note from the DfE on 15 March, to me for a meeting, in
which they go over all kinds of stuff that are going to
be necessary to enact school closures, looking at
safeguarding, looking at exams, looking at the needs of
vulnerable kids, teacher training, and so on. Free
school meals. All of that was in there.
So that indicated to me at the time, and I am fairly
sure I remember it, but certainly indicates to me now
that work was going on in the DfE about school closures.
And it would be amazing if it wasn’t.
Lead 8: Yes, but Mr Johnson, that note was on 15 March, so at
a very late stage in the day; correct?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: And what we’re focused on is the period leading up to that, and what planning was going on prior to that point. Correct?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes. I’m afraid I can’t tell you very much about that except to say that my evidence from what I saw is that the work had been going on, because they were – there were clearly discussions that had been taking place.
Lead 8: Can we bring up on screen, please, the witness statement of the then permanent secretary to the Department for Education, Mr Jonathan Slater, and that’s INQ000588040. That’s page 12, paragraph 5.9. Because Mr Johnson, he says in terms, and we can read it here:
“Equally, it would have been much better if [Department for Education] had been invited to start developing contingency arrangements for closing education settings at an earlier stage in the pandemic, given that no contingency plan had been prepared beforehand. But as can be seen from the fact that the first request we received was on 17 March, the government was determined right up to the last minute to keep education settings open.”
Mr Johnson, that’s the permanent secretary to the Department for Education –
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: – saying that there was no contingency plan prior to that point.
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, I think that it’s certainly – where I certainly agree with him is that the government was determined, if we possibly could, to keep educational settings open, to keep schools open, because, as the Inquiry has heard many, many times, one of the biggest detriments from Covid was the loss of education, the harm it did to young people. So that is certainly correct.
I see that he’s saying that no request was received from government to do a contingency plan, but I, you know, frankly, I would have thought that he is, as head of the Department for Education, would have picked up, from discussions that would have been going on from February onwards, that there was work to be done in this area. And indeed, it seems to me had work had been done in this area, because – and I cite the paper I saw.
Lead 8: Well, we’re going to come to that paper but I think we have it in black and white, don’t we, from Mr Slater, that there wasn’t a contingency plan because he says one hadn’t been requested. Now, you may dispute the lack of request –
Mr Boris Johnson: I’m not necessarily disputing that, I just think that it was obvious that there had to be consideration of closing schools. I was very much hoping that we wouldn’t have to close schools. I thought it was a nightmare idea. But I think, you know, as far as I can remember, you know, you had – other countries were starting to close schools.
Lead 8: Yes.
Mr Boris Johnson: And I am surprised that the perm sec at the DfE didn’t feel that it was necessary to look at the – what contingency arrangements we had.
Lady Hallett: Can I interrupt, would you expect, running the United Kingdom as Prime Minister, would you expect the Department for Education to wait for a request, for them to develop contingency plans?
Mr Boris Johnson: No, of course not. And I think that – and as I say, I think that – my impression from the stuff I read was that a great deal of thought and care was already going into some of the key questions. But, you know, this is what Mr Slater, he says he had no plan ready. I think that is surprising.
Ms Dobbin: I mean, we’ve also heard evidence from Mrs Susan Acland-Hood, who is now the permanent secretary to the Department for Education, who has also reviewed all of the paperwork, and who confirms that there wasn’t planning beyond the possibility, for example, of some individual school closures or for the possibility that there might be staff shortages. So it isn’t simply that this is Mr Slater saying this; indeed that would be surprising. It’s been confirmed by the department on their overall consideration of the written material. But one assumes, Mr Johnson, from your evidence that this is all, in effect, news to you that there is this absence of planning behind the scenes; correct?
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, I think that – there was certainly – as I understood the position at the time, to the best of my memory, there was work going on in the DfE about how to deal with the consequences of Covid, in particular how to compensate for the loss of learning. And, you know, the paper that I’ve mentioned, that you’re right, only appeared before me on the 15th, seemed to me to suggest that a great deal of work had been done on the key areas.
Lead 8: We will come back to that paper but I just want to be clear about this: do you accept that until mid-March 2020, there hadn’t been a cross-government focus on closing schools?
Mr Boris Johnson: I think that it was a subject that had repeatedly cropped up at SAGE meetings, at SPI-M-O, at all of which the relevant departments had been represented, and there had been – including DfE. So no, I don’t really accept that. I think there had already been conversations about the possibility of closing schools, and it looked to me as though the DfE was preparing for that.
Lead 8: And I think that’s right, in terms of what you’ve said on your witness statement, and perhaps if we could bring that up, please, in terms of what you say at your paragraph 5.
And I think it’s suggested from this, Mr Johnson, that what you’re confirming here is that by 10 February 2020, it was already apparent, or patent that school closures might be necessary as part of your response to the pandemic.
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes, though if my … the documents that I’ve looked at recently – and the SPI-M-O and the SAGE papers – I seem to remember this also from the time. One of the difficulties is my memory is now contaminated by what I’ve recently read. What they seemed to suggest is that early on, the advice on school closures from the scientists was that it was not a – not necessarily a particularly effective tool of controlling the pandemic. Certainly not on its own. And that clearly changed as we got closer to the – the decision, and the key weekend was March 14th, when all that changed.
Lead 8: Yes, I’m going to turn to that, but do you accept, and the Inquiry has been through the scientific advice that has been provided from 4 February, that from 4 February onwards it was being advised by SAGE that school closures were at least in contemplation –
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes, absolutely, yes, yes.
Lead 8: – as a possible?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: And do you accept that, given all that advice from February, and notwithstanding that it was not the decision anyone had wanted to make, that there had to be planning for the possible eventuality of school closures –
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: – because the implications were enormous –
Mr Boris Johnson: And what I’m trying to say to you is that I believe that there was such planning. I don’t think – and clearly from what Mrs Acland-Hood and what Mr Slater have said, they don’t feel that there was a fully worked up plan for how to – to deal with everything. I can’t – I can’t tell you now why – why that was the case, but I can offer a – you know, at the time, don’t forget that we didn’t know the effect this disease had on kids. We didn’t know much about the transmissibility of the disease. There were all sorts of things that were simply unknown, and difficult to – to plan for. And the thing was moving very fast.
And from the point of view of Number 10, we were focused very much on trying to stave off, trying to avoid, an appalling public health crisis. And we were focused on getting enough ventilators, on getting enough PPE, trying to avoid a significant number of casualties. And I think it’s important for the Inquiry to focus – to remember that at the time that the school closures were first mentioned, they were seen as something you’d put in at the peak of the pandemic. And we didn’t think we were yet at the peak of the pandemic, if you see what I mean.
Lead 8: I just want to come back, just sticking for a moment on when you – your understanding as to the position about school closures and when they were being posited.
If we go to paragraph 20, please, on page 7 of your statement. Again, you say here:
“The issue of school closures was on the government’s agenda as soon as it became clear how dangerous Covid was. I think that the DfE and Gavin were aware that we were considering mass closures of schools from very early on …”
Thank you, that can come down.
Mr Boris Johnson: I think that’s right. School closures were clearly going to be part of the – the panoply of things that we might be able to do to – to defeat Covid. I wanted to keep it to the very, very last. It was something that I thought was a – and I say in my – a terrible thing to do, and would have awful consequences for young people, particularly those who were least able to cope.
So, although there was consideration of school closures and the idea was being discussed – and as I say, I think I can see evidence that this was going on in the DfE at the time – as a worked-up policy and plan, we thought it was premature. We didn’t – we didn’t think it was – I didn’t think it was something we were going to have to implement as fast as we did, if at all.
Lead 8: We’ll come to the timing of it. But just staying with the potential – the implications of school closures, you say at paragraph 21 of your statement that you knew when you made the decision to close schools on 18 March that the consequences would be devastating for all children but worse for vulnerable children; correct?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: And I think if we can go to the document that you’ve mentioned, this document of 15 March.
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: That’s INQ000106221.
Mr Boris Johnson: Yeah.
Lead 8: That set out, didn’t it, in headline form, Mr Johnson, what the implications of the closure of schools would be.
So, in other words, and potentially the most significant of all, that 9 million pupils wouldn’t be guaranteed to receive an education and that any education they did receive would typically be limited; yes?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: That 1.3 million of the poorest children wouldn’t receive their free school meal.
That remote learning would not work for all: that schools’ ability to provide it was hugely variable and many children didn’t have access to the relevant kit and many children didn’t live in adequate home circumstances or environments and didn’t have wi-fi.
And if we drop down, perhaps, to the last bullet, that vulnerable children are much safer in school than out, and here pointing to the 400,000 children who had a social worker, who might be at risk. And it says here:
“… [from] inadequate parenting/witnessing domestic violence, particularly if families are also facing the pressure of imposed isolation.”
Mr Boris Johnson: Yeah.
Lead 8: And presumably, Mr Johnson, you appreciated too that below that threshold of children who had a social worker, there were many other children who would be at risk, as well?
Mr Boris Johnson: Absolutely.
Lead 8: Thank you, that can come down.
And do you accept that the consequences for children were so grave and so far reaching of school closures, that they were the responsibility of all government? That it wasn’t just a Department for Education responsibility.
Mr Boris Johnson: Of course. And I should say that I take – it goes without saying, but as said, I told this Inquiry before, I take full responsibility for all the decisions that we took and, you know, all mistakes that were made were mistakes that I’m accountable for and take responsibility for. And insofar as we got things wrong, then of course I apologise for that, and as I’ve done before to this Inquiry.
I remain very proud, of course, of a lot of things that I think the teachers, the schools, did to cope with this unbelievably difficult set of circumstances, and I think that on the whole, they acquitted themselves outstandingly well.
Lead 8: Just focusing on that, on the events of 15, 16 and 17 March, can you explain why, given this whole government responsibility for the implications of school closures, why it was only on 16, 17 March, that, first of all, a paper was commissioned in order to set out the proposals or the options for keeping schools open?
Mr Boris Johnson: I think that you’ve got to go back to the problem that we had of timing, and I think in my evidence to this Inquiry earlier on, I pointed out that there’d been a great acceleration in the understanding of the scientists about where we were on the pandemic curve, and if you remember, so to the weekend of March 14/15, it becomes obvious that things have moved much faster, and school closures, which in March – February 10th and so on, SAGE are saying are not necessarily something we’ll want to bring in, I think even on March 5th, Chris Whitty is saying it’s not something we want to do imminently. It becomes clear that the spike is going up so fast that, sadly, school closures are going to be – going to have to be part of the initial package and that’s effectively what we had to do.
I mean, there were other factors, as well. People were, as you know – the teachers were self-isolating and some schools were finding it difficult to operate anyway.
Lead 8: I think what might be very difficult to understand is why, given the gravity of the consequences of closing schools, that nonetheless, seeking out papers on keeping schools open came at such last minute and just before you ended up having to make the decision to close schools.
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, I think as I’ve tried to explain why I think that was the case. We were focused on trying to delay the peak of the pandemic, and we thought that the closure of schools, if it had to be used at all, would be a measure of last resort. And lastly, it was my impression that the work was being done. And I certainly – let me put it this say, I certainly assumed that the work was being done.
Lead 8: I’m just focusing here on why, at the centre, these questions are only being asked so late in the day, so in other words, the centre is only asking for proposals to keep schools open at this very, very late stage, only to reverse the position within about 24 hours and to ask for options on closing schools.
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, I think that’s entirely understandable, given the immensity of the decision, and the detriments that it was likely to have.
Lead 8: Does the fact that these questions were being asked so late in the day demonstrate that the problem and the failures of planning were systematic failures and not just failures on the part of the Department for Education?
Mr Boris Johnson: No, I don’t – well, as I say, I’m not – I’m not certain the Department for Education was quite as remiss as you have said. And I think – my impression was that they’d done a lot of work. And when you – actually, when you look at what was achieved during the period when schools were closed, I think people responded pretty heroically to the challenge.
You say “so late in the day”, but “so late in the day” is of course a phrase that is only open or a judgment that’s only open to people who are operating with hindsight. We – we didn’t know how Covid was being transmitted, we didn’t know to what extent children and young people were affected by it. It was very difficult. We didn’t know the state of the pandemic in the country. It was very difficult to plan for how exactly schools should respond, and it remained very difficult throughout the pandemic.
Lead 8: But you’ve accepted that the possibility of school closures was being posited as a specific step that could be taken in response to the pandemic from the very earlier stages –
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: – of the SAGE advice. And you’ve accepted that the implications of closing schools were enormous for almost every school-age child in this country; correct?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: And you must accept that that therefore put a responsibility on government to grasp the nettle and really think about what it needed to do if schools were in fact going to close to most children.
Yes?
Mr Boris Johnson: And as I’ve said to you, it looks to me as though that’s exactly what the DfE was doing, and it – as it happens, the schools sadly did close.
Lead 8: Yes.
Mr Boris Johnson: And we did our level best to remediate the damage and to give kids the education that they needed as far as we could.
Lead 8: What work was it that you thought was being done in the background to prepare schools for the eventuality of having to close? What was it you saw that gave you the confidence that this planning was going on in the background?
Mr Boris Johnson: I – the document that I – I’ve cited, because it’s – and maybe – maybe I – it was misleading, but it seemed to me to suggest that a good deal of work was being done on vulnerable kids, on exams – all the subjects that I’ve mentioned.
Lead 8: Perhaps we should look at that document, then, Mr Johnson, just to see what it says, if that’s what your evidence is focused on.
Can we go back, please, to INQ000106221.
I think if we go, please, to page 3, it sets out, doesn’t it, a summary of some of the DfE’s –
Mr Boris Johnson: Yeah.
Lead 8: – current contingency planning?
So it’s set out, I think at the start, that there is some scenarios for free school meals; correct?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: On remote learning – if we drop down, please:
“… we intend this week to publish guidance on the steps that schools should now be taking …”
Correct?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: So you must have appreciated that, prior to this point, there hadn’t even been guidance sent to schools –
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: – in order to assist –
Mr Boris Johnson: I do, but I think also the Inquiry will appreciate that we hadn’t had a pandemic like this for a very long time.
Lead 8: Yes.
Mr Boris Johnson: That the eventuality of closing schools was one that we regarded with horror and one that we didn’t think we would have to resort to until the peak of the pandemic.
Lead 8: Well, I think, Mr Johnson, that’s understood that closing schools would be a terrible decision, but it was because the consequences were so profound that it needed to be properly planned for; yes?
Mr Boris Johnson: I think – of course. And if you look at the document that we’re studying, it’s clear that there is – they’re going through various scenarios to deal with most of the problems that you can think of. They’ve got three scenarios being developed for exams within Ofqual, they’re publishing guidance on remote learning. It seems to me that there – yes, I mean, I would accept that the reality is – was slow to dawn on government generally, about the full horror of Covid, but that’s something that we’ve been around many times.
I think the – and you can see it in the way the scientific advice changes throughout the – throughout the year. So they moved from saying, you know, “Put these measures on during the peak of the pandemic”, to saying, “Go hard, go early”; and there’s a clear difference in – in approach.
Lead 8: Mr Johnson, I’m just going to stay on this document for a moment to look at the last of the implications, which is that of vulnerable children.
Lady Hallett: Can you remind me of the date, Ms Dobbin?
Ms Dobbin: Yes, it’s 15 March.
Mr Boris Johnson: 15 March.
Lady Hallett: Thank you.
Ms Dobbin: And as we can see there, in respect of vulnerable children and childcare, this paper doesn’t deal with it, Mr Johnson.
So there’s nothing here, for example, that sets out Department for Education thinking about child protection systems, all of the other support and services –
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: – that schools provide to children, and particularly those most in need.
Mr Boris Johnson: I think it’s meant to be a short sighting document. It’s not meant to be going through everything that – that is in the head of the department.
Look, I understand the – the criticism that we should have planned better for school closures and we should have alerted schools earlier to the possibility of school closures and spelt out in more detail what might happen in the context of school closures. All I can say to you is that that is to imagine a much greater state of knowledge about Covid and what was likely to happen than we actually had at the time, and in particular a greater state of knowledge about the speed with which the disease was progressing.
And I go back to the – I mean, yes, I think it’s a – it’s a fair point that this document itself doesn’t look like a fully worked-up plan for school closures, but it seems to me that the department was doing the work.
Lead 8: All right. Well, Mr Johnson, we were looking at that document so that the Inquiry could understand what it was that gave you confidence about Department for Education planning, but I think you’re clear that this is the sole basis for that confidence; correct?
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, there were plenty of other meetings and discussions in which DfE officials were involved, when it was obvious, as you’ve said, that school closures were coming down the agenda. And there was, it was always obvious to me that this was going to one of the things that we would have to consider.
Lead 8: I’m going to move on, if I may, to ask about 16 and 17 March, and particularly the evidence that was given by Sir Gavin Williamson in his witness statement, which you’ve seen and which he confirmed in oral evidence, that there was this discombobulating sea change to which I’ve already alluded to, between 16 and 17 March whereby the government’s direction went from keeping schools open, overnight, to keeping schools closed. Do you agree with his evidence that it was a discombobulating sea change.
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, I mean, obviously I can’t speak for Gavin about how he felt about it, but my impression was that everybody understood that school closures was part of the toolkit that we might sadly have to use, and we were being forced by events and by the spread of the disease to deploy that solution much earlier than we wanted. And indeed, against our will. Just by the spread of the disease.
So I’m afraid the reality of Covid just meant that we – you know, we had to get the R down below 1, and school closures represent, though not a very significant measure in themselves, they can help to get the R down below 1 at critical moments. And we had no choice.
Lead 8: Yes, so I think, Mr Johnson, is your evidence that it wasn’t a sea change; it was simply a speeding up of that which was going to happen in any event?
Mr Boris Johnson: I mean, I’m not saying that it was necessarily going to happen in any event, but because, you know, we might have been – things might have turned out differently, but they didn’t. What it certainly was, was the result of a gradual and then accelerating progression in the disease, which is familiar to anybody who looks at one of those curves.
Lead 8: Thank you.
Sir Jon Coles said of Sir Gavin Williamson’s evidence about school closures that he thought that it was an extraordinary dereliction of duty. So he was referring, again, to the lack of planning for school closures, and he said, “It was perfectly clear to me, as someone who was running schools, that there was a high likelihood that schools would have to close, and we were planning for that whilst of course doing everything we could to keep schools open.”
If it is right to characterise the lack of planning as a “dereliction of duty”, do you accept that that’s a dereliction that’s shared by the whole of government and not just the Department for Education?
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, in so – as I’ve tried to argue this morning, I think that the department, contrary, perhaps, to – I mean, it felt to me as though there had been abundant discussions about closing schools, and it felt to me, to the best of my recollection, as though the department was aware of this, and I assumed that they were planning for it. When I look at that document of March 15th, it seems to me to suggest that a great deal of work and thought had gone into the key issues.
So I’m not – respectfully, I’m not inclined to accept the idea that people fell down gravely in their duty. I think people were overwhelmed by the speed of events and when the facts changed, they had to change policy, and I had to change policy.
Lead 8: So you don’t accept that the evidence from the then permanent secretary that there was no contingency plan for school closures, or there wasn’t planning that focused on the potential for mass school closures, you don’t think that that’s a dereliction of duty? Is that what you’re saying?
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, I can only repeat what I’ve just said. You know, I know that Mr Slater later resigned. I – though not over that matter, as far as I can remember. I don’t think … you know, if you’re the perm sec at the DfE, there’s nothing to – there was certainly no – let me put it this way: there was absolutely nothing coming from central government to say, “You must not on any account prepare for school closures.”
On the contrary, anybody looking at what was happening would have assumed that school closures were something that had to be encompassed, and prepared for. And from what I can see of the department’s thinking, they were indeed doing that.
Lead 8: And we’re back to the document of 15 March –
Mr Boris Johnson: Yeah, that’s all I have to go –
Lead 8: – (overspeaking) –
Mr Boris Johnson: – I mean, I don’t have access to any other documents.
Lead 8: Yes. And you do understand it’s not just Mr Slater saying it; it’s the whole tenor of Sir Gavin Williamson’s evidence as well, that he didn’t seek assessment, for example, of the impact of school closures because that had never been a direction given by you or given by the centre of government?
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, I think that’s – if you – if you look at what I said in cabinet I think on 11 March – I may have got my dates wrong, but I say that we will come under increasing pressure to – to close schools. And … I was always grimly reconciled to the possibility that we would have to do all sorts of things that I really didn’t – didn’t want to do. But I – I was also determined to try to keep schools open if I possibly could.
And, you know, I’ve got to say that, given the huge damage that the closures have – have done, given the loss of life chances that they’ve caused, you’ve got to ask yourself now whether, as a– whether we could have found other ways of reducing the budget of risk in – from Covid. Could there – if they were 10% to 20% of the R, was there some way of doing it without school closures?
Now, all the advice I was getting was: absolutely not, you’ve got to do this. And that they – along with everything else, school closures were unavoidable and – that’s certainly how it seemed to me then.
