5. Mr Michael Gove

MR MICHAEL GOVE (sworn).

Questions From Counsel to the Inquiry

Ms Blackwell: Secretary of State, thank you for the assistance that you have so far given to the Inquiry. You have provided a witness statement which is at INQ000185354, and if we go to page 13, please – thank you – do we see that it’s signed on 9 May of this year, and it’s true to the best of your knowledge and belief?

Mr Michael Gove: It is.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you very much.

Thank you for coming to give evidence before the Inquiry today. May I invite you, please, to speak slowly and into the microphones so that the stenographer can hear you for the transcript.

By way of introduction, and for the purposes of this module, your ministerial background makes you particularly qualified to assist the Inquiry. My Lady has heard much about the lead government department models, and you have been minister of multiple policy-heavy departments, some of which have been lead government departments. You were Secretary of State for Education from May 2010 to July 2014, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice from May 2015 to July 2016, and Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs from June 2017 to July 2019.

We have also examined the role of the Cabinet Office and the Civil Contingencies Secretariat, and ministerial roles there, which hold the resilience brief, and you have been Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster from July 2019 to September 2021, and Minister for the Cabinet Office from February 2020 to September of 2021.

We have also examined the role of the regional and local tier of government across the United Kingdom, but particularly the role of local resilience fora and the role of RED within the DLUHC department, and you have been Secretary of State for Levelling up, Housing and Communities, firstly from September of 2021 until July of 2022, and then again from October of 2022 until the present date.

Finally, we have looked at the extent of co-operation and engagement between the United Kingdom and the devolved administrations, and you have been Minister for Intergovernmental Relations from September of 2021 to July of 2022, and again from October of 2022 until the present day.

I hope that that is all accurate.

Mr Michael Gove: To the best of my knowledge, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

I’d like to begin, please, by asking you some questions about the preparation for a no-deal EU exit, and I want to take you through what the Inquiry has heard as being pros and cons of that state of preparation, so far as it affected pandemic preparation and resilience.

I make it clear that we’re not here to debate the political issue of whether or not the EU exit was right or wrong, but one of the positive aspects about which the Inquiry has heard is the creation of the XO and XS committees, two committees at the heart of the EU exit work, the Exit Operations Cabinet subcommittee and the Exit Strategy committee.

Secretary of State, you chaired the XO Cabinet subcommittee. Tell us about it please, and how it sat with the XS committee.

Mr Michael Gove: Thank you.

The XO committee was established shortly after Boris Johnson became Prime Minister. There was a widespread feeling, and one that I shared, that there had been insufficient focus and urgency in our preparation for EU exit overall, and specifically for a no-deal exit.

The decision to adopt this particular committee structure, the advice that the Prime Minister received came originally from Dominic Cummings. Dominic was, as I think is well known to this Inquiry, a principal adviser to the Prime Minister at the time.

XO was established to operate on a rhythm which meant that we met daily on weekdays, and sometimes at weekends, in order to superintend the activity of individual government departments, and also our partners in local government in the private sector and beyond, in order to make sure that contingency planning for all available risks associated with a no-deal Brexit could be bottomed out. XO met under my chairmanship, it had a cast of government ministers – one of the good things about it is there was continuity in that each government minister from each department with a responsibility for Brexit planning was a regular attender, not always the case with other Cabinet committees.

Counsel Inquiry: Yes.

Mr Michael Gove: Also around the table in the Cabinet Office Briefing Room on terms of equality ministers sat with officials and indeed individuals from government agencies and local government, to horizon scan, plan, and decide in real time what the steps were that were required to enhance preparedness.

Counsel Inquiry: Before I ask you to explain how that sat with the Exit Strategy committee, I’d just like to take you through the ten benefits that you have set out in your witness statement in terms of the composition of the committee, how it met, when it met, and how that assisted in the achievements that it needed to reach.

So you cite the following: first, that there was, as you have said, regular attendance of; second, nominated lead ministers, rather than what you describe as a rotating cast list in some other committees; third, that there was strong No. 10 backing for the committee to ensure that decisions were enacted rapidly; and, fourth, that the attendance at committee was prioritised; fifth, that, as you have made reference to, it was a committee where officials and ministers worked together and sat together around the table; and, sixth, that it was a dedicated and extremely able secretariat that supported the committee; seventh, that decisions were written up in real time and circulated rapidly; and, eighth, there was a daily rhythm, to which you’ve made reference, which ensured that issues could continually be worked through; eight(sic), that the meetings focused on taking decisions rather than open-ended discussions; ninth, that the meetings took place at the COBR facility; which, tenth, helped to lend a greater gravity, as you describe it, to the discussions.

