Sunak faces backlash amid claims empowering scientists over lockdown left us ‘screwed’

Rishi Sunak faced a backlash after claiming independent scientists were given too much power during the pandemic and concerns about the economic and social impacts of lockdowns were not properly considered.

The former chancellor, one of the key players within government during the crisis, said “if you empower all these independent people, you’re screwed” and claimed that the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) edited its minutes to hide dissenting opinions.

But Sage member Professor Graham Medley said it was the government that made the decisions, not the scientists, while former No 10 insiders described Mr Sunak’s comments “simply wrong” and “dangerous rubbish”.

Mr Sunak used a Spectator interview to criticise the way decisions were made, saying “we shouldn’t have empowered the scientists in the way we did” and suggested he had been left “furious” during a meeting because colleagues refused to acknowledge the wider impact lockdown was having.

The Tory leadership hopeful claimed he had often been a lone voice of resistance to lockdown measures within the government.

“We didn’t talk at all about missed (doctors’) appointments, or the backlog building in the NHS in a massive way. That was never part of it,” he said.

He said that if "trade-offs" had been acknowledged from the beginning, in March 2020 when the first lockdown was imposed, then "we could be in a very different place”.

He also suggested that minutes of Sage meetings, setting out the discussions on guidance for ministers, had omitted dissenting views.

He claimed the panel members did not realise there was a Treasury representative on their calls, feeding back to him.

He said his representative would tell him: “‘Well, actually, it turns out that lots of people disagreed with that conclusion’, or ‘Here are the reasons that they were not sure about it’. So at least I would be able to go into these meetings better armed.”

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Boris Johnson’s former communications chief, Lee Cain, dismissed Mr Sunak’s assessment of the situation, saying he is “simply wrong”.

Mr Cain said: “It would have been morally irresponsible of the government not to implement lockdown in spring 2020 – the failure to do so would have killed tens of thousands of people who survived Covid."

“In addition, without lockdown the NHS simply could not have survived and would have been overwhelmed.”

Dominic Cummings, Mr Johnson’s former senior adviser, said Mr Sunak’s comments were “dangerous rubbish” and pinned the blame unfairly on the former prime minister and others.

Amid the backlash, Mr Sunak has since denied suggesting to The Spectator that the government shouldn't have locked down the country.

“No, that’s not the point I was making. The point I was making was that looking back on it, it is right that we learned the lessons from it," he told BBC Radio 4.

“And looking back, one of my reflections was that, you know, when things like that happen, I think we need to have all the facts and involve the trade-offs involved in those decisions very openly and honestly.”

A No 10 spokesman said: “Throughout the pandemic, public health, education and the economy were central to the difficult decisions made on Covid restrictions to protect the British public from an unprecedented novel virus.

“At every point, ministers made collective decisions which considered a wide range of expert advice available at the time in order to protect public health.

“The UK government spent over £400 billion to support people, families and their livelihoods throughout our response to the pandemic, which included the fastest lifesaving vaccine rollout in Europe.”