Lead 8: I’m sure we’ll come back to that, and particularly in relation to the decision to close schools on 4 January, but just before we leave this issue, you’ll understand that one of the points that has been put across Module 8 of this Inquiry is the question of whether or not, when it came to the most important decisions about children, so principally the decisions to close schools, whether the Department for Education was sufficiently a part of those decisions. In other words, did it have a seat at the table whenever those decisions were made?
Do you recognise that as a problem in the decisions that you made to close schools?
Mr Boris Johnson: The absence of the DfE at the table?
Lead 8: Yes, and because the Secretary of State for Education is ostensibly the minister who represents children’s interests in government.
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, at this distance in time, I’m afraid I don’t remember any sense, then, that the DfE was absent. I think that they would have been involved in – I – the papers I’ve seen certainly suggest that the DfE was at the – all the relevant discussions about possibility of school closures.
Lead 8: I think we’ll come and maybe look at this a bit more closely when we look at 4 January, but I think the general point that’s being made is that when it came to the ultimate decision whether to close schools on the two occasions that that arose, on 18 March and 4 January, they didn’t, as it were, have a seat at the table at that point, and therefore weren’t able to represent the interests of children in the way that they would if they were present.
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, that – I – I’m so sorry, I can’t comment on that, because it doesn’t – I don’t remember that. They – normally speaking, you’d expect a cabinet decision to – to include everybody.
Lead 8: Well, I think we’ll come to whether they were cabinet decisions or whether, effectively, they were decisions taken by you and then communicated to cabinet. But if I can, I think it goes to a broader question –
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: – of whether children’s interests were sufficiently well represented when you made those decisions, and whether you have any reflection on that now as to whether you think that’s the case?
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, I had a personal horror, as I’ve said, of closing schools. I thought it was a – a nightmare thing to do, and I thought it would do a lot – a lot of damage to people who would find it – to the life chances of people who would find it most difficult to bounce back and to cope. And so a lot of the focus of what I tried to do was to try to remediate that and – I know you want to ask about that later, but to try to compensate for what we’d – what we’d sadly had to do.
Because, you know, it felt to me as though children who were not vulnerable, not particularly vulnerable to Covid, were paying a huge, huge price to protect the rest of society. And it was – it was an awful, awful thing. As I say, I wish it had been otherwise. I wish we could have found another solution.
Lead 8: I am going to come up back to that question of sacrifice and the recovery of children, but just sticking, if I may for a moment on decision making or on your role, one of the things that Sir Gavin Williamson has been critical of, and he gave evidence about it, was the unilateral announcement that you made on 10 May about reopening primary schools, and what he has said was that that was a unilateral decision, that he was told that you would make the announcement that you did on 10 May.
And if I may just remind you of it, I think you said that:
“… after half term – we believe we may be in a position to begin the phased reopening of shops and to get primary school pupils back into schools, in stages, beginning with reception, Year 1 and Year 6.”
And Sir Gavin Williamson’s criticism is that effectively he had been in negotiations and discussions with schools prior to that point –
Mr Boris Johnson: Mm.
Lead 8: – and that there was a delicate – and I’m summarising his evidence – that a delicate position was reached and there was understanding on the part of schools about who would return, ie, it would just be those few year groups, and that effectively, by your actions, you damaged the work that he had done with schools, and you undermined trust, because in making that statement, you were promising something that you knew couldn’t be delivered. That’s the criticism he makes of you.
Mr Boris Johnson: Right.
Lead 8: Do you accept that?
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, I’m afraid I don’t remember the details of that, though it seems to be – seems a bit paradoxical to be criticised both for wanting to close schools and for wanting to get them open. I would say that it was right, given where we were, to – in May, we’d been through lot. It was clear that the R was coming down, we were going to be in a position to go through the stages of the roadmap to open up the country a bit, if not entirely. And I thought it was right to go ahead with getting kids back into school.
And we did it, to some extent, I think though only some classes got back in. I think it was the – but I think it was totally the right thing to do, given the position we were at in the pandemic, and given the detriment that kids had already suffered. I think, by that stage, from my memory, it would have become a bit controversial as to whether schools were safe, and there was a certain amount of politics about this, and I think that the unions, I may be doing them a disservice, and forgive me if I am, but I think there was a certain amount of chuntering about whether it was wise to get kids back into school, I thought the evidence was that it was safe and they should go back.
Lead 8: I don’t think Sir Gavin Williamson’s criticism of you was your ambition to have all schools back. I think his criticism of you was that you undermined trust in the Department for Education because you made that announcement unilaterally, it didn’t reflect the agreement of the position he had reached with school leaders, and that you undermined confidence because you promised something that couldn’t – that you knew at that point in time couldn’t be delivered.
Mr Boris Johnson: Right, and –
Lead 8: And it couldn’t be delivered because– (overspeaking) –
Mr Boris Johnson: What was that?
Lead 8: Because of the requirements of social distancing – this is what Gavin Williamson has said – that because of the requirements of social distancing, that what you were saying, in other words, flagging to parents and families that all children could go back, wasn’t something that could be achieved, and you knew that. That’s what – (overspeaking) –
Mr Boris Johnson: Forgive me, but my memory – I mean, my memory of it is that we only got certain classes back.
Lead 8: Yes, but you had announced, on 10 May, that’s his criticism, that – and I put it to you, you said:
“… we believe we may be in a position to begin the phased reopening of shops and to get primary schools back into schools in stages beginning with reception, Year 1 and Year 6.”
Mr Boris Johnson: But that seems to me what we did.
Lead 8: You certainly got those years back. His criticism of you is the appearance that was given at that time that it would be possible to get all schoolchildren back –
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, I think –
Lead 8: – beginning with those years.
Mr Boris Johnson: – just listening to what you’ve just read out, with great respect, sounds to me eerily like what we did and what Gavin had been negotiating with the teachers and the unis. So I’m not quite certain what this –
Lead 8: Well, it’s his criticism, Mr Johnson –
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, that’s right – (overspeaking) –
Lead 8: It’s his criticism that you undermined confidence because you gave the impression and you flagged to families that children would be going back to primary school in all years when that wasn’t possible. That’s what he’s criticising.
Mr Boris Johnson: But that’s not what you’ve just read out, though. Because if I understood what you just read out, and my memory of it was that we were going to get – there was going to be a staged process there we would get certain years back in advance of others. So I’m – forgive me, I’m a bit at a loss as to –
Lead 8: I think your point, is, Mr Johnson, that you don’t see that there was sufficient difference in what you announced to what Sir Gavin had been promising; is that right?
Mr Boris Johnson: It sounds to me that what I announced is what we did, and indeed what was common sense, and what needed to be done. If it was – if it was the case that there was a negotiation going on between the DfE and the unions which was going to preclude the possibility of kids going back, then, clearly, I was at variance with the DfE. But that would surprise me.
Lead 8: I’ll move on, if I may, Mr Johnson, to the next issue, which is that of assessment in the summer of 2020.
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: Do you recognise that what happened in the summer of 2020, in terms of the assessment of children who were doing their GCSEs and A levels, was really damaging to those children, in the light of everything that they had already been through?
Mr Boris Johnson: So I thought the whole business of scrapping exams was – was damaging, and it must have been bitterly disappointing to people – kids who – students who prepared and worked very, very hard. I didn’t want to do it, and – it was the logical concomitant of closing schools. You know, we – so on March 18th it was part of the package and, you know, we just – we had no way – no way round it. Certainly that’s my memory of the – of the way it went. I did think, you know, is there some way we can keep exams alive? But we couldn’t.
And so we had to find a way of adjudicating on the academic achievement of the kids that didn’t involve an exam, and Ofqual came up with this system, and I was not expert enough to comment on it, on whether it was viable or not, but plainly it let down a lot of kids whose grades didn’t reflect their abilities and their achievements.
And so, to answer your question: yes, I regret very much – I mean, amongst the things that I regret and I take responsibility for is that we got the wrong initial model for how to have a substitute exam.
All I would say in our defence is it wasn’t easy to come up with the right model.
Lead 8: You must have been concerned, Mr Johnson, about the ministerial response to what happened after the examination results came out?
Mr Boris Johnson: Go on.
Lead 8: Were you concerned, for example, that the Scottish exams came out a period of time beforehand, and that, for example, Sir Gavin Williamson hadn’t used that period of time in order to, for example, develop a strategy or an understanding about what would happen when the results came out in England?
Mr Boris Johnson: I think that – look, my memory of this is not perfect now, but I think it became obvious to us that the algorithm was not – had not worked, and it was producing lots of duff results, it was letting a lot of kids down. And my – my advice to the department, to Gavin, was just to find a – you know, I said, “Whatever you can do that’s fair to kids, we’ve got to go with that.”
In the end, the only solution was to scrap it and go back to centrally assessed grades. But then I think that was – so, to answer your question, I think that was the right response.
Lead 8: But were you not concerned about everything that happened in between that point in time? In other words, the Scottish results came out – there were a series of U-turns, weren’t there, on the part of Sir Gavin Williamson, before the final decision was reached that there would be – that there would be the use of centrally assessed grades; correct?
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, I think that the decision to go back to centrally assessed grades is on August 17th, from my memory.
Lead 8: Yes.
Mr Boris Johnson: Which is not that long after the results have started to come out, I don’t think. So I think there was a period – there was certainly – look, I mean, everybody can remember it. You know, clearly it’s a long time ago now, but it was a period in which a lot of young people, a lot of kids, were feeling very disheartened by getting grades that they didn’t – felt their – feel they deserved, and it was clear from looking at the data and from looking at the – what their teachers had been saying about them, that they were probably right. And so we had to fix it.
But I’m not certain how long the interval was between us realising that and deciding to scrap it and go with the CA – the CAG.
Lead 8: The whole thing was a disaster, wasn’t it?
Mr Boris Johnson: I certainly think that – if you mean was Covid a disaster? Yes.
Lead 8: No.
Mr Boris Johnson: And was the whole – was the loss of education a disaster? Yes. Was the loss of exams a disaster? Yes. Was the disappointment, anger, frustration, of a large number of kids – of – the additional frustration a disaster? Yes, it was. But it has to be seen in the context of us trying to deal with a much, much bigger disaster. And that was the loss of learning and the loss of exams themselves. And it – it was plainly not easy to come up with a substitute system.
Lead 8: I was asking a very specific question about assessed grades and whether you accepted that that was a particular disaster, and a disaster for those young people –
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, the centrally assessed grades turned out to be the right way of doing it, but the algorithm plainly was a disaster, yes.
Lead 8: You keep saying the algorithm, Mr Johnson, but the algorithm – you do appreciate and understand that the algorithm was a design arrived at because it was the intention to moderate grades; yes?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: And it was always the intention that if centre-assessed grades were judged to be too high, that they would be marked down; yes?
Mr Boris Johnson: I think the – as I understood the anxiety, it was that there would be a year, an abnormal year, in which there was such grade inflation as to devalue everybody’s grades, and that was the problem. And it was – so the reason I – I perfectly accept your point but as I understood it, the reason for the algorithm was to try and avoid that disaster.
Lead 8: Yes, but the algorithm, that was the whole purpose and intent behind the algorithm: it was to mark grades down in the event that that happened, correct?
Mr Boris Johnson: I’m not here to – of course I’m here to defend what happened in government and every bit of it but I don’t – I don’t – the system that we came up with, it clearly failed, and – or, you know, caused far, far too much disappointment, and far too many people got the wrong grades. As I understand it, that arose from good intentions, which were to try to protect the integrity of the examination system in a very, very difficult year and in very – with nightmare consequences for kids’ education, and to try to ensure that their qualifications would be as valuable in the future as those of any other year. That was the intention.
It failed in that intention, I perfectly accept. But I think it was – it was not done with bad intent.
Lead 8: I am just going to ask, if we may, to turn to the paper that was drawn up afterwards by the Cabinet Office.
This at INQ000137292, page 1, and we can see this is dated 24 August, Mr Johnson, yes?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: And I think at paragraph 2 we can see it’s set out that there was an initial timeline and key documents, it said:
“It is too early to draw firm conclusions. You will want to decide whether a lessons learned inquiry would be useful.”
Then it sets out some of the reasons why that would be a good thing, concluding at the end of that paragraph:
“Plus we should properly understand what failed, and would get credit for asking the question. Do you want to see options?”
I think on that, I don’t think there was a lessons learned inquiry, was there?
Mr Boris Johnson: No, I think the lesson that the department learned was pretty obvious, which is that the system that they came up with wasn’t suitable for these types of emergencies.
Lead 8: I think if we go over the page, please, to paragraph 4, the document sets out some of the initial insights into what this sequence of events had demonstrated, so setting out:
“It is striking that none of the bigger [picture] questions about what the Department was trying to achieve, (eg prioritising no grade inflation) were tested at an early stage; and there is a significant contrast here with the more generous approach taken to other … impacts, eg furlough.”
So I think what this paper was demonstrating or explaining was that there were bigger lessons to learn in terms of the fairness toward children; do you agree?
Mr Boris Johnson: I think that that was obvious from what happened, and I can only assume that the department will not be – should we have another year where we can’t stage exams in the way we want, I can – you know, I’m sure that the department will not be and the government will not be going down this route again.
Lead 8: Did you understand that there was a critical issue, and it was one that had been raised by Sir Jon Coles about the fairness of the approach that was being taken with this algorithm? Were you aware of that?
Mr Boris Johnson: I don’t think so. I think – my memory of this is that the criticisms only really surfaced after the results started to come through. But I – you know, at this distance in time it’s hard to – it’s hard to be sure.
Lead 8: So you may not have known that Sir Jon Coles saw Sir Gavin Williamson, had a meeting with him in order to explain what he thought was unfair about the approach that was taken?
Mr Boris Johnson: I’m so sorry, I can’t – I don’t – I don’t remember that. I don’t remember that.
Lead 8: But then in terms of what this paper was setting out, that it took the department a long time to accept the scale of the challenge and the impact of the pandemic and the potential problems it would cause for these students; yes? That’s – do you accept that’s what this paper is explaining?
Mr Boris Johnson: I certainly think that the impact of the pandemic was very severe and it was a nightmare for the department to understand exact how they were going to respond and particularly when it came to exams. I think that they, I think that Gavin, were doing their best with a particular solution that was designed to prevent grade inflation. That was one objective that they had in mind. In so doing, unfortunately they caused all sorts of other – other problems. And the approach had to be reversed.
Lead 8: And it sets out, doesn’t it, at the third bullet:
“Many of the issues with the algorithm were known about and could have been corrected in advance of results day …”
And then, going on down a bit:
“The reasons why they were not are likely to include: the Department not owning this problem enough; the relationship between the Department and Ofqual as independent regulator; the failure of the centre to hold the Department and Ofqual to account; and the lack of technical scrutiny of the Ofqual model …”
Mr Boris Johnson: It seems to me that the department has got abundant explanation for the problems of the model it chose.
Lead 8: When you, after – in the aftermath of all of this, and given the consequences that this whole assessment issue had had for children, you did realise, didn’t you, and you did think that this raised question marks about the whole leadership of the Department for Education, didn’t – that is right, isn’t it?
Mr Boris Johnson: I certainly thought that the public, you know, outcry, the level of disappointment, pain, on the part of individual candidates was – it was awful. And it’s fair to say that I – yes, of course I thought about whether there was a need to respond to that by changing people’s jobs and so on and so forth. Of course.
Lead 8: It was really undermining of public confidence, this issue, wasn’t it?
Mr Boris Johnson: I think that – I can’t comment on that. I don’t – I don’t have any evidence for that. I think that it certainly was very undermining for the confidence of – of kids who thought they deserved a better grade. And it was a … it was a bad system. We – I’m afraid that it was an accident of the great difficulties we faced in improvising in exceptionally difficult circumstances. And I think – I think most people, actually – and with great respect to what you say, I think most people, although they wanted it corrected and they wanted their kid – their individual students’ interests looked after, I think most people could also see that.
Lead 8: Mr Johnson, I’m not going to go back to the point about whether this was an accident or not, but if we just go to your messages about this –
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, so we wouldn’t have set out to have a –
Lead 8: No.
Mr Boris Johnson: – to scrap exams and have a – have people’s grades decided by this – this system.
Lead 8: No, but there was thought that could be given to what sort of algorithm you wanted and the balance between trying to control grades and doing fairness to individual students. Do you accept that?
Mr Boris Johnson: I – yes, I imagine that there must have been such thought. I do. But I wasn’t privy to it at the time.
Lead 8: But just turning to the leadership of the Department for Education, and I think we have this in your messages at INQ000283369, page 37, and it’s just at the top of that page. And it’s only the message at the top of the page that matters. And it begins:
“We need a plan for the [Department for Education].
“We need a perm sec and we need better ministers and quite frankly we need an agenda of reform.
“We can’t go on like this. I am thinking of going into number ten and firing people.”
Mr Johnson, that reveals the truth, doesn’t it, of what you thought about how the leadership of the Department for Education was during the pandemic?
Mr Boris Johnson: It certainly reveals that I was – you know, at that particular moment when I fired of that particular intemperate message, I was in a very bad mood about what had happened. Yeah, that – that would be fair.
Lead 8: And without going into the details of it, the permanent secretary did leave; correct?
Mr Boris Johnson: That’s correct.
Lead 8: But you didn’t ask Sir Gavin Williamson to leave, did you?
Mr Boris Johnson: Not then, no.
Lead 8: Ought you to have done?
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, you know, I think if I look back at the general handling of my beloved colleagues over the three years or three-and-a-bit years I was in government, I can think of all sorts of changes I might have made, but, you know, I don’t think there’s any point in speculating about it now.
You know, I think that, on the whole, given the difficulties that we faced, I think that the department under Gavin did a pretty heroic job in trying to cope with Covid, and that was my judgement.
Lead 8: After this happened, did you speak to young people or address them directly in order to express any regret about what had happened?
Mr Boris Johnson: I’m so sorry, I’m sure – I’m sure I was interviewed about the matter repeatedly, but I cannot now remember what I said. But I’m sure I would have expressed the regret and contrition that I feel now. I mean, it was not a good system, we should not have put it through. We should have spotted it faster. I mean, yeah, I think that your criticisms are valid. All I would say is that, you know, you try coming up with a system to give a fair exam result for people when they can’t sit exams. It’s not easy. Okay? That’s all would say.
Lead 8: It’s really the broader question, Mr Johnson, and the point has been made by other witnesses in Module 8 that you didn’t, for example, have press conferences where you took questions from children or spoke to children, and –
Mr Boris Johnson: Oh, I see.
Lead 8: – the point has been made –
Mr Boris Johnson: That’s a good point.
Lead 8: – that in distinction to other political leaders who did make that effort to speak directly to children, that you didn’t.
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, if that’s the case, then that’s a criticism I, again, that I must accept. I mean, I don’t – I remember doing lots of press conferences with young people but I think that was before Covid. I’ve got to put my hands up. Maybe we should have done that. Maybe we should have done that.
Lead 8: Is there a reason why not to, though, Mr Johnson?
Mr Boris Johnson: Honestly, if I had to – I think we were trying to deal with a very difficult pandemic that was very dangerous for a lot of people in our country, and maybe I should have done as you suggest. I’m fairly certain that I spoke generally to everybody about my regret for what had happened, but no, I don’t think I did a particular press conference for young people about it. That might have been a good thing to do.
Lead 8: At around this period of time, and I’m, when I say that, I mean the period leading up to school closures – sorry, to schools being reopened –
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: – so we’re in and around August 2020, I don’t think I need to bring you to this, it was a document that was put before Sir Gavin Williamson, but it seems that there was a deliberate tactical decision not to inform schools of the existence of a fallback plan when they were reopening.
Mr Boris Johnson: Right.
Lead 8: I can show you the document if you prefer it.
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes, I think I know what you’re referring to.
Lead 8: I don’t want to mislead you, but I think that the point is made – that would be made about that was that it was really unfair to schools to keep them in the dark about having a fallback plan at the time that you were asking them to reopen.
Mr Boris Johnson: I don’t – I don’t – I think I can remember the document you’re talking about. I don’t think the intention was to keep them in the dark if it had genuinely seemed that we weren’t going to be able to proceed with the roadmap and that they would have to reopen. And clearly, as soon as that had become obvious, we would have enlisted the whole sector, gone public, and got people going.
I think that, if you remember, when the schools closed, there was a lot of fraying around the edges before the actual decision. And we’ve discussed already the difficulties of, you know, the period from May, when we do the June 1st partial reopenings, there was a lot of politics in all this. And my anxiety was just, I think, as far as we could, to keep it simple. And, you know, until such time as we were going to have to change tack, we should keep on the course we were on.
Ms Dobbin: My Lady, is that an appropriate moment?
Lady Hallett: Certainly.
Mr Johnson, remember we take regular breaks. By the sounds of it, you can take some water as well.
The Witness: Thank you very much. Thank you.
Lady Hallett: And I shall return at 11.30. I promise you, we will complete your evidence by lunchtime.
The Witness: Thank you, thank you.
(11.14 am)
(A short break)
(11.29 am)
Lady Hallett: Ms Dobbin.
Ms Dobbin: Thank you, my Lady.
