Tory decision to underfund Covid self-isolation support cost lives, inquiry hears

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The UK would have seen fewer people die during the pandemic had the government invested more in supporting individuals to self-isolate, the Covid-19 inquiry has heard.

Rishi Sunak, the former prime minister, resisted proposals to increase financial support for those isolating, the inquiry was told.

Baroness Dido Harding, who previously led NHS Test and Trace, stated that Mr Sunak, then Chancellor, consistently rejected these proposals.

“There was an intransigence to that that I think was very sad,” Lady Harding commented.

In September 2020, the government mandated self-isolation by law, introducing a £500 support package for low-income individuals unable to work from home and facing wage loss.

Prof. Dame Jenny Harries (UK Health and Security Agency, NHS Test & Trace) giving evidence for module 7 to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry in London (UK Covid-19 Inquiry/PA Wire)

However, Lady Harding noted that the UK’s investment in enabling self-isolation was comparatively lower than that of other nations.

“The UK spent proportionally much less than other developed countries enabling disadvantaged people to self-isolate,” she said in her witness statement to the inquiry.

“If we had allocated more of the NHS Test and Trace budget to isolation support, I strongly suspect that fewer would have died and infection rates would have been lower with all the benefits that would have brought.”

Asked if she felt she held any responsibility for the way the NHS Test and Trace budget unfolded, she replied: “It’s certainly the thing that I wish I had succeeded in persuading ministers to do.

“We had the money in the budget, we didn’t spend all of our budget, and I also think that spending more on self-isolation would have reduced the need for testing.

“But I wasn’t the decision maker – the decision maker in this was the chancellor and at every opportunity, from June onwards, the chancellor rejected the proposals. And in the end, that was not in my control.”

Former prime Minister Rishi Sunak served as chancellor from February 2020 to July 2022 (PA) (PA Archive)

Summarising Lady Harding’s written evidence, counsel to the inquiry Sophie Cartwright KC, told the hearing that amid low take-up of self-isolation when the support system came into place in September 2020, Lady Harding “continued to champion for more to be done” but felt on occasion like she was “banging her head against a brick wall”.

Lady Harding continued: “The modelling showed that the best way to get an operationally effective test and trace system that would reduce the rate of infection and enable us to get back to a more normal life was to encourage more people to come forward for testing.

“And that the data told us that people weren’t coming forward for testing because they were scared of the consequences of isolation.”

She went on: “To be honest, it was intensely frustrating.

“And what you see through the paper trail – I found it quite distressing reading it to be honest – because we did try really hard to persuade ministers that this would be a good thing, not just for the individual wellbeing of those disadvantaged people, but also economically – this was one of the ways you could have had less economic harm for the country as a whole.

“And I think that the chancellor, particularly, this was a point of principle for him.

“I don’t think there was any amount of data and analysis that I could have put that would have changed his mind – it was a point of principle that he didn’t want to create an additional welfare benefit.

“Now I do appreciate this is a complex thing… there is a policy conundrum there, but what I was unable to achieve was any substantive engagement in how to mitigate that policy problem and to recognise that actually, the policy problem of not supporting the vulnerable to isolate was a much bigger one.

“You can hear my frustration as I say it now, there was an intransigence to that that I think was very sad.”

Meanwhile, Lady Harding was asked about NHS Test and Trace needing to put all communications out through Downing Street.

She said that in a future pandemic a public health agency should be able to have deep expertise “but also permission to speak”, adding: “Trust in a system like this is its most important quality and I would be first to say that we could have done better at building society’s trust in this.”

Ms Cartwright replied: “I think you detailed that request for you to essentially directly communicate on those issues was refused, and essentially, you ended up feeling like NHS Test and Trace became the whipping boy.”

Baroness Harding replied: “Yes.”

The inquiry continues.