Mr Johnson, may I turn, then, to a completely different subject, which is that of the closure of schools as announced on 4 January –
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: – 2021. You must have been really keen to ensure that the calamitous closure of schools that occurred in March 2020 wasn’t repeated again; would that be right?
Mr Boris Johnson: Absolutely. It was the last thing I wanted to do. Of course.
Lead 8: And Mrs Susan Acland-Hood has given evidence that over the course of December, two things happened: first of all, that there was an increasing ask on the Department for Education –
Mr Boris Johnson: Yeah.
Lead 8: – in terms of the amount of testing that it would have to ensure was provided. Do you recollect that?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes, absolutely. And that was very much in the context of the period at – the second half of 2020, when we started to get very interested in mass testing as a way of reopening setting – schools and other things, and it’s absolutely correct that I wanted to see mass testing in schools as part of the way of getting schools open.
Lead 8: And I think what she gave evidence of was a very specific set of increases in the ask that was being made of the Department for Education, which in turn became the ask being made of schools. Do you recollect that?
Mr Boris Johnson: I do, and I remember that we – it was – it wasn’t easy, and I think that the department – you know, again, I think the department acquitted themselves heroically in this respect. I think they really tried to get mass testing going. I think they stood up a huge amount of facilities, very, very fast. But as I’m sure you’re coming to, that was just never going to be a runner because of the Alpha, the Kent variant.
Lead 8: I’ll turn to that.
The other point that she made and developed in her evidence was that, in terms of the manpower to provide the testing, that it became clear that that would also have to be provided, as it were, largely by the Department for Education, but in reality, it would have to be provided by schools. Again, does that accord with your memory?
Mr Boris Johnson: It does, and, you know, I was conscious of the extra burden we were putting on teachers and, you know, it’s – as you know, the way the schools work in this country, the – what the man and woman in Whitehall says doesn’t necessarily follow everywhere. And it’s a very complicated system. But on the whole, the schools did stand up a quite extraordinary amount of testing capability.
Lead 8: Mr Johnson, we’ve heard the Department for Education perspective on the events leading up to 4 January and we’ve heard the perspective of Professor Sir Chris Whitty, as well. I think it’s important that the Inquiry also hears your evidence about your perspective on it, but can I take you, and just to set the scene, to a document that we have at INQ000091147.
This wasn’t a document addressed to you, Mr Johnson, because it was the chair’s brief for this Covid-O meeting of 16 December 2020. But we can see underneath the introduction that you had given a strong steer that you would like the return to face-to-face attendance to be staggered and for testing to be used as fully as possible to support this. Yes?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: And if we look at the last bullet in that sequence, that:
“We are all well aware that this is a major delivery challenge …”
Correct?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: And I think if we go over the page, please, to the background, and if we look at the second bullet, it records that the Education Secretary had spoken to you that morning, that there had been agreement about who would go back and the testing in place. And then beneath that, that there were significant delivery challenges; correct?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: And it says at the bottom of that paragraph:
“The biggest issue to resolve is the workforce; there is not yet agreement as to where this will come from (teaching, military, other surge workforce, etc) …”
Mr Boris Johnson: Mm.
Lead 8: And therefore, the Department of Health and Social Care Secretary of State didn’t want to put his name to the paper; correct?
Mr Boris Johnson: Mm.
Lead 8: Do you remember that, that there was – (overspeaking) –
Mr Boris Johnson: I remember that there were difficulties in standing up the testing operation and I remember the department really straining to get it done, but what I also remember is that in the end I think they were in a position to delivery. I remember – I remember, though I can’t remember the ins and outs of it, I remember a conversation about the MACA and whether we’d use the army or not, but I think it ended up with the schools doing it.
Lead 8: And do you recollect the tensions at this time between the Secretary of State for Health and the Secretary of State for Education in terms of trying to resolve where this manpower would come from?
Mr Boris Johnson: I’m sorry, I don’t. I don’t remember the specifics of that.
Lead 8: All right. And I think if we go to the position that was reached, then, on 28 December.
And we have this at INQ000075504.
And again, Mr Johnson, just to help with your memory of this, we can see that this is an email of 28 December.
Mr Boris Johnson: 28th? Right.
Lead 8: Yes. From a Ms Burns from Number 10. And obviously by this stage it’s very clear, isn’t it, that the new variant was what was driving transmission; correct?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes, I –
Lead 8: We can pick that up from the first bullet –
Mr Boris Johnson: That’s right. I mean, the documents that I’ve just looked at to refresh my memory suggested that, really, the penny sort of started to drop on the 22nd, but – but, yes, I think it was very clear by the 28th.
Lead 8: All right. And if we look at the second paragraph below those first set of bullets, the Education Secretary had set out the social cost of closing schools.
Then below that we see again the four bullets for getting schools back; yes?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: And we can see here the plan set out that, in terms of secondary schools, there would be a delay until 18 January –
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: – to get all of the children back?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: And then that there would be the weekly testing of schools – or, sorry, of pupils; yes?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes. Is this the 28th still?
Lead 8: It is, yes.
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: And I think if we go over the page, please, this is quite a long section, Mr Johnson, and I won’t read all of it out, but I think we can see here some of the different arguments being ventilated. So the first part of that page we can see set out the Secretary of State for Health’s arguments; yes?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: So that it would be that 18 January might be too soon, and seeking a clear decision at this point; yes?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: And is that right? Was he effectively arguing that the decision ought to be made as or around that date as to whether or not schools should in fact reopen in the January?
Mr Boris Johnson: Look, I think you can generally take it during this period, that there’s – I can’t remember the specifics about the issue on testing between DfE and the Department of Health, but there’s generally a tension about, you know, whether it’s going to be sensible to open up and how fast, or – as soon as we see the Kent variant, the Alpha variant. And I don’t remember Matt saying that but it seems entirely plausible.
Lead 8: Okay. And if we just read this down and if we drop down a couple of paragraphs, we can see reference to the advice that was being given by the Chief Scientific Adviser. And if we follow that down by a couple of sentences, he was advising:
“We know that children do transmit and take it back into households, and that when half term occurs there is a decrease in spread.”
So, advising that school closures do have an effect; correct?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes. Though why are we talking about half term now? Because we’ve got Christmas.
Lead 8: I think he’s talking about retrospectively it can be seen that half term had an effect.
Mr Boris Johnson: Okay, yes. Yes, right.
Lead 8: And then after that we can also see the advice being provided by the Chief Medical Officer as well, who was also advising that it was regional differences at this point in time that was making the decision difficult; correct?
Mr Boris Johnson: That looks the kind of – yes, I mean, I’m sure that’s right.
Lead 8: But may I just focus, then, on the last paragraph of this section:
“In conclusion, the [Prime Minister] understood the DfE proposal and thought that mass testing proposal sounded positive, although overall he could also see the arguments for having a lower risk appetite on opening. Decisions will need to be taken in the round this week.”
Then we can see set out:
“In the meantime, on schools specifically he would like to urgently see the delivery plan on testing in every school for the start of term, as well as understanding the precise policy (ie are we compelling individuals/schools? How? What’s the form of words he could use?) – and whether weekly testing is deliverable, and what [could] be done to make that happen.”
Then we can see:
“Please can DfE provide a note on above, working with test and trace, for 6.30 pm?”
And I think we can see that that email was sent by 3.30 or sent at 3.30 pm.
Mr Boris Johnson: Mm.
Lead 8: So, again, is that – does that correspond with your memory, Mr Johnson, that even as at this date, I –
Mr Boris Johnson: What date is this now?
Lead 8: 28 December.
Mr Boris Johnson: Yeah, yeah.
Lead 8: That there wasn’t a clear plan –
Mr Boris Johnson: Yeah.
Lead 8: – as far as you were concerned for testing in schools, and that you were still seeking clarification as to what such a plan would look like?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes, I think I was seeking clarification, but I don’t think that I – that meant that I thought that it was undeliverable. I mean, my impression was that they were – they were making progress, and that they were going to be able to stand up testing. And maybe I’m wrong but I think that was the testimony of Mrs Acland-Hood as well, but I might be wrong about that.
Lead 8: I’m just testing at the moment what your understanding was on 28 December, because some of the questions that seemed to be asked by you at this point seemed like quite fundamental questions.
Mr Boris Johnson: Sure. And quite rightly. But I don’t – all I’m trying to say is I – from the best of my memory, that doesn’t mean that I thought that the plan was necessarily undeliverable, you know, I wanted to make sure that we belt and braced it, that it was all ready to go, but I wasn’t going to junk it.
Lead 8: Can you help with why at this point, I mean, it very much appears to be the case and borne out by what Mrs Acland-Hood explained, that this massive effort was very much on the shoulders of the Department for Education, and schools, as opposed to being a more shared effort. Why was it, why had it fallen, principally, to the department and to schools to –
Mr Boris Johnson: I –
Lead 8: – to deliver this massive testing regime?
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, they had to test secondary school, kids going back into secondary school, and – which was going to be, you know, I think we had a plan to stagger that anyway. I didn’t think it was such an unreasonable thing to ask. I know it was onerous, but I believed they could – they could do it, given the alternative. And, you know, the alternative was, again, more loss of learning, greater detriment to their pupils. About which, you know, which they cared passionately, and as did we all.
Lead 8: Yes, but Mrs Acland-Hood’s evidence about that was that she felt they were asking something deeply unreasonable of schools, you know, in other words, the teachers were there to teach the children; they weren’t there to implement a mass testing regime in secondary schools, although her evidence is that nonetheless, schools rose to the challenge.
Mr Boris Johnson: I think they did.
Lead 8: And I think again it’s coming back to the point, Mr Johnson, about the importance that was attached to this or not by government in terms of getting children back to school.
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, I think huge importance was attached to it, and that’s why we kept going with the policy, in spite of the obvious difficulties. And if you look at the – we were in an environment where the numbers of cases were starting to rise quite sharply, and I also knew, of course, that we were going to have the vaccines coming down the track at some point. It seemed to me that this was, you know – I know it was – I knew it was a huge effort, but it was worth it just to get the kids back into school. And if we could use mass – my plan was to try to use mass testing, as I have told the Inquiry before, as a way to try to reopen society. And in the end that didn’t work and it was superseded by the vaccines.
But in the back end – in the second half of 2020, that was the only shot we had. Mass testing was the only way through, for the country, that I could see. So that’s why it was so important.
Now, on – should DHSC have done it? Should the army have done it? Should some other body have done it to relieve the pressure on teachers and schools? Very possibly. I can’t, I’m afraid now, go into the arguments, because I simply can’t, at this stage, recollect them. You know, I can imagine that Health and Social Care staff were very heavily engaged doing other things as were the others, but I can’t give you the balance of the arguments now.
We had to – if we could stand up testing in schools, we had to do it if we possibly could, and that was the plan. We were beaten by Alpha.
Lead 8: And may I ask you, were you satisfied, ultimately, that the plans for schools, despite the enormous ask of teachers, were you satisfied that they were sufficiently robust?
Mr Boris Johnson: What, for testing?
Lead 8: Yes, that they did have a chance. I mean, obviously that changed, but in terms of the plans that you had asked for and the increased ask, were you satisfied that the Department for Education was in the position of being able to deliver that?
Mr Boris Johnson: My memory is I was – I had confidence in them and what they were doing. It’s clear from those questions that I’m pushing them so that I’m going to be – I’m going to be in a position to – because what – people – the public will be extremely interested and concerned to hear about their kids being tested in school. They’re going to want to know who’s in charge, how it works, and all sorts of things. I need to know the details. So I think that’s why I’m asking those questions. I’m going to have to explain it.
Lead 8: Yes, but you’re asking the really basic question of: can we actually do weekly testing in schools?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes, and I think that’s –
Lead 8: – (overspeaking) –
Mr Boris Johnson: – and I think the answer was yes. But it was tough. But, you know, many of the things that we faced in Covid were extremely tough.
Lead 8: And was the position reached then, once again, that you were effectively overtaken by events? Because on 30 December in fact you had to start closing primary schools in different parts of England.
Mr Boris Johnson: It was an absolute – it was – I mean, of all the really, really low moments in a – that was – it was terrible, that whole period because, you know, I could see the cavalry coming over the hill in the form of the vaccines, and I thought mass testing offered a way forward, but it was clear – so the January spike, I think, was bigger than the April spike of 2020. And … yeah. I mean, that plan, to open on January 4th, staggered, was defeated by Alpha.
Lead 8: Was it the worst of all worlds, then, that some primary schools around the country opened on 4 January only to have to close again that day because of the reversal of position?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes, it was and, you know, I’m very sorry to them for their efforts that were in vain, but – and, you know, the Inquiry was asking – I’m sure you are – about were there other options we could have used then at any stage to reduce the R other than closing schools? Was that really the right tool to use? Um … looking back, honestly, I’m not certain, but at the time it seemed like the only option. If – the risk was that if we had another doubling, we would see a very serious number of fatalities, and then another doubling. And we – we had to get the R below 1. I think that’s what – people sometimes forget that why – a small – a relatively small thing, like closing schools, can take the speed out of the – out of the circulation and make all the difference, otherwise – sorry.
Lady Hallett: No, sorry, I was interrupting you, sorry. No, I’ll let you finish.
Mr Boris Johnson: Otherwise it – mathematically, it either doubles or halves.
Lady Hallett: That I certainly follow.
Mr Johnson, could I ask, why was it that the decision had to wait – to close had to wait, in other words primary schools opened on 4 January, then closed that night? Could the decision not have been taken earlier that you were forced to close –
Mr Boris Johnson: I’m sure – look, with hindsight, my Lady, of course it could have been taken earlier, and it would have looked better and have felt less bumpy to everybody had it been taken earlier. Of course that’s right. But at the time it wasn’t as obvious as it seems to me now. At the time I was still very much divided and – and very, very keen, as indeed was Gavin Williamson, to see if we could keep going.
Ms Dobbin: Just turning to Sir Gavin Williamson, what he sets out in his witness statement – and perhaps we can just bring this up for ease.
It’s at INQ000588024, please. Page 83 and paragraph 10.26.
Just to highlight, Mr Johnson, I think, the point about how eleventh hour this decision actually was –
Mr Boris Johnson: It was.
Lead 8: – his evidence is that when he spoke to you on the morning of 4 January 2021, your message to him was about keeping schools open and doing everything to ensure that that remained the position, and that he explained that something like 85% of schools had actually opened. So, in other words, saying –
Mr Boris Johnson: You know, looking at that, I take – you know, I can understand how a secretary of state would feel frustrated. Of course. I totally understand that. And, you know, I’m – I’m – it was a very, very difficult situation, and we had to take decisions throughout the pandemic based on our best judgement of the way things were at the time, and that inevitably changed. And that was the day, sadly, when it became clear to me that we couldn’t continue with a policy of opening the schools.
Now, maybe it should have occurred to me – maybe I should have resolved that earlier in my mind, but that’s easy to say with hindsight. I wanted, if I possibly could, to keep them open.
Lead 8: If we just look, please, at what he says at the – just after that, please, at paragraph 10.27. He says that he receives a phone call from Mr Rosenfield at 12.30 that day to tell him that, in fact, schools were closed.
So, I think, Mr Johnson, to come full circle on the point that was made at the very start of your evidence, and this question of whether or not the Department for Education was at the table when some of these most significant decisions were made, I think we see here that they weren’t at the table, and that you told him that schools would close. That is right, isn’t it?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes, and – that’s absolutely right, and I think you’re looking at the reality of the way things have to run in government, and particularly during a pandemic.
Gavin rightly owned the interests of schools and – and young people. He had to promote that. I had the problem of trying to balance the interests of the entire country and every single potential Covid victim. And it was hellishly difficult.
And of course, you know, I think – I think Gavin has said, I think my instincts were, or my inclinations, were very much the same as his. But in the end, we had to take a – we had to take the public health issue into account and we had to put it first. I’m sorry, but we had to put it first.
Lead 8: So, if we just – in terms of going to the meeting where the decision was made, then – we have that INQ000146739, please.
And I think that we can see from the top of this, that it’s 4 January and it’s the Covid-O meeting; is that right?
Mr Boris Johnson: It sounds right, yes.
Lead 8: Yes. And we can see that those present are Sir Michael Gove, the Chancellor, and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care; correct?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: And various officials?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: And I think that if we go over the page, then, please, to page 4, and I think it’s the penultimate paragraph, Mr Johnson. And we can see here:
“… the Director General for Strategy in the Covid-19 Taskforce said that there were big choices for the Committee on schools.”
Yes?
So returning to the question of whether schools should reopen after 18 January; yes? That’s secondary schools; correct?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yeah. Yes.
Lead 8: And I think, as well, if we look in terms of the things that were discussed during that meeting, if we look at (b), for example, so “In discussion” – sorry, it’s page 5. It sets out all of the things that were discussed. And for example we see at (b):
“it was always better to surprise on the upside rather than the downside. Therefore the Government should act quickly and robustly to close all schools …”
Further on down:
“There was mass flagrant abuse of the rules and unless the measures taken were tougher than in March, they would not be taken seriously.”
Yes?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes, I don’t remember that particular intervention but that does not surprise me at all.
Lead 8: Then a few paragraphs down from this, paragraph (e):
“any intervention would only be successful if it succeeded in changing public behaviour.”
Yes?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: And then the reference there underneath it, (g), that:
“deaths had increased by 25 per cent within a week.”
Yes?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: So the stark public health issue that you had to confront; correct?
Mr Boris Johnson: Correct.
Lead 8: Then if we go over the page, please, to (h), the suggestion that:
“schools could resume face-to-face learning for all students at the end of January, from the February half-term, or from the end of February.”
Yes?
Mr Boris Johnson: Right, yes. I don’t – yes.
Lead 8: And I think – I don’t think we need to go through the whole of this document but it is right, isn’t it, that at the end of this meeting you then decided that you would close schools to all children once again; correct?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes, yes, I think that’s right. This is 4 January?
Lead 8: Yes, it is.
Mr Boris Johnson: Absolutely, yes.
Lead 8: And it obviously fits in with what Sir Gavin Williamson has said that he spoke to you first thing in the morning when it was, you know, your message was “Yes, schools are staying open, full steam ahead”, so to speak, only for him to be told a couple of hours later that that was no longer the case; yes?
Mr Boris Johnson: That’s correct.
Lead 8: And that this was the meeting that happened in between to change the direction of travel; yes?
Mr Boris Johnson: That I’m not certain, but it looks –
Lead 8: I think it fits – (overspeaking) –
Mr Boris Johnson: There would be plenty of discussions going on throughout the day and people bringing me bits and – of information, but that could well be how it happened, yes. I just can’t remember.
Lead 8: But I think, Mr Johnson, from everything you’ve said, you didn’t see any issue about taking this decision on 4 January without having the Department for Education at the table to speak to any of these issues about education or when schools might be able to reopen, or any of the other issues that were relevant?
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, if you look at the – so I’d spent the day in contact with Gavin, I think by our own account of this thing, this day, I’m talking to him in the morning, I’m well aware of his position. I’m well aware of his concerns. And, you know, we’d been talking about it the whole time, continuously. And as I said, I share his – I shared his instincts, and understood very much what he was – what his message was. There was no need for, you know, I didn’t need to hear him directly in my ear to understand what he would feel about this. But it was clear to me that because of Alpha, the balance of the argument had shifted, and I could have – I had no option. I had no option. Given the facts as they presented themselves that day, I felt I had no option but to close down. And – or to prevent the reopening of schools.
Imagine the kind of – imagine, well, you know, there’s no need for me to go through it.
Lead 8: Mr Johnson, Sir Gavin Williamson has been very critical of the decisions to close schools on 4 January.
Mr Boris Johnson: And I understand why he feels as he does, and he’s, you know, people are – he’s – he’s the Secretary – he was the Secretary of State for Education, he wanted to see kids in school and that’s entirely laudable.
Lead 8: I mean, what he has said is that the decision was made – and I’m paraphrasing but I hope accurately – that the decision was made not because it would have a significant impact on the infection rate but more because the government had to be seen to be using all possible options to turn things around – (overspeaking) –
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, there again, I’d respectfully disagree, because, it – although schools themselves might make up a small part of the budget of measures you need to depress the R, it can be critical. And the problem with bringing the schools back, as everybody knows, is that there’s a delay, because of the – when the virus starts circulating in schools, there’s a delay the kids contracting it and then passing it on, and then the adults being infected. And so you’re storing up potentially very, very big problems.
And I think – I understand his frustration and it’s a proper frustration on the part of a Secretary of State with a department to run who’s thinking about kids and their interests.
Lead 8: He said that it had – and I mean the closure of schools in January 2021 – was likened to smashing a Ming vase on the floor. So in other words, that you had to do something – you had to make a bold move and something dramatic in order to get the public to –
Mr Boris Johnson: We had to stop a second doubling of the – or a doubling of the rate. I think the paper we’ve just been looking at said there’d been a 25% increase in deaths overnight, I think it is, or – I may have got that wrong. That’s – you can’t ignore that sort of data.
Lead 8: And again, and I’m putting the criticisms, Mr Johnson, he makes, but he said that it was a panicked decision and that it wasn’t required.
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, you know, I respectfully disagree. It grieved everybody to have to do it. It was the last thing I wanted to do. But the numbers were very difficult to argue with.
Lady Hallett: Can I ask, as far as you were concerned, in January 2021, was there a direct causative link between closing schools and reducing the R number, or was it the effect of closing schools on the public messaging which seemed to be what one of the papers –
Mr Boris Johnson: The Ming vase point?
Lady Hallett: Yes.
Mr Boris Johnson: No, I think it was – well, I mean, obviously it was –
Lady Hallett: Was it both?
Mr Boris Johnson: – both, but as I understood it, the schools alone could take about 10 or 20% out of the R. So if the R is 1.1, that obviously gets you halving rather than doubling. And that’s a critical thing.
Lady Hallett: Thank you.
Ms Dobbin: Mr Johnson, I think, from everything you have said, that you accept that these periods of school closure had the most awful impact on all children in England of school age and also more – a disproportionate impact on those most disadvantaged children in our society.
Mr Boris Johnson: Yeah.
Lead 8: And it was for that reason, wasn’t it, that you appointed Sir Kevan Collins as Education Recovery Commissioner; is that right?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yeah.
Lead 8: Just before we go on to his – to your evidence about his appointment and his recovery plan, I just wanted to refer to an account that was given to the Inquiry, and its Every Story Matters piece of work.
This was selected because, on the one hand, it’s probably a story that isn’t that out of the ordinary for many young people, but on the other hand –
Mr Boris Johnson: I read it. It’s about the footballer?
Lead 8: Yes. I’m just going to – maybe if we just bring that up on screen, please, but the parent who set out:
“My eldest son was expected to get scouted at 16 by a football club, but lockdown started shortly after his 16th birthday. After many months without intense training, his fitness and skills dropped and he feels he was robbed of the chance to ‘make it’. This caused him to become depressed. Along with having missed his school leaving, GCSEs being ruined, not seeing his girlfriend, and all his social life being put to an end, his depression levels started to rise. One evening in July 2020 I got a call from his friend’s mum saying he was threatening to attempt suicide and had gone out at 2am to a wood. Thankfully he had told his friend who went out to find him and we quickly sought mental health support privately.”
So there were probably many stories like that across England, but extraordinary for the family who finds themselves in that situation. Yes?
Mr Boris Johnson: Terrible, yes.
Lead 8: And the impacts – obviously there were educational impacts, but the impacts went far, far beyond that, didn’t they?
Mr Boris Johnson: They did, and, you know, it was one of the reasons – well, the main reason – why I was so deeply reluctant to go with school closures throughout the – throughout the time, because – after the first lockdown I went to a senior school in – I saw several. I remember going to one in Kent, and talking to the kids. It was obvious that some had done – some had been fine and some had been very far from fine. And so the – most had been fine, but a significant number of kids were very badly affected by this thing, and it was very difficult to remediate. And, you know, we did our best, as I’ve set out in my statement.
Lead 8: Do you think the consequences proved to be worse than you anticipated?
Mr Boris Johnson: That’s a good question. I think that they were certainly as bad as – they were certainly on the – on the worse end of my expectation, some of the things that happened, yeah. Yeah.
Lead 8: So the appointment of Sir Kevan Collins was a chance, wasn’t it, to help children recover and to compensate for the sacrifice that they had made, which was largely for the benefit of everyone else in society; do you agree?
Mr Boris Johnson: That’s right.
Lead 8: And Sir Kevan Collins – and we can bring this up quickly, I think.
It’s at INQ000542716, page 1, please.
This is a very neat visual representation of what he was suggesting by way of his recovery plan; do you agree?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes, absolutely.
Lead 8: And the one thing that I think he placed a real premium on, and we’ll come to this in terms of its cost, was adding to the time that children would have in school.
Thank you, that can come down.
And one of the reasons he was keen that children have time in school is because it would afford the opportunity for other enrichment activities; correct?
Mr Boris Johnson: Absolutely.
Lead 8: It wasn’t just –
Mr Boris Johnson: No, no.
Lead 8: – getting kids back to school –
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes, yes.
Lead 8: – so they can do maths; it was about all of the other activities that help children’s development?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: And I think we see in Sir Kevan Collins’s statement – and again, if we could bring this up briefly, please. INQ000649897. And I think we can take it, please, from page 8. Thank you. Paragraph 3.13 and 3.14.
He sets out, in the course of this statement, Mr Johnson – and I know you’ve seen it – about the contact he kept with you in order to be able to keep you updated with the plans he had; correct?
Mr Boris Johnson: That’s right.
Lead 8: And do you accept that one of the reasons he did that was because effectively he wanted to keep you on board with them?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: Thank you, that can come down.
And he sets that out – sorry, if we could keep the statement up.
He sets out from paragraph 3.23 onwards about the updating that he provided to you. It’s 3.23.
So he sets out here – I won’t read through all of this, Mr Johnson, but that he had sent you a note on 26 February –
Mr Boris Johnson: Yeah.
Lead 8: – where he had set out – he sets out here the amount of loss that school closures had produced, the economic loss.
And if we could just carry on, please, at 3.24 he explains that he set out the pillars of his plan.
Thank you.
At 3.25, I think an endorsing note from you that you were pleased with his direction of travel.
And then at 3.26 and 3.27, he explains that he also made clear the costs of his plans as well; correct?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: And I think importantly, for our purposes, he sets that out at 3.27. So, in other words, on 5 March –
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: – he had provided the costings.
And he explains – and again, we can take this from 3.39, please – that he sent you a note on 14 May setting out the overall cost of his plans; correct?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: So the maximum cost and the least cost. And I think he sets out at 3.40 that that would have come as no surprise to you –
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: – because he had set that out a number of months before; correct?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: And it’s right, Mr Johnson, isn’t it, that after this point the plans were steadily whittled down?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes. And not surprisingly, because 15.9 billion is a lot of money, but yes.
Lead 8: Yes, well, I think the question is why didn’t you say that in the March of 2021 when he was developing those plans?
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, because I wanted to test his proposals and I wanted to see the evidential basis for what he was arguing for. And you made a point about timing and time in schools, and it’s absolutely true that on the whole, the more time kids can spend in schools, the better it’s going to be for them. And as you say, they’ll have opportunities to do things that will be of value.
However, the – I think the overall cost of the time component of his proposals was the thick end of it. I mean, it was – like, two-thirds, if not more, was the – I may be wrong about that, but it – my memory of it, it was a huge amount went on, on that proposal alone.
And when I dug into it, the evidence for the remedial benefits for individual kids who’d suffered detriment to their learning was not very strong. And that was the point that was put to me, both by the department and by my officials.
Lead 8: Did the department – sorry, forgive me.
Mr Boris Johnson: So I had to make a difficult choice, and not for the first time. We’d just spent 480 billion already on Covid, the country, even now, is struggling with a huge debt burden, which is putting up the cost of interest rates for everybody in this country. Just to throw another 10 billion on something for which the evidential basis is not very strong, is not something that you should normally be doing. There was a policy in Kevan’s plan, and I’m grateful to him, and I think he did – you know, he was doing – he was doing the right thing by his profession and by his beliefs in trying to get the maximum money out of government, out of me. And what he did was entirely reasonable. But my job was to try and sort out what was really practical and sensible from what was going to be very difficult in a very tough fiscal environment, and so I thought that the direct, targeted teaching to try to help individuals who’d fallen behind, sounded like a much better use of public money, and that was what we went for and we spent very considerable sums on it, and I think it was right thing to do – the whole – the tutoring programme. I still think it’s the right thing to do.
Lead 8: What he was setting out to you over the course of months was his rationale as to why he put a premium of time –
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: – and why he thought it was so important that children had that extra time in school including so that they could do enrichment activities –
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes, I understand that –
Lead 8: – in other words, that the longer –
Mr Boris Johnson: I understand that completely but it just didn’t cohere with other advice I was being given about the benefits of the three – the three offers.
Lead 8: If we just look at his resignation letter, which is at INQ000542974, because it’s right, isn’t it, Mr Johnson, that when he saw how much the plans had been whittled down and the amount of proposed spending, that he felt his position was untenable; correct?
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, to be fair to Kevan, he’d done his job. You might say that his position was untenable, but he was functus officio, as they say. He’d done it. You know, he’d produced his report and it was very, very good but clearly he was aiming very high.
Lead 8: Well, he wasn’t functus, because he resigned; correct? And you had wanted him to stay on, hadn’t you, and to endorse the plans that – (overspeaking) –
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, that would have been – that would have been great. But – that would have been great. Yes, of course I regret his resignation but, I mean, he’d done what I needed to do, he’d done a great deal of work and I’m very grateful to him, because he had looked genuinely and hard at how you could help kids who’d suffered from Covid.
Now, I had to put that through our mincer, and work out what – whether, you know, what was really valuable and where we would end up. And the advice I was being given was that the most – the policy with the greatest benefits was that the third, was the targeted teaching.
Lead 8: Just looking at his resignation letter, and again, I won’t read all of this out, he sets out at the third paragraph about your ambition to recover the lost learning, and sets out that he’d then, I think, regarded that as his responsibility to try to deliver it. And he set out in the paragraph – and we see this in the paragraph below:
“… I told you that I do not believe it would be possible to deliver a successful recovery without significantly greater support than the Government has, to date, indicated it intends to provide.”
And setting out his fear that it was a false economy. And then that paragraph below:
“I believe our approach to recovery should also offer children opportunities to re-engage with sport, music, and the rich range of activities that define a great education. I proposed extending school time as a way to provide this breadth, as well as to ensure that additional academic support does not cause existing enrichment activities to be squeezed out.”
And then goes on to set out at the end, I suppose, the rationale for his resignation:
“I do not believe it is credible that a successful recovery can be achieved with a programme of support of this size.”
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, as I said to you, I really am grateful to Kevan for what he did and I respect his opinion, and yeah, look, in an ideal world, clearly we would all like to see all our children better provided for, for all the things that he mentions. There are huge sums that we could – and probably should spend. The difficulty is that we have a very – both certainly post Covid – a very constrained fiscal position, and we have to, you know, the government today has to be mindful of the bond markets. Why is Rachel Reeves continually talking about putting taxes up? It’s because if she doesn’t, the international finance will mark Britain down. And if she’s seen to spend too much they will mark Britain down.
I would love to, of course, to do much more to support kids across the country, but I had to look at what was genuinely going to provide value for money, and I looked at it very hard and agreed that we could spend several billion, which we did, on tutoring and I think help about three million kids, three million pupils, with a huge number of interventions, and really make a big difference.
And actually, I think that direct tutoring, one-on-one coaching, inspiring kids in that way can be massively, massively beneficial. And I think that it’s the – tutoring generally has been, for too long, the preserve of ambitious parents or people with the resources to do it, and I wanted to level up. I wanted to give other kids that opportunity. And Kevan was very helpful in setting out how we could do that.
Lead 8: And do you accept that the package fell below what was required to really help children recover?
Mr Boris Johnson: Look, I see why he is saying that. I don’t necessarily accept that. I think that circumstances were very difficult. We had to maximise taxpayer value and deliver the best we could for – for kids.
Lead 8: Do you accept that you led Sir Kevan Collins on –
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Lead 8: – over a period of months –
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes. Yes, I did.
Lead 8: – and give –
Mr Boris Johnson: Because I wanted him to produce a – I wanted him to produce his wish list. I liked him. I like him and I saw eye to eye with him on – on what he wanted to do in many ways. So I wanted to hear from him what, in an ideal world, he would do. And that’s what he produced. And, in my view, it was simply the parts that he mentions in that letter were too expensive and didn’t have the same impact as some of the other proposals.
Lead 8: I think what you said in a message to Ms Mizra (sic), who worked within Downing Street –
Mr Boris Johnson: Mirza, yeah.
Lead 8: Sorry, Mirza, forgive me. You said to her in a message – I don’t think I need to go to it:
[As read] “I did encourage him and allowed myself to be carried away and he thought he was on to a big winner.”
Correct?
Mr Boris Johnson: That sounds like a pretty good summary, yes.
Lead 8: So, I mean, for all the protestations about regret and the cost borne by children, you seem to shrug off this episode as though it –
Mr Boris Johnson: No, on the contrary. On the contrary. I think that – again, you know, you’ve got a – you’ve got an educationalist, and a passionate educationalist, whose life is dedicated to trying to secure more funding from government for what he rightly thinks the most objective is in life, and who’s put a big project on my table with a big – big number attached to it. But I’m in a different position. I share his desire, but I’m limited by the position we’re in and also by the need to be mindful of taxpayer value. And when you – and frankly, to get for the kids the best outcome. Because I think that – and maybe I’m wrong, but my impression was, talking to a lot of people, that the targeted teaching thing was a more effective way of helping than the timing.
Lead 8: Mr Johnson, I’m going to move on.
Your statement – and this is the final question I want to ask you – reflects, I think, your concern or the anxiety that you have about the closures of school to most children, and you say that:
“… one of my biggest anxieties now is that I am not sure … how many lives the [non-pharmaceutical interventions] ended up saving.”
But reflecting on everything, and in terms of the evidence you’ve given today, it does seem clear that you thought that it was right to close schools to most children in March 2020 and in January 2021 because it would save lives; is that right?
Mr Boris Johnson: I did, and I still – I still do. Though I think what I would now say is, you know – and I know the Inquiry will want to think about future people who find themselves in the position I was in – given the detriments, given the suffering, given the damage, was there another way of reducing the budget of risk? Was there another thing we could have done? Was there another shot we could have played? And I don’t know the answer to that. Nor can I answer – nor can I really be certain what would have happened if we’d gone with what the – what Gavin and the DfE wanted on January 4th, 2021, and kept going. What would really have happened? I can’t know. None of us can know. But the predictions were really grim.
Ms Dobbin: My Lady, those are my questions. I’m grateful.
Lady Hallett: Thank you very much indeed, Ms Dobbin.
Ms Hannett.
Ms Hannett is just there, Mr Johnson.
The Witness: Thank you.
Questions From Ms Hannett KC
Ms Hannett: Thank you, my Lady.
Mr Johnson, I appear on behalf of Long Covid Kids and Long Covid Kids Scotland. In the summer of 2021, at the point of preparing for the lifting of restrictions, you were advised about paediatric Long Covid. You were advised several times that the rates of Long Covid in children would rise.
I want to show you one example of that advice. It’s a document dated 7 July, prepared by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
If we could have that up on the screen please. It’s INQ000607384.
It’s a document entitled “Planning for Periods of High Prevalence”.
If we could go to page 3, please, paragraph 6(I)(d), “Long Covid in Children”. You’ll see it says:
“Children represent a large unvaccinated population: we can expect cases to rise rapidly in the group.”
By this point, so summer 2021, it’s right that the government should have provided parents with the information it held about the accepted risk of paediatric Long Covid. Instead, there was no formal announcement or advice by government given about this risk, either then or indeed at all.
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, thank you very much, and I want to repeat my – my sympathies for the sufferers of Long Covid, which, as everybody knows, it took me, personally, as Prime Minister, some time to establish. The facts about Long Covid took a while to be produced for me. And I – if you look – we had this before, my Lady, with the request I made for a paper on it.
As for Long Covid in children, I honestly don’t remember being advised about the impacts of Long Covid in – of Covid-19 in children. And I’m just … I’m just – I just wonder whether this sentence, “The long-term impacts of COVID-19 on children are largely known, but several reports point to the existence of long COVID in children”, I’m confused by that sentence, I have to –
Ms Hannett KC: Can I put it this way –
Mr Boris Johnson: – admit, and I wonder whether – I wonder whether it contains a mistake, because –
Ms Hannett KC: Mr Johnson, you’ll forgive me, I’ve got limited time. Can I just follow up in this way?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Ms Hannett KC: It’s right that the Inquiry has before it a number of pieces of advice from summer of 2021 that set out the risk of Long Covid to children. The government never communicated that risk to parents in summer of 2021. Do you accept that it ought to have done so?
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, certainly if we had advice about the particular risks of Long Covid in children, then – then we should have done so. All I can say is that this – I’m not quite clear what this particular sentence is – is saying, but I suspect that it contains a mistake and that the word “children” there should be “adults”. But if you read it –
Ms Hannett KC: Mr Johnson, we have to take it as it says. It says, “Long Covid in Children”, doesn’t it? That’s the starting point in the paragraph.
Mr Boris Johnson: It is.
Ms Hannett KC: I think we have to accept that the person who wrote it meant children.
Mr Boris Johnson: I – well – it’s not quite clear what it’s trying to say, in that case, but yes.
Ms Hannett: My Lady, I’ll leave it there, thank you.
Lady Hallett: Thank you, Ms Hannett.
Mr Broach.
Mr Broach is over there, Mr Johnson.
Questions From Mr Broach KC
Mr Broach: Thank you, my Lady.
Mr Johnson, I have questions for you on behalf of the Children’s Rights Organisations.
There is no doubt that the government was under immense pressure in the early stages of the pandemic but as time went on, there was space to reflect and make more considered decisions. Scotland and Wales, for example, considered the impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions on children and made decisions to exempt them from restrictions on social gatherings. In England, calls to do the same, for example in relation to the rule of six, came from our organisations, the Children’s Commissioner –
Mr Boris Johnson: Mm.
Mr Broach KC: – and was supported by SAGE, and yet despite there being no scientific evidence for the precise rules, six, for example, children were not exempted. We would say this is just one example of a sustained pattern of applying the same restrictions to children in England as to adults.
Would you accept the reality was that the government didn’t consider children as rights holders in their own rights, and was seeing them merely through the lens of virus transmission and prioritising enforcement of the rules?
Mr Boris Johnson: I think that you’re making a very fair point about the rules generally. I think that, looking back on it all, the whole lockdowns, the intricacy of the rules, the rule of six, the complexity, particularly for children, I think we probably did go too far, and it was far too elaborate. Maybe we could have found a way of exempting children. It’s a very fair point.
Mr Broach KC: Thank you, Mr Johnson.
In his evidence yesterday, Professor Whitty described that there was a budget of allowances and it was open to the government to decide how essentially to spend those allowances. Would you accept the government should have spent more of the social allowances in relation to children rather than focusing on matters that would have benefited –
Mr Boris Johnson: Yeah.
Mr Broach KC: – adults and the economy?
Mr Boris Johnson: I do think that that should be given much greater consideration. Look, I mean, I think we’re going to have to – if – hopefully this thing never happens again, but if we had to do anything like this again, I think we’re really going to have to consider the whole NPI system, lockdowns, whether we want to go down that route at all, particularly whether we want to close schools, because, you know, it really should be a measure of last resort. In the budget of allowances that you speak of, it should be the very last one to be spent, to be used. And we’ve got to find better ways of doing this.
Mr Broach KC: Throughout the entire course of the pandemic in the various measures that were taken, at no point did the government guidance ever explicitly state that children playing was considered exercise, and that parents supervising their children while playing or exercising was a valid reason to leave the house. The Inquiry has heard powerful evidence from Playing Out in this module, on this issue, including the particular difficulties for disadvantaged children, those who lacked private outdoor space. Was the impact on children’s ability to play and exercise, of the various rules and guidance and the disproportionate impact on disadvantaged children, something you actively considered at the time or were you not aware of this particular problem?
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, I certainly was aware of the particular problem of kids who didn’t have access to open space, but, my understanding of the – or my memory of the rules was that you could go outside for exercise, and that applied to everybody. So I’m – I mean, forgive me if I’m misremembering something or misunderstanding your point.
Mr Broach KC: The concern is that the guidance that was issued in various forms never expressly highlighted that children exercise and play very differently to adults.
Mr Boris Johnson: Right.
Mr Broach KC: So in terms of enforcement we heard evidence and have heard significant evidence of children being told they couldn’t be outside to play, even when they could. So was it –
Mr Boris Johnson: Really, well, that – I’m very sorry to hear that. If there was excessively officious enforcement of rules or misunderstanding of rules by those in authority, then that’s plainly wrong. Children should have been – it’s – my understanding of the rules was that children should have been allowed to exercise outdoors.
Mr Broach KC: Thank you, Mr Johnson.
Counsel to the Inquiry asked you earlier about the lack of direct contact with children and young people which you answered in the context of the problems with assessment grading but children, of course, have a right to participate in all decisions affecting them under Article 12 on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. However, they were excluded from participating in press conferences throughout the pandemic and again, our organisations and the Children’s Commissioner did urge government to include children’s voices but to no avail. Would you accept it was a mistake not to allow children to participate in government press conferences throughout the pandemic?
Mr Boris Johnson: I certainly think it was a mistake, as I told Counsel to the Inquiry, for us not to find some way to interact more with children, particularly those who had been affected by the exams problems. And yes, I think that’s a valid criticism. We could easily have done more then. Frankly, I don’t know why we didn’t.
Mr Broach: Mr Johnson, I’m grateful.
Thank you, my Lady.
Lady Hallett: Thank you Mr Broach.
Mr Jacobs.
Mr Jacobs is over there.
Questions From Mr Jacobs
Mr Jacobs: Mr Johnson, questions on behalf of the Trades Union Congress.
You’ve just given evidence, and been asked questions about the R budget or the budget of risk, and what may be the reality in a pandemic, that if school attendance is to be prioritised, that may require other parts of society to have or face greater restrictions.
In August 2020, with an R rate mercifully below 1 but precarious, and schools about to fully open and place an upward pressure on the R rate, the Eat Out to Help Out scheme encouraged –
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Mr Jacobs: – significant numbers to socialise in restaurants.
Rather than manage the R budget so as to facilitate school attendance and prioritise school attendance, was that an example of the government doing the opposite?
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, it’s a very fair question and I know there’s been a lot of shot and shell directed at Eat Out to Help Out over the last few years, but I’ve got to tell you, at the time, and this is my memory of it, at the time my memory of it is it was discussed with the scientific advisers. My memory of it is that they did know about I. I might be wrong about that, but it seems wholly unlikely to me that we would have come up with a policy that was unknown to them and I think that it was thought to be within the budget of risk.
And, you know, we had an economy that was really struggling.
Mr Jacobs: Mr Johnson, you may be answering questions that Mr Keith asked you in Module 2 about the scientific advice and what have you, which I don’t want to get into.
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Mr Jacobs: In simplistic terms, a national scheme to incentivise sitting in restaurants would seem, without needing terribly significant scientific acumen, to have an upward pressure on the R rate. So on this question of prioritisation, do you think, actually, on reflection, that was the government not prioritising school, facilitating school attendance?
Mr Boris Johnson: I think it’s – genuinely, I think it’s impossible to know. I think that’s the terrible reality of all these interventions, is we don’t know the individual value of any of them. You know, we speak about schools being 10% to 20%, or whatever, but we don’t know.
I think that it was felt at the time that, given where the R was, given the state of the, you know, the economy, it was reasonable to proceed with Eat Out to Help Out. Would you question that in retrospect? Well, lots of people have. But what it was that actually pushed the R back over 1, who knows.
Mr Jacobs: I’m going to try and deal with another topic in my time: Proactive engagement with unions in the education sector. You’ve been asked about a decision you made on 6 August 2020 to not share contingency plans. Realistically, Mr Johnson, is that not the antithesis of having constructive and mature engagement with a sector that was responsible for educating children?
Mr Boris Johnson: The decision was not to prevent the contingency plans from being circulated at any stage. The decision was just to hold it back until such a time as we really needed to go with it. And I’m sure that the unions and the schools would have been more than capable, when the moment came, of rising to it and dealing with it. But if you – I’m sure everybody remembers, at the time, there was some politics in the whole question of whether schools were safe, and I thought it was important to get kids back into school, and to have some forward momentum. And that was the objective that – (overspeaking) –
Mr Jacobs: Mr Johnson, is it not the case that contingency planning was needed at that time because, just as you and your government can see a fraught winter, school leaders can see a winter fraught with difficulty and having to teach in different ways, trying to support vulnerable children in very difficult circumstances. They need to be equipped – (overspeaking) –
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes, but the contingency you’re talking about is closing schools.
Mr Jacobs: Well, I think there’s a whole variety of contingencies, actually, that the Department for Education and –
Mr Boris Johnson: No, the particular contingency was closing schools.
Mr Jacobs: I think that’s my time. Thank you, Mr Johnson.
The Witness: Thank you.
Lady Hallett: Thank you, Mr Jacobs.
Ms Beattie, who is just there.
Questions From Ms Beattie
Ms Beattie: Mr Johnson, I ask questions on behalf of national Disabled People’s Organisations.
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Ms Beattie: On 18 March 2020, the day that you announced school closures, the COBR meeting was informed of SAGE modelling which assumed that schools should be kept partially open to ensure that key workers could continue to contribute to the national effort.
As at 18 March, you tell us in your statement, you had no doubt that if schools closed it would be devastating, and you were under no illusions that it would hurt the most vulnerable the most.
At the COBR meeting, in summing-up, you said that a minimal school service should be made available for the children of key workers and for vulnerable children. But the actions of the COBR meeting were to agree a list of key workers. No actions from the meeting concerned vulnerable children.
Now, Mr Johnson, I’m sure you’ll agree that actions speak louder than words. Do you agree that as at 18 March 2020, there should have been more focus and more action on the social care, health and therapy needs of disabled children and young people, given school closures would have an immediate and devastating impact on the provision of care and support to meet those needs?
Mr Boris Johnson: Thank you very much. I – I’m sure that the department was looking at the needs of the – of vulnerable kids, including disabled kids, because that is spelt out in that document that I relied on so extensively to show that they were indeed mindful of the problems that they were going to encounter or they would encounter in closing schools. So –
Ms Beattie: Mr Johnson, that’s –
Mr Boris Johnson: So they – what I’m trying to say is it wasn’t – your question to me is, was it – why weren’t we, as government, taking more account of this? As far as I can tell, we were.
Ms Beattie: And so that is the paper which Counsel to the Inquiry took you to before, of 15 March, the sighting note, where you agreed that there was nothing of substance on vulnerable children and support and services for vulnerable children, that the paper didn’t deal with that; is that correct?
Mr Boris Johnson: No.
Ms Beattie: Is that –
Mr Boris Johnson: No, my impression was that it did mention vulnerable children. But I don’t have it before me now but I remember it – I think it mentioned them.
Ms Beattie: It mentioned them, and it had nothing of substance. And you agreed when Ms Dobbin put it to you earlier that it did have nothing of substance on vulnerable children; is that right?
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, I – honestly, if that’s what I – I don’t remember saying that to Ms Dobbin, but perhaps I – perhaps I did agree with her assertion. All I can say is that, if you – if you look at that paper, it contains a reference to the needs of vulnerable children. And, you know, perhaps we could have done more, and I’m always willing to accept that there were lessons we could have – we could have learnt and more we could – more we could have done, but it struck me then that they – that was a pretty comprehensive list of the – of the issues that the department faced.
Ms Beattie: So it may have been a list of the issues, but what concrete measures did you put in place or did you know were being put in place at the time to avert what you say you knew then was an immediate and devastating impact which would hurt the most vulnerable the most?
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, to – as far as I can remember, we – the most important thing we did was to – to try to keep schools open. Right? That was the – that was the – our best answer.
Ms Beattie: Can you name anything else more specific than that?
Mr Boris Johnson: And if – and to make sure that in the event of closures, that all the packages available for the support of vulnerable children, disabled children in particular, were still available to them. Now, how exactly that was going to be done was clearly a matter for the relevant department.
Ms Beattie: So, Mr Johnson, your answer seems to amount to the fact that you were taking steps to try to keep schools open. Is it in fact the case –
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes.
Ms Beattie: – that the government’s primary concern at that time was to make provision of a minimal school service for the children of key workers with insufficient focus on the needs of vulnerable children, including disabled children?
Mr Boris Johnson: I honestly – I doubt very much that we ignored the interests of vulnerable children. I really do. But I would – you know, it’s now so long ago that I’d have to go back over the papers and look and see what we put in place.
Ms Beattie: Nothing springs to mind?
Mr Boris Johnson: Well, I – not at this stage and not without – I’m afraid, without notice of your question. But, I mean, I’d be happy to write to you.
Lady Hallett: Thank you, Ms Beattie.
Mr Wagner, who is that way.
Questions From Mr Wagner KC
Mr Wagner: Good afternoon, Mr Johnson. I act for Clinically Vulnerable Families.
I want to ask you first about a message that you sent to Gavin Williamson on 6 July 2020. It is referred to at paragraph 48 of your statement. And you were asking about why school numbers – people returning to school seemed low. And he replied noting that all schools were open and referring to the need to push on compulsory attendance and the message of normalcy. And you said:
“I encouraged him to continue the job.”
I just want to ask you about that message of normality. Would you agree, July 2020, this was months before the vaccine was widely available – was available at all?
Do you –
Mr Boris Johnson: Yes, yes, that’s right, yes. I think we were starting to get inklings of it quite early on, yes.
Mr Wagner KC: And there was no mass testing at that stage?
Mr Boris Johnson: No.
Mr Wagner KC: No, no. So would you recognise that at that stage, in July 2020, for many children and young people, things couldn’t go back to normal yet, because they still needed to either shield to protect themselves or a clinically vulnerable member of their family living in their home?
Mr Boris Johnson: Sure.
Mr Wagner KC: You referred before about – to Mr Jacobs – about forward momentum, about trying to sort of build forward momentum. Do you think that, in that race to return to normality in that summer of 2020, clinically vulnerable families may have been left behind?
Mr Boris Johnson: I think, on the contrary, that getting back to school, had we been able to do it in a thoroughgoing way, would have been the best thing for all children, young people, clinically vulnerable or not. Because I think that it would have restored the environment that was best able to look after them, and that – it had many, it had many advantages, trying to keep the schools open.
Mr Wagner KC: But only if they could return safely; is that fair?
Mr Boris Johnson: Sure, but it was my view that schools should be made as safe as possible, and if they were safe the kids should go back.
Mr Wagner KC: But in schools it wasn’t always possible to enforce social distancing or have, particularly in the older buildings, good ventilation or enough space, was it?
Mr Boris Johnson: No, it was – it was very tricky but the schools did a remarkable job and one of the reasons why we staggered the return in June of 2020 was precisely because we couldn’t get everybody all back in at once.
Mr Wagner KC: But the result of that, wasn’t it, was that it was sometimes not safe for clinically vulnerable children or children who might take Covid back to their clinically vulnerable family members to return?
Mr Boris Johnson: I think that there was always going to be an argument against reopening schools from that position: that you were going to create a situation in which vulnerable parents would be exposed to the virus picked up by kids in schools. And that was the argument for closing schools, sure. But in the end, we had to decide whether that argument trumped the interests of the kids or not, and whether we could get the – nonetheless get the R down below 1.
Mr Wagner KC: Just finally on that, do you – and I’m not actually asking about the decision to reopen schools for everybody, I’m asking about for this specific subgroup, for clinically vulnerable children and children who lived in clinically vulnerable families, do you understand why, at that point, many of those people will have felt it was safer to educate their children at home rather than send their children back to school?
Mr Boris Johnson: I can see why they might have felt as they did, but clearly I thought it was best for everybody if they could get back to school, and I wanted schools to be as safe as possible.
Mr Wagner: Thank you, Mr Johnson.
Lady Hallett: Thank you, Mr Wagner.
The Witness: Thank you very much.
Questions From the Chair
Lady Hallett: That completes all of the questions we have for you, Mr Johnson, apart from one from me.
There are a number of people who have been making submissions and asking questions during the course of this module, who believe, and so there’s a perception that the interests of children more generally, not just the loss of learning, weren’t taking into account.
Just putting that to one side for the moment, and I haven’t made any findings as yet, but if there were anything in that perception, as somebody who has got a lot of experience of working in government and of course leading the UK Government as Prime Minister, could a Minister for Children, taking it away from just one government department, education, could a system of a Minister for Children work, and would it work?
Mr Boris Johnson: I’ve thought about that, my Lady. And I’ve wondered about whether to create another ministerial function. I think another department, another set of civil servants, and so on, and I have thought about it, and clearly there is an interest. We have a Minister for Women, we have all sorts of groups represented.
I think, given how much we’ve heard today about the Department for Education’s desire to keep school – proper desire to keep schools open and to represent the interests of children and young people, I think on the whole, I would apply Occam’s Razor to this one and just – I would probably keep it with DfE. Because I think –
Lady Hallett: Sorry –
Mr Boris Johnson: – in the end, the parents should be responsible for children, is what I would say. Maybe an old-fashioned view. But that’s what I would say.
Lady Hallett: But the interests of children cross government departments, don’t they?
Mr Boris Johnson: Yeah.
Lady Hallett: So for example, detained children would be Home Office.
Mr Boris Johnson: Yeah, I mean, that’s – that is true. Look, I’m not –
Lady Hallett: You’re not –
Mr Boris Johnson: No, I’m not – no, no, I’m not remotely hostile to the idea. I just think, you know, you’ve got to think very hard before you create new departments, divisions, new roles in government. We’ve seen already throughout this debate, you know, how fractious and difficult it becomes when different ministerial interests start to collide. And we’ve got quite enough around the table on a subject like this. That’s what I would say.
Lady Hallett: That completes the questions we have for you, therefore, Mr Johnson.
The Witness: Thank you.
Lady Hallett: And that completes the assistance that you’re going to have to give to the Inquiry.
The Witness: Sorry. I’m so sorry.
Lady Hallett: I think you did that last time, too. I think you’re obviously in a great rush to leave me.
The Witness: Sorry, it’s like when the Speaker stands up at the end of PMQs; you just belt for it. You just run for it. That’s what – sorry.
Lady Hallett: Understood. I appreciate you didn’t intend any discourtesy.
The Witness: Sorry, sorry, forgive me.
Lady Hallett: No, no, don’t worry. Anyway, thank you very much indeed for the help that you’ve given to the Inquiry. That’s it.
The Witness: Thank you so much, my Lady.
Lady Hallett: Thank you. I shall return at 1.55.
(12.53 pm)
(The Short Adjournment)
(1.55 pm)
Lady Hallett: Ms Cayoun.
Ms Cayoun: My Lady, may I please call Sir Matthew Rycroft CBE.
Sir Matthew Cbe
SIR MATTHEW JOHN RYCROFT KCMG CBE (affirmed).
Lady Hallett: Sir Matthew, I hope you won’t take it personally that most people seem to have cleared off.
The Witness: That’s fine by me.
Questions From Counsel to the Inquiry
Ms Cayoun: Thank you.
My Lady, I should state at the outset that this evidence session may be distressing to observers in that it includes discussion of the abuse of children including through sexual abuse and violence.
Sir Matthew, we understand that you served as the permanent secretary at the Home Office from 23 March 2020 until March 2025; is that right?
Sir Matthew Cbe: It is.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
Sir Matthew, you have provided a witness statement for the Inquiry on behalf of the Home Office.
Sir Matthew Cbe: (Witness nodded).
Counsel Inquiry: I think you have it in front of you.
Sir Matthew Cbe: (Witness nodded).
Counsel Inquiry: And the reference we have for it is INQ000474944.
Sir Matthew, that is a detailed and wide-ranging statement and we read from it that you have been assisted in its drafting by a number of officials in your department so that where you do not have direct personal knowledge of all events covered in it, you are satisfied that you’re nonetheless able to provide accurate evidence on behalf of the department; is that right?
Sir Matthew Cbe: That’s right, and I want to thank them very much for their support.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. And with that in mind, and noting that you signed it on 18 February 2025, can you please confirm that the contents of that statement are true to the best of your knowledge and belief?
Sir Matthew Cbe: I can.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
We know, Sir Matthew, from that statement, that the Home Office had responsibility for a number of issues that impacted children during the pandemic and for our purposes today those include responsibility for tackling all forms of child sexual abuse and sexual exploitation, including online abuse; is that right?
Sir Matthew Cbe: That’s right.
Counsel Inquiry: And responsibility for crime and policing that includes issues related to the physical abuse of children, violence against women and girls, and child criminal exploitation such as county lines?
Sir Matthew Cbe: That’s right.
Counsel Inquiry: And responsibilities also for child migrants, including unaccompanied asylum seeking children; is that right?
Sir Matthew Cbe: That’s right.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. And is it right that a large part of that business would come into the portfolio of the Minister for Safeguarding, who, for the first part of the pandemic, was Victoria Atkins, and that some of it would have come into the portfolio of the Minister for Crime and Policing who was Kit Malthouse?
Sir Matthew Cbe: That’s right, and I should also mention two different ministers for migration, as well, in relation to unaccompanied asylum seeking children.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. Sir Matthew, a theme that you return to several times in your statement and which is also apparent in the exhibits you provided, is that to meet those responsibilities, the Home Office needed to work closely with other government departments. Most obviously perhaps there’s an overlap, isn’t there, between the Home Office’s obligations relating to safeguarding children through the prevention of crime and the Department for Education’s obligations for safeguarding through children’s social work and schools; is that right?
Sir Matthew Cbe: That’s right, and there are lots of other government departments that the Home Office work very closely with in relation to preventing crime, and not just government, of course, the operational partners, policing, being the most obvious but also the voluntary sector working very closely with a lot of non-governmental organisations and charities, tech companies and multiple other partners.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
I’m going to ask you, Sir Matthew, please, to just slow down a little bit when you give your answers for the transcript.
Given the importance of that work with other departments, would it be right to assume that prior to the pandemic, there were established mechanisms for cooperating, particularly with the Department for Education?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Yes. They came into their own during the pandemic but they existed beforehand, and of course continue to this day.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. We may –
Sir Matthew Cbe: Some of them are sort of set in stone and are everlasting. Others can get created in order to deal with a particular situation.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. I think we’ll come to explore some of that in a bit more detail. Can we look, please, at paragraph 49 of your statement. You said a moment ago that the Home Office liaises with a number of different departments, and I think we see an illustration of that here. And we see – if we can please just scroll slowly down so we’re able to look at the range of these, to paragraph 50, where we read that:
“These shared responsibilities were established before 2020 and did not change because of the pandemic.”
So can we take it both in ordinary times and in the pandemic, Home Office officials are working very frequently on many different aspects of Home Office work relating to children across this wide range of departments?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Yes, that’s absolutely right. The Department for Education would be holding the ring, holding the sort of central policy responsibility, working very closely with the Home Office and – and other departments.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. And others that we see there, for example, are the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and the Department for Levelling Up, which I think we’ve been referring to as the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government.
Were there established mechanisms for working with those departments as well, or did they tend to be ad hoc and project based?
Sir Matthew Cbe: A mixture. So, in relation to – to the ring to departments, the DCMS and what was then DLUHC, there were both, sort of, bilateral arrangements between the Home Office and each of those, and then multilateral arrangements involving a number of departments altogether.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you, Sir Matthew.
That can come down.
We will come back to explore how some of that worked during the pandemic in due course.
If we can begin, then, thinking about March 2020, you will know, Sir Matthew, that some witnesses have suggested to the Inquiry that there was lack of focus on the implications of the pandemic for vulnerable children prior to 18 March across government.
And in that context, can we please look at INQ000518565.
This is an internal Home Office email dated 16 May – beg your pardon, 16 March. And I think Sir Matthew, noting as we did that you took up your role on 23 March, please do let me know if any of my questions are outside of your knowledge about this.
This email thread sets out what are described as takeaways on the Home Secretary’s part following a COBR meeting that day.
If we can look, please, at that first paragraph, we read that:
“[The Home Secretary] is concerned about vulnerable children not being taken into account properly by [other government departments]. She feels ‘vulnerable people’ at the moment is taken to almost solely mean the elderly, pregnant women and those with underlying health conditions. Her worry is if schools are forced to close long-term beyond normal holiday lengths then there will be no external support and monitoring for the kits from troubled homes …”
And we see in brackets “drug abuse, CSE, etc”.
“[Secretary of State for Department for Education] didn’t really seem to take this on board, or at least didn’t have a solid response to the challenge. [Home Secretary] wants the Dept to push [the Department for Education] on taking this into consideration, and if necessary we will lean in further via No. 10 as she has strong thoughts on this issue.”
Would it be right, then, that the request to her officials arising from this is that Home Office officials should pick this up with officials from the Department for Education and, if that didn’t allay concerns, then to pick it up further with Number 10; is that right?
Sir Matthew Cbe: That’s absolutely right, and officials did follow up that instruction, of course, and so did the minister who you’ve already referred to, Vicky Atkins. So she engaged very directly with her opposite number in the Department for Education at ministerial level, bearing in mind the Home Secretary’s and indeed, I think, the Home Office’s strong concerns about what happens when schools are closed.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. Let’s take that stage by stage then.
Your first answer was that officials did pick that up with officials from the DfE. If we can scroll up, please, to page 1 of this document, we see what that feedback was when it was circulated in the Home Office.
We see:
“In conjunction with SOCG colleagues …”
I may need your help at several points with these acronyms, Sir Matthew, but I think that is serious organised crime group colleagues?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Correct.
Counsel Inquiry: “… we have been in contact with DfE at Official level this morning. Broadly, they advise that there is significant activity being undertaken to protect vulnerable children from harm, so it seems that this level of detail hadn’t been exposed/briefed into the DfE SoS before COBR.”
Can we look, then, under the heading “Summary as follows”. I think I understand that this is what Department for Education officials were telling Home Office officials that they were doing on these topics.
We see:
“… a wide range of actions in hand to support local authorities to deal with Covid-19 and ensure that vulnerable children are protected from harm.”
The examples given then are suspending routine Ofsted inspections; supporting LAs to ensure workforce contingencies are as comprehensive as possible; providing guidance to LAs to enable them to interpret Public Health England guidance, and the examples given in that respect are about isolation in children’s homes, foster families, or residential schools; a query about cocooning for vulnerable children; a query about protective clothing; and support in respect of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children who appear symptomatic.
Now, Sir Matthew, if we can just remind ourselves that the concern the Home Secretary had been expressing was about whether, if schools closed, there would be external support and monitoring for kids from troubled homes and she specifically cited drug abuse and child sexual exploitation.
Were these points that were being raised here in this email directly relevant to those issues?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Yes, I think they were relevant to those issues, and of course the decision, when it came, to close schools was, of course, with the exception of vulnerable children. So – (overspeaking) –
Counsel Inquiry: It was. If I can just pause you there. This is, of course, 16 and 17 – in fact, this is 16 March and 17 March so before that decision was made?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: The points in this email or the points coming back to the Home Office from the Department for Education, were not really about school closures, there isn’t any indication here about vulnerable children being allowed to go to school.
Sir Matthew Cbe: I see what you mean and I agree. I think, yeah, these are points which the Department for Education told the Home Office in the week before or, you know, in the run-up to the decision and announcement on schools being closed. So these were actions in hand in advance of any decision to close schools.
Counsel Inquiry: Yes. So I think my question is, given the specificity of the Home Secretary’s concerns, and the fact that these are not really going to the point of school closure, was this reassuring to the Home Office or did the Home Office still have concerns that there was this gap that the Home Secretary had identified?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Well, I wasn’t myself at the Home Office at that time, as you have said. But from reading the documents available in preparation for this Inquiry, I can tell that the ongoing concern of the Home Secretary and the Home Office was that the DfE needed to do more than they were doing in order to protect vulnerable children. That was an ongoing concern. And this bit of feedback in response to one moment in time, and instruction from the Home Secretary, was just a one-off. There were – there will have been multiple other engagements at official and ministerial level between the two departments.
Counsel Inquiry: Yes, thank you. I think we’ll come to some of those other instances. Just staying with this particular moment in time for now, the reason I ask this question about 17 March is because we have heard from other witnesses that the Department for Education had not undertaken any planning or assessment related to the implication specifically of school closures, prior to 17 March. And it seems from this email chain that by 16 March, the Home Office had started to probe some of that, some of those issues, and I’m wondering whether the response perhaps revealed some gaps in that planning that caused any alarm in the Home Office, given that overlap for safeguarding children?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Well, what I can say is that the Home Office’s concerned, the Home Secretary’s concern in general was not fully met by this set of responses, and so we continued, the Home Office continued to engage with the Department for Education at all levels to make our concerns clear.
And the reason we had concerns was because we knew what happened to levels of domestic abuse, to levels of child sexual exploitation when schools are closed because that’s what’s happened in every holiday, and you can see from the crime trends that there are upticks in relation to those sorts of crimes when children are not going to school.
Counsel Inquiry: And given the Home Office had that knowledge, and that school closures clearly were very much on the table at this stage, can you help us to understand this: it’s also clear from your statement that the Home Office had not itself conducted any planning or impact assessment about the possible implications for school closure on vulnerable children, perhaps in light of that knowledge about crime trends, and the point is made in your statement that the Home Office hadn’t been asked to do so by the Cabinet Office and it hadn’t been asked by any other department to contribute to any other department’s planning on that issue. That’s right, isn’t it?
Sir Matthew Cbe: That is all correct.
Counsel Inquiry: And as far as you can recall, and again, I recognise that you weren’t yet in post, was there any concern within the department, by about 17 March, about that, about that lack of planning?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Well, I think there was a concern that if schools were to close then we knew what would happen to certain crime types because there was that pattern that was available from the data in relation to schools closing for a regular summer holiday or whatever.
Counsel Inquiry: We’re going to come in a moment to look at some notes of meetings where, after school closures had been announced, the Home Office was thinking, in light of those trends: what’s going to happen and what shall we do? But was there a moment before the announcement was made when officials started to think: hold on, there hasn’t been any discussion or planning of this issue, and that’s going to be a problem?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Just looking at the paperwork for the Inquiry, I didn’t spot that particular moment, no. And I don’t think that – in fact, I know that the Home Office did not know about the decision to close schools until – until just in the run-up to the announcement.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
I’m asked again if we can both slow down. I’m sorry, that’s my fault, I will endeavour to do better.
Lady Hallett: That’s right, it’s both of you. You both fall into the trap that I fall into.
Ms Cayoun: We know, then, that on 18 March it was announced that schools would be closed to all but vulnerable children and the children of key workers and that definitions of each of those groups were later published.
We understand again from your statement that the Home Office was not asked at that stage to contribute to any assessment of the impact of school closures, or indeed, I think, to any advice about who should be on the vulnerable children list; is that right?
Sir Matthew Cbe: That’s correct.
Counsel Inquiry: And again, the Home Office wasn’t asked to contribute any planning or assessment about the impact on children’s safety of lockdown when that was announced on 23 March; is that right?
Sir Matthew Cbe: That’s correct, though I should also say that, as I have previously said, the Home Office had evidence about what happens to certain crime types when schools are closed in general. So we did have that evidence to draw on.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. And given that the Home Secretary clearly did think and had thought by this stage that there were implications for aspects of the Home Office’s work, do you think, in hindsight, that the fact that the Home Office didn’t carry out any sort of planning or impact assessment of that was an omission?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Well, I think, sort of, the Home Office-specific part of that was fairly well planned for, as I say, because we knew, we work very closely with policing and others about what happens to certain crime types when schools are closed for a regular holiday and we were able to have a very quick analysis, assessment, of what was likely to happen to those crime types once the school closure decision was taken.
Counsel Inquiry: Are you able to help us, and I think this is my last question on this topic, but are you able to help us to understand why there wouldn’t have been any of that planning?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Well, only listening to what other witnesses have said. I don’t have any evidence from the Home Office from that time as to the – that can add to what other witnesses have said to you in relation to that question.
Counsel Inquiry: I’m sorry, perhaps I wasn’t clear. I mean in terms of the Home Office’s own planning.
Sir Matthew Cbe: No, I think I’ve said what I have to say in my witness statement and earlier this afternoon. I think the Home Office had some concerns, because we knew what happens when schools are closed, and we could predict and did predict what would happen when there was a lockdown in relation to different types of crime. Some would go up, some would go down. And so we had a – I think quite a full and quite a rapid assessment about what was likely to happen, but I accept that that was all within the Home Office. It was not part, as far as I could tell from the paperwork, of a wider cross-government exercise in planning.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
Lady Hallett: Can I just check, I’m sorry to interrupt, Ms Cayoun, I got a bit confused from your questions.
Sir Matthew said that he thought, for Home Office-specific matters, there was fairly well developed planning, but then your question said: why wasn’t there planning? So I just got a bit confused what you were putting.
Ms Cayoun: I’m sorry, my Lady. Let me see if I can clarify that.
I think, Sir Matthew, that you are saying that after lockdown and school closures were announced, at that stage the Home Office was able to apply its knowledge to plan for how to meet the heightened risk; is that right?
Sir Matthew Cbe: That’s right. And that there wasn’t a plan, if you like, for lockdown for a pandemic, but there was a plan, because it happens six times a year, every time there’s a holiday or a half-term holiday, there’s a plan for engaging with policing as crime types vary.
Counsel Inquiry: I see. And so, for absolute clarity, then, prior to 17 March, there was no plan within the Home Office to how to respond specifically to the prospect of school closures or lockdown in this pandemic?
Sir Matthew Cbe: That’s correct. There were other Home Office plans for Home Office-led equities in relation to pandemic planning, like, you know, dealing with a terrorist incident or dealing with issues in the detained estates, as we call it, so immigration detention estate, those sorts of things there were well established plans, but not for the sorts of questions you just raised.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you very much.
Can we look then, please, at INQ000231058.
This, I hope, illustrates the point you’ve been making, Sir Matthew. This is a readout following a meeting on 24 March 2020, and we understand it’s a readout of a meeting entitled “Covid-19 Resilience and Preparedness … [with the] Security Minister”.
And if we can look down, please, to pages 4 to 5 of this, we see a section here called “CSEA”.
Before we read that, is it right to understand, I think from your statement, that this was the first occasion on which the implications of the pandemic for protecting children were considered internally, the heightened risk articulated, and some planning taking place about how to respond; is that right?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Yes, that’s correct.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
We see then some information about this heightened risk. We see note being taken that:
“… while limited, China has seen an increase in violence in the home.”
We see that:
“CEOP …”
And I think that’s the child exploitation and online protection unit; is that right?
Sir Matthew Cbe: That’s correct.
Counsel Inquiry: And I think this is by way of response to that heightened risk:
“CEOP are producing material to inform officers on the ground of the heightened risks created by people being at home more.”
Just pausing on that particular topic, you may know, Sir Matthew, that yesterday we heard from Martin Hewitt, who told us that the police too were worried about the predictable rise in threat to children from violence in the home and the difficulty that officers faced in knowing how to help in the circumstances of a lockdown.
In light of that, can you help us understand, please, when we see it said here that CEOP should produce material for officers of heightened risk, what can we understand that what was intended to do? Were officers going to be told just that there was this heightened risk or was there going to be some information that would help them know what to do in response to that heightened risk?
Sir Matthew Cbe: I don’t know any more than what is written here in relation to that particular sentence, but the way that the Home Office and policing worked together very, very closely on issues of policy and prioritisation such as this, leads me to say that there would have been a lot of work going on, first of all, in the NPCC, that Martin Hewitt headed, and indeed in the College of Policing, that was responsible for sending guidance to all police forces around the country, in response to concerns that the Home Office ministers, the Security Minister in this instance, was expressing to policing partners about the sorts of things that they would need to be ready to be doing more often than they – than they previously were.
Counsel Inquiry: So is it your response then, that there would have been guidance on top of just stating there is this heightened risk?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Exactly. It would – I think it starts – I mean, there’s a sort of – the – the process of providing that guidance would always start with – with an assessment of a threat, of the – of the things which are likely to be coming more important for police to be aware of. And then there – it would go through the, you know, sort of normal coordination procedures and – and so the College of Policing would then be responsible for sending guidance around to all the police forces.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. Moving on in this note, then, we see:
“On Transnational CSEA offending we are likely to see a decrease in the threat.”
And I think, to be clear, that is about the threat posed by British abusers who abuse children abroad; is that right?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Yes, or vice versa. In other words, it could be – it also means, I think, that, you know, foreign people who might want to come to the UK would be much less able to do so because of the travel restrictions.
Counsel Inquiry: Understood, thank you.
Then we see more detail about online child sexual exploitation and abuse and we see the threat assessment that:
“… we are likely to see an increase in the same way as we see an increase during the school holiday. We are seeing some communications offender to offender, who are discussing a potential increase in offending – they will have seen in media reporting that the regulator on websites might be replaced with AI. CEOP are looking at how we are redeploying resource. Forces are prioritising cases where the offender could commit contact offences.”
So we can be clear what the nature of this threat is, is it principally the abuse of children through their befriending online by adults who persuade them to take or make or share indecent images of themselves; is that right?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Yes, I mean, very sadly, this is prescient because we did see during lockdown that there was an increase in pressure on children to create what’s called self-generated indecent images and the final part of the – of that highlighted part was also true that the tech companies who are normally responsible for taking down such images and other material which facilitates child sexual exploitation and abuse, those tech companies were also dealing with the consequences of restrictions and lockdown and not all of that work was able to be done either remotely or by bots or AI, as it says here.
Counsel Inquiry: And where we see CEOP are looking at how we are redeploying resources, does that mean officers were concentrating on offences that might happen offline as a result of offences committed online?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Yes, I think it does mean that, yes.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. And as you’ve said, this reflects your awareness that offences like these are usually increase in prevalence at the times when children are not in school, and given the school closures, there was a concern that would now increase?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Exactly.
Counsel Inquiry: And when we read that offenders themselves were discussing that increase because regulators might be replaced with AI, this is reflected in some later documents, as well, but I think that is because human moderators or humans who respond to this kind of abuse online, were less able to do so, and does this indicate the Home Office was worried that automated processes or the use of automated processes was going to be widely known?
Sir Matthew Cbe: I mean this is – I mean, yes, basically. I mean, this is referring to media reports, but it is the case that the tech companies, as I just said, were not able to do everything that they previously had done because the parts that needed to be done by a human in the office, in the workplace, you know, there were constraints on that for those tech companies, as well. So they clearly found some ways to continue to do what they had to do, which was to take down illegal content as soon as they were aware of it but they were doing that either remotely or by using AI and bots.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. And we also see in this paragraph some reference to the proposed interventions or proposed response to this heightened threat. We read:
“There is a focus on clear comms on Internet safety for parents, carers and children. All ‘think you know’ ambassadors, who are professionals, have received messaging to remind them of the reporting portal and guidance on parent info. There had been a significant response to that, 200,000 downloads of the parents help book by Friday morning.”
We read about a new programme with activities for all key stages of the national curriculum, and we read about contacts with Microsoft and BT in the last fortnight and Twitter and Facebook to distribute educational packs and guidance.
We will come back to that, but I just want to draw your attention to other parts of this page before I ask you questions about it.
We read lower down that Simon Bailey was suggesting that from China and Italy there would be an increase in all forms of abuse. He noted that there are early signs that there were more people viewing indecent imagery in the last 2 to 3 days than in the last 2 to 3 months.
He discusses the likelihood that multi-agency hubs would come under pressure as the Covid powers coming into effect would require a – will affect police resource.
If we look lower down still, we see the ministerial questions about:
“… how we can, at pace, corral industry partners to do all that they can …”
And:
“The minister asked what engagement we have had with DfE.”
We see Rebecca Kirby agreeing with the minister that we need to do more with the industry and with DfE.
And then lower down:
“The Minister asked if there were any asks from operational partners …”
And we see a suggestion that there would be real benefits of a cross-government conversation on the challenge of protecting vulnerable children and the minister promised to pursue this.
Thank you.
A number of questions then from this note. Would it be right that what is being discussed here by officials in terms of response to this threat is threefold: first, a policing response to offenders? Second, a possible approach to industry related to how they respond to indecent images online? And third, a communications response designed to ensure that parents and children understand those heightened risks; is that right?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Yes, those would not be the only three actions that the Home Office would be able to take but those are the three which come out from that note yes, absolutely.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. And if I can ask you about the third of those, so that communication strategy, when we see the reference to activities through all stages of the national curriculum, and to professionals, should we understand that this communication strategy was partly intended to come through schools?
Sir Matthew Cbe: That’s right, yes. And you’ll – we will see in later documents, no doubt, that there are, at different stages of the pandemic, different Home Office-led or Home Office-funded initiatives to communicate with different crucial audiences at different times, whether that’s parents, as here, or the children themselves, later on.
Counsel Inquiry: We have heard quite a lot of evidence in these hearings, Sir Matthew, about the position that schools were in at this time, around 24 March. Of course, they had been asked quite suddenly to close and to begin to deliver online learning to children and young people. One head of a large multi-academy trust told us that that was like being asked to build a plane and fly it at the same time.
Were there concerns within the Home Office at the time that this policy was being stood up, about whether it was realistic that schools would be able to do this at the same time as all of that?
Sir Matthew Cbe: I don’t think I found evidence of that particular concern but I do think that it would have been the case that everything – everyone would – was realising that we were operating an entirely new and unfamiliar environment because none of us had experience of a full lockdown previously. And this was a very early attempt, the second day of lockdown, in fact, to work with the Minister for Security to prioritise the big security issues that would be felt during that lockdown.
And I think that it – as I say, it was prescient. All of the issues which arose on this second day of lockdown did turn out to be things which we grappled with as we went through the weeks and months ahead.
Counsel Inquiry: And when we see the question from the minister at the end of the paragraph that’s at the top of this page and this is in relation to that communication strategy, “The Minister asked what engagement we have had with DfE”, do you know what the answer to that was? Was this strategy specifically of responding to this heightened risk through schools, something that the Home Office had already worked on with the Department for Education?
Sir Matthew Cbe: I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to that specific question, but I do know that there was an ongoing engagement, very intense engagement, between officials from the Home Office and DfE in this period about that sort of issue, and that it was added to by engagement from Home Office ministers so the Home Secretary and the Security Minister, and the Safeguarding Minister, Vicky Atkins.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. And when we see here in this note that, “The Minister promised to pursue this cross-government point”, was that James Brokenshire; is that right?
Sir Matthew Cbe: That was James Brokenshire at the time and I remember him telling us that he had spoken to those different departments. I don’t think that he or we set up a sort of standing body involving those departments. I think it was more a series of individual engagements.
Counsel Inquiry: I see.
I think we’ll come back shortly to that structural point. Just staying for a moment on how the Home Office continued to develop their work on these heightened risks.
Can we look now, please, at INQ000231091.
This was the development of the point that Home Office officials were going to talk to industry to see what they were able to do in response.
This briefing is dated 3 April, so about ten days on from the meeting that we have just looked at.
We see some discussion at – please, at page 3. Thank you.
We see again, at point 1, that indication of knowledge of the heightened risk. Here, I think we see three factors that the Home Office are suggesting are going to contribute to that risk: one, more children online; two, more child sex offenders online; and three, reduced capacity of the moderator.
And then expanding on that latter point at paragraph 2, this is the point you’ve made about tech companies’ ability to combat the activity being reduced.
And if we can look at point 4, expanding on this:
“[Given] the shortfall of moderators, companies are having to prioritise and changing their use of automated tools.”
And the point that is made here, I think, is that automated tools can identify indecent imagery, but what they’re less good at doing is examining whether, through the course of a set of communications, there is grooming happening, for example; is that right?
Sir Matthew Cbe: That’s right. And also normally – in normal times, it would be a sort of human action to then definitively decide to take down those particular pages or images, and then to follow up in terms of closing accounts and moving into law enforcement action, yes.
Counsel Inquiry: So this is making the point quite clearly that there is only so much that those automated mechanisms can do when it comes to protecting children?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Exactly. I think this is another example of, in this case Home Office, officials seeking to prioritise and making sure that our maximum effort was pointing in a direction that would have most impact to protect the most vulnerable.
Counsel Inquiry: And on that point, Sir Matthew, of course virtually all children across the UK at this time were at home and moving online for their schooling. Was it the assessment of the Home Office, therefore, that this was a risk facing all children, or did you consider that it faced – that it was a risk more for some groups of children than others?
Sir Matthew Cbe: I don’t recall seeing an actual assessment of that in preparation for this Inquiry, but I think that at the time – I mean, the commonsense view would have been that, although there’s a theoretical risk for all children, there’s an actual risk for certain groups of children that is greater than for other groups of children.
There are some issues that really do relate to all children, but then there are other categories of children who are either – who are more vulnerable one way or another, either more disposed to be on the receiving end of that threat or less able to deal with that threat without support. And so we were particularly focusing on those people, bearing in mind the Home Secretary’s and the Home Office’s prioritisation, to make sure that we are safeguarding the most vulnerable children whenever we possibly can.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
So if we can look lower down this document, then, at page 4, at the proposed interventions to respond to this, we read at paragraph 9 that it was recommended that options 1-3 be pursued, keeping 4-5 on hold.
Option 1, if we can look briefly at that, please, at paragraph 10, was about maintaining pressure on the industry.
If we can look, please, at option 2 – that’s at paragraph 12, thank you – that is the point, again, about comms and preventative messaging.
And if we can look, then, at option 3, please, this was addressing underage users. It was noted here:
“A significant number of grooming victims are children aged [under] 13 and below the age limit of the platforms they are groomed on. To reduce this risk … we could ask companies (and parents) to step up their vigilance on underage accounts. An alternative proposal, accepting that many parents will allow underage children access, is to promote the use of safety tools which allow parents to control settings … or analyse content and send warnings to parents about potentially harmful interactions.”
Can I ask, that explicit acceptance here that parents will allow children on to underage platforms where they might be groomed, was that an acceptance based on the circumstances of lockdown – so, many parents working from home – or is that just a fact of life in this area of work?
Sir Matthew Cbe: I think – I mean, this is something that the Home Office would have been working very closely with our colleagues in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and others on, and I think – I read this as a – this was a general – a general point of view about what in practice happens in some households.
Counsel Inquiry: And accepting that this is a very complex area, given the fairly urgent and high degree of risk that the Home Office had identified, was any thought given to mandating age verification or any strong measures like that at this stage?
Sir Matthew Cbe: I don’t have anything to add to what I put in my witness statement on that issue. I mean, that sort of issue does come up a lot, and there would – I mean, something as big a change as that would require, you know, quite significant cross-government working. It wouldn’t just be decided by the Home Office.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
Can we look now at INQ000606759.
This takes us a little further in time on this same topic, to 10 April 2020, entitled “Briefing from TEAU”.
What is that, please?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Um …
Counsel Inquiry: I’m sorry, it is not entitled in that way. We see it in the top right-hand corner, from TEAU, is that a unit?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Yes, the U will stand for unit.
Counsel Inquiry: Perhaps it’s not significant.
Sir Matthew Cbe: Apologies.
Lady Hallett: Too many acronyms.
Ms Cayoun: Too many acronyms, yes.
We see, under the heading “Key judgments for the week commencing 6 April are”:
“A number of factors continue to increase children’s exposure to online child sexual abuse.”
So, seemingly emerging evidence here that the concern about children spending more time online is manifesting.
And we see here the comment that:
“The number of children who are attending school has dropped to 28,000 on 31 March from 70,000 on 16 March.”
So it appears from this that the Home Office were quite closely monitoring the attendance at school of vulnerable children and drawing a link between attendance numbers and children spending time online. Why is that and why the particular focus on vulnerable children?
Sir Matthew Cbe: So, of course, the Department for Education are and were the policy lead for schools, including schooling for vulnerable children. The Home Office angle was about vulnerability and ensuring that we did everything we could to safeguard the most vulnerable.
And I think we were, in the Home Office, disappointed how few vulnerable people were going to school, I think it was 15% at one point, and we knew that that was a further risk factor.
All of the arrows were going in the wrong direction. So the number of children online was going up. The number of children able to report concerns or abuse was going down. The number of perpetrators who had the ability to perpetrate acts, in some aspects, was going up – in other aspects it was going down. The tech companies’ ability, as we’ve just discussed, to take down material rapidly was also reducing. And, absolutely crucially, the ability of the support services, the charities, the NGOs, the teachers and others to, sort of, see into the lives of vulnerable children was also reducing as a result of lockdown, the school closure.
Counsel Inquiry: Can I ask, and this may be an obvious question, the Department for Education’s guidance about who was a vulnerable child for the purpose of attendance at school included factors such as whether a child has a social worker or an EHCP plan?
Sir Matthew Cbe: I think that was it, wasn’t it? That was the –
Counsel Inquiry: There was a slight discretion, as my Lady has heard at some length, in addition to that.
Was that group of children the same group of children that the Home Office would have identified as vulnerable for the purposes of child sexual abuse and exploitation online or is that a different set of considerations?
Sir Matthew Cbe: I mean, sadly, it’s a wider group than that, that would have been of concern to the Home Office, but that first group would have been, broadly speaking, a subset of the wider group.
Counsel Inquiry: I see.
Sir Matthew Cbe: So I think ensuring that as many as possible from that smallish group were able to get the protection that would have come from being at school was an important priority for the Home Office, but that wasn’t the only thing that we were worried about. We were also worrying about that wider group of children who didn’t count as vulnerable in that relatively narrow sense but who were absolutely open to vulnerability from child sexual exploitation and other types of abuse.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
And we see there, just for completeness, at the subsequent two paragraphs, the point that you have been making about the concern about underreporting in circumstances where schools are closed.
Sir Matthew Cbe: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: If we can look, please, then at paragraph 6 of this same document, over on page 3.
This, again, gives us some information about how the Home Office was intending to respond to that. We read:
“We are continuing to use cross-government forums to drive action across the vulnerable children agenda. This has included utilising the General Public Sector Ministerial Implementation Group … discussion on school provision to recognise the vital role [that] schools play …”
And lower down:
“Additionally, we will use next week’s GPS MIG discussions to highlight the work the department is doing on hidden crimes including child sexual abuse, and to push [other government departments] on further action (eg DfE on incentivising children … DCMS on optimising opportunities from IT connectivity … and [the] role of youth workers …).”
And I should also have emphasised the sentence just before that, that shows us work being undertaken through Violence Reduction Units to ensure children are kept safe and off the streets.
Whereas we’ve been talking until now largely about child sexual abuse and exploitation online, is it right that, here, the concern that’s being discussed is about safety, criminality, perhaps county lines; is that right?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Absolutely, yes, all of those things would count as crimes that we were worried might increase during lockdown, yes.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
The date of this document, as we saw, is 10 April, and the Inquiry has heard evidence, Sir Matthew, by or from Ms Indra Morris who had been a director general in the Department for Education, and who by this stage was the senior responsibility officer for a cross-government workstream called the Vulnerable Children’s Unit. Part of the remit of that unit was to look at safeguarding issues and hidden harms.
In this document which appears to be specifically discussing cross-government work and opportunities to bring up that cross-government work on these subjects, we don’t see any reference to the Vulnerable Children’s Unit. Should we take it from that that the Home Office wasn’t working through that unit yet with the Department for Education?
Sir Matthew Cbe: No, I wouldn’t read that into it. I think that that would have been the part of the Department for Education that my colleagues in the relevant parts of the Home Office were engaging with. TEAU, by the way, I think probably stands for tackling exploitation and abuse unit, and they would have been an example of a part of the Home Office that would have been working with Indra Morris as part of the Department for Education.
Counsel Inquiry: I see.
Sir Matthew Cbe: So I think – we probably didn’t use that acronym, beginning with V, for her unit. We just talked about it as the DfE.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. So if there was a cross-government working group coming out of the DfE on these issues, you would have thought about that as part of the DfE; is that right?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Exactly.
Counsel Inquiry: Understood.
Can we look then, please, at INQ000518579.
This was a memo to Number 10, slightly later in the period, 24 April, and it’s about “Opportunities to increase interventions on the hidden crimes agenda”.
We can see from paragraph 3 what is meant by hidden crimes: those which relate to emotional or physical harm or abuse both in and outside of the home.
And if we can look, please, at paragraph 10 of this document, which is at page 2, thank you. We read that Number 10 was being informed that:
“Stakeholders, such as the Victims Commissioner, Domestic Abuse Commissioner, and national charities … have been pressing for greater action from Government on these issues, and have been critical of a perceived fragmented government approach.”
Are you able to help us with that, Sir Matthew? What was the perception about a fragmented government approach?
Sir Matthew Cbe: I think, from the perspective of those commissioners and coalitions and others, they would have, I imagine, wanted to hear from government with one voice, and have more of a sense than there was that there was a prioritisation within government about the issues that mattered most to government at this difficult time.
And indeed, we had our own concerns within the Home Office about that sort of issue, so it wasn’t just these, if you like, semi-external voices who were expressing concerns about fragmentation. We were having our own concerns and trying to address them. I don’t know if you’re going to come on to that, but there are examples of times when I or others in the Home Office raised our concerns with the Cabinet Office to try to improve the joined-up nature of government decision making during the pandemic.
Counsel Inquiry: Yes, we will, is the answer to that. We will come to look at that email.
Can we take it, then, that you had some sympathy at this stage with the criticism of a fragmented government approach to these issues?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Yes. And were keen to channel that into something positive, which broadly became this Hidden Harms Summit that the then Prime Minister posted.
Counsel Inquiry: Yes, thank you, we will look at that. If we can just stay for a moment with this document.
Can we look, please, over at page 5, paragraphs 20 and 22 because I think in this document, actually, you’re doing exactly that: you’re highlighting further areas where you could encourage joint working to improve victim support. And we see for example:
“Reviewing the approach to high risk perpetrators of domestic abuse, considering whether within existing arrangements there are opportunities for selected agencies to proactively contact at risk households in a safe way”.
And obviously, for children, that would – the removal, potentially, of domestic violence perpetrators would reduce the risk to them.
Now that might be thought a potentially obvious role for children’s social care and potentially the police. Do you know if that happened?
Sir Matthew Cbe: I don’t know about whether that specifically happened as a follow-up to that particular point, but it is something that the Home Office would have been working with policing on constantly, including with other agencies, as it mentions here.
Counsel Inquiry: If we can sort of take the points together. On the one hand, concern about fragmentation, which the Home Office had some sympathy with, and then on the other, this specific example of something that could be done better. Do you think there were obstacles, until this stage, to that sort of approach happening?
Sir Matthew Cbe: No, I think the obstacles that I was talking about in my previous answer related to the, sort of, the big picture prioritisation of where the government should be putting its effort at a time of unprecedented national lockdown. What this paragraph is talking about is, I would say, areas where more run-of-the-mill day-to-day effective joint working can make a difference in protecting the most vulnerable.
Counsel Inquiry: Yes.
Sir Matthew Cbe: But this doesn’t require a summit from the Prime Minister to improve. This just about, as I say, day-to-day joint working at a relatively working level between different departments or different parts of the sector to prioritise limited resource, to target it at the people who will get most benefit from that resource.
Counsel Inquiry: Well, it’s exactly that point I want to ask you about then. So for example, the third bullet point here:
“Exploring opportunities to enhance Op Encompass, especially around children who are identified in DA households as well as any not currently attending school under vulnerability criteria at present.”
That is perhaps a small picture example, as you say, of something that could be achieved with joined-up working. Had that not been happening to date because of a lack of joined-up working?
Sir Matthew Cbe: I mean, I think something like this, where the crucial partners will all be local, so we’re talking about local authority working with local health and law enforcement and other officials. The constraints on that joint working will have been that everyone was still getting used to dealing with an unprecedented lockdown. And so I think that there would have been many opportunities available to improve that joint working, which, as I say, almost always are at a local level.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. I want to take up, then, that structural point that you raised earlier.
If we can look, please, at INQ000239640.
This, I think, is the email that you were talking about a moment ago. Thank you.
This is the – beginning, then, with the email sent to you on 13 May from Ms Helen MacNamara, asking you if you could please provide your view on organisational and governance structures used in government, what you have found useful so far, and your thoughts on what you would value next.
If we can look up at page 1, we see your response a few days later. And you make three points:
“First, we should try a less traditional hub and spoke arrangement”, suggesting the centre could remit issues to small groups of officials from across departments to own and lead on behalf of all.
Second, you say that:
“The Home Secretary has already expressed concern that the current governance structure can lead to siloed discussions …”
And third, you make a point about tweaking reporting requirements to the centre.
Sir Matthew, you’re not here being specific about any aspect of the Home Office’s work when you make these points but I want to ask you whether some of them relate to the Home Office’s work to protect children.
Before we do that, I just want to ask you about one other document so that you can see the point in the round and that is, please, INQ000181673.
And that is the report from the Prime Minister’s Hidden Harms Summit that you were referring to.
This is 26 June, and if we can look, please, at page 9, we see coming out of that summit a recommendation, second bullet point:
“Efforts to coordinate work across departments on domestic abuse and sexual violence have served to highlight the challenges of overcoming entrenched siloed working and structures. We need to ensure effective, regular coordination as standard in the future.”
So just taking a step back, then, there seems to be a bit of a pattern of this concern having first been raised, we saw, on 16 March, then the concern about fragmentation on 24 April, your email raising that point to Ms MacNamara in mid May, and the point coming out again in late June.
Was this quite a severe concern, then, about siloed working affecting the way that government was able to respond to domestic abuse, for example?
Sir Matthew Cbe: I mean, to be honest I don’t think I did have domestic abuse specifically in mind when I wrote the email to Helen MacNamara, not specifically. I was thinking about the central government’s Covid coordination mechanisms in general. And many of the domestic abuse challenges which we are discussing in these documents were exacerbated by Covid but they were there all along, and they were there – they were to do with the fact that so many different parts of central government and local partners are involved in any case as complex as this.
And so, I think what I was seeking to get the Cabinet Office to improve was the more top-level, sort of, policy responses to be better streamlined. They didn’t seem streamlined to me at all. There was a huge burden on the Department of Health and the Cabinet Office at the centre, including Number 10, but there were other departments who were available who could have, sort of, leant in and been encouraged to take on more of a leadership role to spread that burden and to make the overall effectiveness of the government’s response that bit better.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. So just thinking specifically, then, about the Home Office’s work for children and to protect children, is it your position that that wasn’t suffering from siloed working, it was more of a top-down, high-level strategy issue?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Yes. I mean, I think in relation to children, I mean, there are always tensions, if you like. There is always going to be an interface between the Department for Education and, let’s say, the Home Office on issues that are to do with children and therefore of concern to the Department for Education, but are also to do with crime or migration, or policing, or national security, and therefore also of interest to the Home Office. That’s something that sort of built into the system. And in my view, it doesn’t matter so much where the line is drawn between those two different departments; what matters is how one works across that line between those two departments.
So, to pick up a line of questioning about whether there, for instance, should have been a single minister for children. I mean, in my view, there is a Minister for Children and it’s the ministers in the Department for Education. That doesn’t take responsibilities for children away from the Home Office, and nor should it. And if it did, it would just redraw the line, if you like, between the Department for Education and the Home Office. There will always be a line between those departments, and what I’m trying to get at particularly in those three short points to the Cabinet Office is about working across that line, and the equivalence of that line between all other government departments. That’s the bit that I felt was not optimally set up during the first months of the Covid response.
Counsel Inquiry: That question of whether there ought to be a minister for children or, alternatively, the extent to which the Secretary of State for Education carries out that function was something that Ms Susan Acland-Hood addressed in her evidence earlier in these proceedings. She emphasised that the Secretary of State for Education has a named role as the government’s lead minister for children, and that if the individual minister in that position so wishes, they can call on that cross-cutting role to influence policy in other departments or activity in other departments, but that, for various reasons, during the pandemic that didn’t happen.
Was that also your experience, that you didn’t see that happening on the part of Sir Gavin Williamson during the pandemic?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: Do you think it ought to have happened?
Sir Matthew Cbe: I think it ought to have happened somehow, but there are lots of different ways that it could have been made to work. And I – I was encouraging the Cabinet Office not to think of everything as about the Cabinet Office’s relationship with one other department. That’s the sort of very old fashioned hub-and-spoke view of how to run a government. And I was encouraging them, not just in that email but in many other conversations at the time and since, to have a much more modern, agile, federated set-up, that would allow more resource to be instantly available for the biggest priorities.
Counsel Inquiry: Thinking specifically about the concern about protecting children from this range of hidden harms that were discussed at the summit, and given that pattern that we’ve spoken about and that we’ve seen through your evidence, of concern about fragmentation or siloed working, did anything change after that recommendation on 26 June?
Sir Matthew Cbe: I think there was a greater prioritisation across government on tackling hidden harms, and that was really why the Home Office had recommended so forcefully to Number 10 in that note that we were looking at a few minutes ago – having that moment that brought together all of the players, not just in central government, but thinking about policing, support services, many others, as well, making that a high-priority part of the government’s response, I think that did lead to greater prioritisation, which fed into how local authorities, local police forces, public health officials, and many others involved, tackled the issue.
So yes, I think it did make a positive difference at a difficult time.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
Can we then return to our chronology, please, and pick it up in October of 2020, and look at your statement at paragraphs 327 – thank you – to 328.
You tell us that at this stage:
“… [a] Home Office … Vulnerability Knowledge and Practice Programme … had summarised voluntary sector feedback on the impact of the first national lockdown …”
On children and young people.
And we can see, if we’re able to have an overall view on this list – thank you – that it is very lengthy and discusses some grave impacts on children and young people.
So, an increase in all forms of abuse, increase in gang-related violence, including through the county lines model, increase in the need for emergency accommodation.
We won’t go through them all but they are, as I said, grave.
Noting that that’s a summary of voluntary sector feedback, would it be right to say that that accorded with the Home Office’s own understanding on the pandemic – on the impact of the pandemic on children and young people at this stage?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Yes, I think it represents a very helpful summary of that feedback. And I also think that it’s an example of monitoring and evaluating, something that the government does not always get a lot of credit for doing properly, but I think this is an example of some instant monitoring and evaluating of how the first lockdown played out. And given the timing, we were then able to use that to plan for subsequent lockdowns in different stages of the pandemic.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
Sir Matthew Cbe: And by “we” I don’t just mean the Home Office, sorry, I also mean particularly policing and other law enforcement and other operational partners.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
And given that assessment and given that that was the Home Office’s view, would it be fair to say that the Home Office, in the winter of 2020, was concerned about the likely impact of future lockdowns and further school closures?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: Can we look then, please, at how the Home Office planned to address that possibility at INQ000231228.
This is described as – I think as a readout from a briefing of Ministers Atkins and Malthouse at a deep dive the previous day. It’s dated 6 November. And it looks as though, on this occasion, Home Office officials were updating the ministers in some detail about both risks and the plan to respond to those risks over winter.
If we can look, please, over at page 2, under point 4, on county lines, we see:
“What did we do during [the first lockdown]:
“Drugs are a key driver of SV …”
Is that serious violence?
Sir Matthew Cbe: I think it might be sexual violence.
Counsel Inquiry: Sexual violence.
“… drug supply through the border interrupted by 1st lockdown – but County Lines continued to operate.”
Can we go further down, please, to read the rest of that. Thank you.
We see:
“April – June … drug offences up 30%.”
Was there thought to be a connection there between school closures and an increase in drug offences?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Yes, there was. And clearly there were – there were factors in – in both directions. There were some factors of lockdown that made it harder for drug supply to continue for the benefit of criminals, but there were other aspects of lockdown that, frankly, made it easier. And so this, I think, is important evidence that, taking all that together, there was – there was an increase in the use of county lines, in particular as a way of transporting drugs around the country.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
And we see lower down, under “Serious Violence”, a similar description of what happened during the first lockdown. And then we see there:
“Approach to 2nd lockdown:
“…
“Asks of DfE – we need a real focus on attendance (particularly in [alternative provision]).”
And then a specific point about the sector having raised an issue in finding appropriate space for face-to-face meetings with young people, and a point for Minister Atkins about whether it would be possible for the DfE to ensure that schools could be used in that respect.
Two points, then, here: was it the Home Office’s analysis that having young people attending alternative provision in particular would help to bring down rates of serious violence?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: And second, had there been any difficulty in engaging the Department for Education in this?
Sir Matthew Cbe: No, I don’t think so. I just think this – this was the ministers, particularly Vicky Atkins, as it says here, using this meeting to, you know, get – get ready for her next wave of – of issues to engage that department on.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
And if we can look at – the next document, then, on this being taken forward is INQ000518729. And I think this is possibly, Sir Matthew, the final document we will look at before we take a break.
This is a letter to the Home Secretary the following day, updating her on “Hidden Harms Winter Preparedness”. And if we can look, please, over at page 2, there is a summary of that deep dive that we’ve just been looking at. And we see a bullet point in respect of schools:
“Schools: at the risk of repeating a frustration you know well, we need the DfE to explain how they are prioritising school attendance (particularly in pupil referral units]) to ensure we are tackling hidden harms. Modern Slavery officials have data which shows that referrals to the NRM from County Lines victims significantly dropped when schools re-opened this year.”
NRM, I think that’s National Referral Mechanism, is it?
Sir Matthew Cbe: That’s right, that’s the mechanism whereby someone who might be of a concern in relation to modern slavery is referred into that system.
Counsel Inquiry: I see. And so do we understand the connection there is that when schools were open, fewer children were engaging in county lines and therefore being referred through that mechanism?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Exactly. And therefore, our concern being that if and when there were a further school closure to come, that that welcome reduction would be reversed and there would be a worrying increase again in referrals.
Counsel Inquiry: And that line, “At the risk of repeating a frustration you know well”, can you help us with that, please? How do we understand that?
Sir Matthew Cbe: I mean, I think that’s an indication that Vicky Atkins and Priti Patel, the then Home Secretary, were talking regularly to each other as well as to officials, about what we all, from the Home Office, wanted to be doing in relation to the Department for Education, which is to get that – get the school attendance up, including when schools are closed but open for vulnerable children, making sure that, in particular, that number would go up as far as possible, bearing in mind the very strong Home Office view that it is schools that are able to provide the best protection for all children, including vulnerable children.
Counsel Inquiry: We have heard, Sir Matthew, quite extensive evidence on what the DfE were doing to try to address attendance. Does this comment suggest that the Home Office did not understand what the DfE were doing to try to address attendance?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Well, I think you can sense the frustration that, despite, you know, multiple conversations, there were still concerns that we wanted to continue to impress upon the Department for Education. And we did.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. And just taking a step back, then, from the documents, Indra Morris, when she gave evidence, and indeed in her written evidence, identified teenagers as one group of children and young people who were particularly hard to reach and support during the pandemic. Of course it is teenagers who are very often involved in county lines.
Do you, at the Home Office, share that view that it was difficult to reach and support teenagers during the pandemic?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: And we have seen, I think, throughout your evidence, that some of the work that could have been done to support teenagers would have been between the Department for Education, but also, we saw the Department for Culture, Media and Sports have a youth policy?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Yeah.
Counsel Inquiry: And HMCLG, I will call them, who have ownership of community and family work. Was there a structural difficulty in coordinating the work intended to support teenagers?
Sir Matthew Cbe: I mean, I do think this is an area where, in general, again, unrelated to the pandemic, but the concerns became heightened by the pandemic, but the concerns were there all along, that yeah, the creation and sustaining and delivering of youth policy is fragmented across central government.
Ms Cayoun: Thank you, Sir Matthew.
My Lady, we’re about to move on to a new topic and I think it’s about five –
Lady Hallett: Certainly. We take breaks every so often, Sir Matthew, but I promise you we will finish your evidence today. I shall return at 3.20.
(3.05 pm)
(A short break)
(3.20 pm)
Lady Hallett: Ms Cayoun.
Ms Cayoun: Thank you.
Sir Matthew, I want to ask you now, please, to consider some evidence from towards the end of the pandemic period about the impact of the pandemic on various aspects of the Home Office’s work that we’ve been discussing. And as we go through, I will ask you to help us understand how, in light of that, the Home Office would evaluate the effectiveness of its response on various types of risks facing children.
Can we look then, please, at INQ000268039.
This is a statistics briefing from the NSPCC in February 2022, and can we look at pages 8 to 9, please. Thank you.
Here we have some evidence about the data that suggests a potential increase in the number of children exposed to domestic abuse during the pandemic. We won’t go through it in a great amount of detail because I think we have the evidential point, but it is indicating, for example, a 61% increase in the number of contacts to and from the National Domestic Abuse Helpline, compared with similar levels for the first three months of 2020.
And I think, Sir Matthew, you’ve had the opportunity to consider this document; is that right?
Sir Matthew Cbe: That is right, yes.
Counsel Inquiry: Would you agree that it is reasonable to conclude that the pandemic, and specifically lockdown and school closures, did have the effect of increasing the rates at which children were exposed to domestic violence within the home?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Yes, I think sadly we can conclude that. I don’t think we know within that increase how much is specifically down to Covid and the measures to tackle Covid but I think, you know, we can make an estimate. And clearly, you know, it is very sad. It’s worse than that for the victims who were involved.
Counsel Inquiry: And I think you’ve already said that this is something the Home Office was concerned about at the very outset, so it wasn’t just predictable; it was predicted?
Sir Matthew Cbe: It was predictable and predicted and – but it gives me no comfort to say that.
Counsel Inquiry: Yes.
Sir Matthew Cbe: I do think that, looking back, the Home Office and our operational partners were able to re-prioritise quickly because of those early assessments, and – and I pay tribute to those operational partners who did that, but clearly these documents here demonstrate that collectively, we’ve failed to reduce the impact, the negative impact of lockdown.
A lot of work went on to keep those numbers – those increases as low as possible. It could have been worse, but we are obviously saddened by the figures that are on that document.
Counsel Inquiry: And we have seen in your evidence that the Home Office at the very beginning took steps to ensure that police officers were alert to risks. We’ve seen that through other government departments, the Home Office took steps to ensure that there was provision in place for abusers to leave the home throughout. We also know that during the course of the pandemic the Home Office sponsored the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, which had the effect of recognising children as victims of domestic abuse in their own right.
Can you help us, please, with what the rationale was for that and what the impact was of that, if you’re able to say.
Sir Matthew Cbe: So this was an important priority for the government at the time to demonstrate that it was doing everything possible to put domestic abuse at the centre of considerations, and to do even more than previously to support those who might become victims of it. And having that offence being created so that – there were additional tools for law enforcement to use to pursue people to use who might be perpetrators of domestic abuse.
So it was an important part of the legislation.
When you look at the totality of what a government can do, there is legislation, there is communication, there is funding, there is prioritisation. Most of those levers are relatively indirect on something like this. What we are relying on is the whole of the system that we are operating within to prioritise in ways that protect the most vulnerable. And I do think that despite the evidence here, which suggests, you know, that things did get worse, they didn’t perhaps get as worse as they could have done if we had not taken those steps.
Counsel Inquiry: And given that overview, and given the impact that we can see there nonetheless was, with the benefit of hindsight is there anything that the Home Office assesses could have done better during the pandemic to address this particular risk?
Sir Matthew Cbe: I think that even in the second lockdown we learnt from the first lockdown. So, for instance, just to take a bureaucratic example the way that the regulations and guidance to the police on how to enforce the regulations were written, that was something that improved as the pandemic went on. We got sort of more precise about what the enforcement aspects of the public order consequences of the lockdown for instance would be. That’s an example of something we learnt during the pandemic.
In terms of protecting children and the most vulnerable, I think the system operated within the constraints as well as it could, bearing in mind that any full-scale closure of schools was going to be a very significant challenge in terms of protection of the most vulnerable. I think that, you know, the learning that went on at the very beginning and then throughout the pandemic, did mean that the outcome was – was less bad than it otherwise would have been.
Counsel Inquiry: So Sir Matthew, if you were speaking to a person who was in your shoes in the future as permanent secretary to the Home Office at the outset of what looked like a civil emergency where there was a possibility that people would have to stay in their homes, knowing that that would present a heightened risk as it did, is there anything from your learning that we could extrapolate for that future situation?
Sir Matthew Cbe: I think, first of all, act early. So make sure that the crucial support services are funded to carry on their work. Because one of the things that did happen, I think, during the first lockdown was that the charities and other support services, you know, some of them did run out of funding. I think the government did respond quickly to address that, including in relation to tackling and preventing domestic abuse, but I would encourage very early action on that score.
Secondly, technology. I mean, any future pandemic or any future lockdown is likely to have a transformed landscape in terms of technology, even in, back in 2020 there was still a very significant technology aspect to the pandemic, both the response to it and the actions that are happening, including, sadly, perpetrators of child abuse and so on, that is going to be even greater in any future lockdown or any future pandemic.
So really understanding, having the sort of relations with the tech companies and the regulators that allow that sort of action is going to be even more important in the future.
Lady Hallett: Can I just go back to the point that you were discussing a moment ago, Sir Matthew, about the regulations and the guidance, I’m a former criminal lawyer, and I was horrified when I saw the contents of some of the early legislation, and I pitied members of the public to try to work out whether they were breaking the law or not, and I pitied the poor police officers who had to enforce it. And I think I was told, was I not, that the legislation at the beginning was drafted by the Department of Health and without the experts, namely the Home Office’s, whose usual remit criminal justice, input?
Sir Matthew Cbe: That is correct, my Lady. The very first set of regulations were drafted without Home Office or policing input, but I – I choose to look at the positive of that, which is that things got better as we went through the pandemic, and we did learn from the – from the awfulness of that exercise to make a slightly better fist of it as we went through the pandemic.
And I think you heard yesterday from Martin Hewitt that he felt that he was able, as time went on, that he was able to put across directly into the Home Office, and then for us and the Home Office to put across into the wider government decision making and drafting of regulations and guidance a better and better picture as it related to the day-to-day policing.
Of course, as you know better than anyone, the police are operationally independent, but they do require guidance, and sometimes direction and prioritisation. And in the case of the pandemic, I think the Home Secretary and the Home Office were very clear that we had this – or that we wanted the police to have this four Es approach, that they should educate, they should explain, they should engage, and only after having done all three of those Es should they get on to the fourth E, of enforce. That meant that clearly there were some outliers, there were some forces that jumped straight to enforcement in ways which weren’t particularly proportionate, and therefore not appropriate, but I think the mechanisms that police have themselves, and with the Home Office, they managed to iron those out as time went on.
That doesn’t excuse everything but I think it does mean that, as time went on, we and they, policing, got a bit better at – at doing this enforcement.
Lady Hallett: Understanding all of that, but really going back to Ms Cayoun was asking you about what lessons we’ve learnt, and surely, the basic principle of criminal justice, as you know, is if – you don’t have a criminal offence with a penal sanction unless the law is clear. It is clear for the person who is committing the offence and it’s clear for the person who is trying to enforce it.
Would not a lesson to be learnt be that if you are going to pass regulations that have a penal sanction, that you should ensure that people like the Home Office, who are the experts in drafting criminal justice bills, should be involved?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Yes, I would absolutely agree with that.
Lady Hallett: Thank you. Sorry, it’s one of my hobby-horses.
Ms Cayoun: Thank you.
Sir Matthew, we were discussing the question of what overall impact had been, what could have been done better, and what lessons we can learn from that in the context of domestic abuse within the home. But the answers that you gave, I think, to the latter questions were more general.
Sir Matthew Cbe: Yeah.
Counsel Inquiry: So I want to ask you, just briefly and narrowly, a couple of questions about other types of harms.
I don’t think I need to take you back to the NSPCC data, because I understand that you’re familiar with it. Can I ask whether it’s your position that it is reasonable to conclude also that the pandemic and lockdown and school closures had – did have the effect of increasing the rates at which children were exposed to online sexual abuse and exploitation?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Yes. I think the evidence is clear on that, for a number of different factors, and I think we’ve talked about most of them already, but children were online more, some of them were bored and very easily persuaded to – for instance, to self-generate indecent images. There was much harder – it was much harder for support services to have any visibility.
Counsel Inquiry: Yes.
Sir Matthew Cbe: Underreporting, the tech companies, all those other factors that we talked about.
Counsel Inquiry: And, as I say, you gave a general answer, a broad answer earlier to the question of what we can learn, but is there anything specific about the Home Office’s attempts to meet that risk that we can learn for a future pandemic, noting what you say about technology likely being different?
Sir Matthew Cbe: I mean, I do think tech – technology is already, sadly, making this terrain even harder to tackle. And – and, you know, I think that the current government has already made it an offence to create deep fake pornography, for instance. But that sort of thing is just getting easier and easier, sadly, from a technological point of view, to happen, and is therefore likely to be even more widespread, and is likely to be – in any future lockdown, to be an even greater driver in different types of exploitation and abuse.
Counsel Inquiry: So, do we take it, then, that part of your answer is that there is too much uncertainty about what that risk might look like in the future to be able to draw clear lessons?
Sir Matthew Cbe: And I think – I wasn’t making that point. I mean, I think it is unclear how far technology will have gone, not least because we don’t know when the next lockdown might be, but I think we’d absolutely know that whenever it is, if there were ever to be another one again, that the technological landscape would have advanced very dramatically, and that the role of the tech companies will be even bigger in the future than it is now or was in 2020.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
I think, Sir Matthew, that the position in respect of a different type of harm that we’ve been discussing, so children’s exposure to criminality and involvement in criminality, is perhaps a bit more nuanced. And you say in your statement – I don’t think I need to take you there – that:
“Heightened risks of children’s exposure to violence and exploitation by gangs and organised crime groups and involvement in associated criminal activities have been reported, but the full extent of the impacts of violence and criminal exploitation for children throughout the Covid-19 crisis are difficult to ascertain.”
And those were findings reported to the Home Office in 2021 by the Manchester Metropolitan University.
Is it then the Home Office’s view that this is more difficult to ascertain, or has the Home Office been able to draw conclusions about the impact of school closure on lockdown on the rates at which children and young people were exposed to criminal exploitation?
Sir Matthew Cbe: I’m not aware of any definitive judgements made by the Home Office since that time, but drawing on that and other research, I think we can conclude that – and it’s a commonsense view, that during lockdown some crime types actually reduced, you know, some things shoplifting reduced because shops weren’t open. Most of the public order worries that we had at the beginning of the pandemic didn’t come to pass, thankfully. But then other things, including most of the crimes that we’ve been talking about today, online and in real world child sexual abuse for instance, did increase.
On things like county lines, gangs and so on, I think, as you say, there is mixed evidence, but on the whole, the trends are towards greater concern, greater concern in terms of protection of vulnerable children.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
Sir Matthew, I want to move now to a completely different subject. We have only two subjects left and this is one of them, and it is the ways in which the pandemic affected unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.
And, Sir Matthew, there is of course something of a complicated background to some of these issues but I think we can take it fairly shortly because the factual situation was recorded by Mr Justice Chamberlain in a series of High Court judgments and I’m going to draw from those.
We know, don’t we, that for many years prior to the pandemic there had been difficulty in Kent County Council because that council had struggled to be able to accommodate the numbers of children arriving in Kent and that they had relied on the National Transfer Scheme by which, in principle, other local authorities volunteered to receive children who would otherwise be coming into Kent care; is that right?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. And we know that for some years, that scheme had not been operating well in the sense that other local authorities were not routinely offering to receive children in the way that had been intended; is that right?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: And that meant that Kent continued to look after more unaccompanied asylum-seeking children pursuant to their responsibilities under the Children Act of 1989, than other local authorities did; is that right?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. Against that background, then, I want to ask you about how the circumstances of the pandemic specifically affected some of these arrangements.
Would the Home Office agree that the closure of ports of entry to the UK meant that there was even a higher number than usual of children arriving on Kent’s coast?
So we heard from Kent County Council, for example that the local authority was caring for 402 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children at the start of 2020 but that this had risen to 605 by August.
Sir Matthew Cbe: That’s correct. I think it’s important to say at this point that the Home Office’s judgement about the total number of people coming into the country irregularly or unlawfully did not dramatically change in the early years of the pandemic. But their route by which they came did change. So previously, before the small boats phenomenon, most people who wanted to come into this country irregularly or illegally did so through the Channel Tunnel or on ferries, you know, largely on the back of lorries.
And they were distributed, if you like, around the country. Of course, most of them arrived in Kent but then carried on hidden until other parts of the country, whereas with small boats, almost every single small boat arrival, first of all, isn’t trying to hide, they’re trying to be very visibly part of the asylum-seeking system and secondly, they almost all arrive in Kent.
So yes, this, this phenomenon, partly driven by Covid and the travel restrictions, did put an additional burden on Kent, even beyond that which, as you say rightly, they were already suffering from as a county before the pandemic.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. And is it right also that some support services at the same time and because of the restrictions introduced during the pandemic suspended their operations so particularly the Refugee Council, who had been running an intake service for these children in Kent; is that right?
Sir Matthew Cbe: That’s absolutely right. They were running the main, in fact the intake service for children in Kent, funded by the Home Office, and there had been a very good relationship, I think, between my colleagues in the Home Office and the Refugee Council in the Kent intake unit and the Refugee Council sadly had to end that service because of staff absences.
Counsel Inquiry: And would the Home Office also agree that the guidance on lockdown and self-isolation, which again was health guidance, not Home Office guidance, meant that many local authorities other than Kent were even less willing than before to receive unaccompanied asylum-seeking children? And again, we heard from Kent that between January 2020 and May 2020, Kent weren’t able to transfer a single child to another local authority; is that right?
Sir Matthew Cbe: That’s right. And at that time the National Transfer Scheme was a voluntary scheme between local authorities, so that is right, yes.
Counsel Inquiry: Yes. And we know that by August of 2020, Kent County Council took the formal position that, as a result of these pressures, it was no longer able to meet its statutory obligations to care for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, which was later found to be unlawful.
But it’s right also, isn’t it, that Mr Justice Chamberlain went on to find that the Home Office shared some responsibility for that position because of the way that the National Transfer Scheme had been run?
Sir Matthew Cbe: That is right. I think what he found was that the duty was on the county, on the Kent – and that was not a duty which could have been, you know, balanced off against other duties. It was a – it was a primary duty.
Counsel Inquiry: Yes.
Sir Matthew Cbe: And he found that Kent should have abided by it.
Counsel Inquiry: Yes. And, Sir Matthew, we have seen evidence during these hearings that for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, the net effect of all of those cumulative changes, I suppose, because of the pandemic, was that they were staying for longer than usual at the intake unit on immediate arrival, and then, once processed, they were, in many cases, staying in unregulated accommodation, such as hotels, and that, in that sense, they were not there as children who were looked after by the local authority, but they were simply housed there by the Home Office, and therefore they weren’t receiving the care or education from the local authority as a corporate parent?
Sir Matthew Cbe: It’s right that Kent refused to – or said they were unable to meet their duty to provide that care and set of services for those children. And it’s also right that, in that circumstance, the Home Office decided, reluctantly, but better than any alternative, to house some of those children in hotels. That is right, yes.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. I should say, Sir Matthew, that of course it’s not the function of this Inquiry to examine the intricacies of the immigration system, or even the arrangements of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children generally, but the question of whether the pandemic made matters worse for those children and whether that could have been avoided or mitigated is a matter for this Inquiry.
Can I ask you, then, to reflect on some particular aspects. What Kent County Council told us, or rather the Director of Children’s Services for Kent County Council told us, is that if the National Referral Mechanism had been made mandatory at that time, some of the pandemic-related pressures might have been mitigated. What do you say to that?
Sir Matthew Cbe: I agree. I’m sure it is true that if it had been mandatory, then other local authorities would have had to step up and take on that burden from Kent.
Counsel Inquiry: And some children’s rights organisations might say that the public health advice, which required self-isolation for incoming children, even if asymptomatic, could or should have been subject to some exemptions for this vulnerable cohort. Accepting that that absolutely wasn’t your guidance, do you have a view on that?
Sir Matthew Cbe: Well, I – I know that my colleagues in the Home Office spent considerable time and effort engaging with Public Health England on that – that guidance and the interpretation of that guidance, and it was disappointing, I remember, that there wasn’t any leeway to create additional guidance or additional exemptions, as you’re suggesting.
So the public health position was just – was very black and white. These particular children, like everyone else in the country, has to abide by this guidance. And that was one of the things that made it impossible for both the Refugee Council and then for Kent County Council to fulfil their – the services that they were previously providing.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
Another point that may be raised by children’s rights organisations is that some of the lockdown-specific pressures that unaccompanied asylum-seeking children faced whilst in hotels, such as the difficulty of having – of having to try to sort out an education with limited or no wi-fi, could have been alleviated by extra support from the Home Office. What would you say to that?
Sir Matthew Cbe: I mean, I think the Home Office provided significant extra support, both to the relevant counties and then directly in the hotels. And I’m – I’m – sadly, I’m sure that it was not perfect, that support, but there was a huge amount of effort from my colleagues, operating in very difficult circumstances, remember – you know, picking up a burden which really shouldn’t have been theirs in first place, but deciding that it was better to do that, albeit imperfectly, themselves, than for these children to be left really to their own devices.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you, Sir Matthew.
I want to move on then to the final topic, which is a somewhat miscellaneous but important topic of children’s play.
My Lady asked you earlier questions about precision or perhaps the lack of precision in guidance about regulations that police officers were required to enforce. And the Inquiry has heard evidence throughout these hearings about occasions when children were stopped by police for playing, and directed to return home, in the course of police enforcing the ‘Stay at Home’ message, and examples that we heard were police telling children to stop climbing trees or playing in a river or building a snowman. And those examples come from throughout the pandemic, so that snowman example is from January 2021.
The Inquiry also heard from Martin Hewitt about how difficult that was for police officers, and what he said was that he was communicating that difficulty to the Home Office. And to paraphrase his evidence, I think he said that the Home Office were very receptive to that concern and were engaging with him. But he wasn’t sure how well that was reaching Cabinet Office, for instance, or, again, to paraphrase the Department of Health, where the guidance was emanating from.
Are you able to help with that? Is that something the Home Office were worried about, and do you think that concern was heard outside of the Home Office?
Sir Matthew Cbe: So first of all, Martin Hewitt and policing in general did an extraordinary job in very difficult circumstances, including on this particular issue. So their message was heard loud and clear in the Home Office about the difficulties of the approach to enforcement of the various different regulations, particularly at the beginning of the pandemic. But I accept that it also carried on, to some extent, later on.
And I would agree with him that even on issues where the Home Office was fully aligned with policing, that did not automatically translate into whoever was drafting the regulations or the guidance picking up every part of that nuance and doing exactly what we wanted. Absolutely not, and as I’d said to my Lady earlier, I confirmed that the Home Office was not involved in the original drafting of the regulations.
I do think it is worth underlining two other points, though. First of all, the police are operationally independent, and so the decisions about how to go about implementing all law and all regulations do fall to each chief in each of the 43 police forces up and down the country. And secondly, there was a very clear position during Covid about the four Es and you only get to the fourth E, enforcement, after you as an individual police officer have done the engage, the educate, and the –
Counsel Inquiry: Explain and enforce.
Sir Matthew Cbe: Explain, thank you.
Counsel Inquiry: I wrote them down –
Sir Matthew Cbe: And explain. And of course, it’s all in the – I imagine it’s sort of all in the tone of voice. It would be possible for a police officer to think that they were explaining and engaging but it might have come across particularly to a child as enforcement in a way that would have absolutely left them – a mark on them.
So I think this is an area where, you know, clearly there are lessons that we can learn, but broadly speaking, I wouldn’t want to cross a line of operational independence and I would want the judgements mainly to be those of individual police officers to be making in the moment about how to educate and explain and engage.
Counsel Inquiry: If I may ask you just a little bit further than that, I think the confusion is about whether or not it was ever unlawful for those children to be out playing in the first place, or whether children playing out and about were exercising and therefore had a reasonable excuse not to be at home.
So even before we come to the discretion of individual police officers or individual police forces about how they enforce, there was a lack of clarity about whether children playing was unlawful or not. Is that something that the Home Office was worried about?
Sir Matthew Cbe: I mean, clearly everyone who was engaged on this in the Home Office knew how important play was for children, and I imagine that the issues weren’t about the precise drafting of the regulations. They were to do with social distancing, and things like that. And I imagine that in future, we would want to make clear that it would be possible to have a much more liberal interpretation of whatever the regulations or guidance in the future are, in order to allow that play to continue.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you, Sir Matthew.
You have been kind enough throughout your evidence to give us your overall reflections and your recommendations for the future, so I don’t have any questions to ask you about that, but is there anything that you would like to add about what the Home Office perspective is on what might be done better, specifically with regard to children in the event of a future pandemic?
Sir Matthew Cbe: No, other than to pay tribute to my colleagues in the
department, and in all of the sectors that they worked
with, for making an intolerably difficult position, you
know, better than it otherwise would have been.
Ms Cayoun: Thank you, Sir Matthew.
My Lady, those are all my questions and there are no
questions on behalf of Core Participants. Do you have
any questions?
Lady Hallett: No, I don’t.
Thank you very much indeed, Sir Matthew. And we
finished on my hobby-horse, so that makes me even
happier.
Thank you very much indeed for all the help you’ve
given and for the colleagues – or your former
colleagues, because I don’t think you’re at the
Home Office any more, are you – your former colleagues
who have obviously helped you in preparing for the
evidence you have given today. It’s been very helpful.
Thank you.
The Witness: Thank you, my Lady.
Lady Hallett: Very well, I shall return at 10.00 tomorrow.
(3.50 pm)
(The hearing adjourned until 10.00 am the following day)