What do you mean, Secretary of State, when you said in your witness statement that it avoided the problem of the rotating cast list that happened in some other committees?

Mr Michael Gove: There are many Cabinet committees that meet, and interministerial groups set up by successive Prime Ministers, to address issues that involve a number of departments. Sometimes, too often in fact, it is the case that the relevant Secretary of State will delegate attendance to a junior minister and sometimes it will not be the same junior minister. I’m not referring to the natural churn of resignation and promotion, but even within a ministerial team you will find that minister A attends in January, minister B in February, and minister C in March, and that weakens accountability and responsiveness.

Counsel Inquiry: One of the other strengths of the XO committee was the strong No. 10 backing that you say it had. Is there a suggestion that it is hard to prioritise work within government unless there is a consistent pushing from the centre?

Mr Michael Gove: Yes. Government is asked and expected to do so much; in order to ensure that effective action is taken there needs to be prioritisation. Strong secretaries of state can drive through change in their own departments, ably supported by excellent civil servants and junior ministers. But there are many issues which involve different departments working together; individual departments can sometimes be jealous of their own turf and priorities. In order to have heads knocked together there needs to be a knowledge that the centre. No. 10, and those working alongside the Prime Minister, want to see progress made.

Counsel Inquiry: Was that achieved by the interconnection between the two committees, XO and XS?

Mr Michael Gove: Yes, and also by the attendance regularly at XO meetings of individuals from the No. 10 team who were known to have the ear of the Prime Minister, and, in addition, the secondment to the XO committee of some of the very best civil servants within the Cabinet Office.

Within the Civil Service, people will know that even though someone may be not perhaps the most senior in the hierarchy, they’re someone who commands respect for their ability to achieve change and to co-ordinate action. So the fact that we had civil servants like Jess Glover, Pamela Dow and others working on the XO committee was a clear sign that some of the crème de la crème in the Cabinet Office were committed to this project.

Counsel Inquiry: Insofar as the XS committee was concerned, was that routinely chaired by the Prime Minister?

Mr Michael Gove: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: All right.

Now, as part of the documents which you have exhibited to your statement, we have been able to consider the report from the Cabinet secretariat on XO lessons learned, a review that took place in December of 2019.

I don’t propose, Secretary of State, to take you through it in detail, but would it be a fair summary to say that, given the perceived productivity and success of the XO/XS model, there was a desire to see if its governance structure might be applicable to non-Brexit issues or whether successful elements of its governance structure could be applied to other more normal time committee structures?

Mr Michael Gove: I think that’s fair, and I think it is also the case that the Institute for Government, which acts as a critical friend to successive administrations, also reflected that while not every aspect of Brexit preparedness was perfect, nevertheless the committee structure and the operation of XO brought benefits.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

Were there doubts, though, as to how far it might be capable of application, because of the need to maintain pace and focus and engagement?

Mr Michael Gove: Yes. One of the challenges that Whitehall and ministers faced is because there was a deadline – of course the deadline was extended, but because there was a deadline we knew that, with a ticking clock at our back, we needed to proceed at pace. That meant that the normal tempo of papers being produced within Whitehall was accelerated, and I think it is fair to say that outside crisis situations or big projects in which the Prime Minister has invested an enormous amount of interest, that the rhythm that XO maintained, the daily battle rhythm, would be difficult to sustain. But I do believe that it was helpful for all of government to be operating at that pace, because we made government more match fit overall for the terrible events that this Inquiry has been set up to look at.

Counsel Inquiry: Yes, and I think the Institute of Government comment piece that you also appended to your witness statement suggests in similar terms that it is a model that is worth replicating in certain circumstances, but that the pace would not always be sustainable, as you’ve explained.

You also tell us in your witness statement that, in your opinion, one of the central lessons of the pandemic, in terms of preparedness, is that whole-system resilience issues should be planned for better, that the initial structures were simply not adequate for a civil contingency of that scale and nature, and that the pandemic required a truly cross-government whole-system response with delivery structures on an integrated and co-ordinated basis.

Now, there is a suggestion in the Institute of Government article that the XO/XS model was at least partly borne out of your frustrations with the ability of the United Kingdom Government to handle preparing for a whole-system risk of this nature.

So my question to you is this: given that the whole risk systems have been on the NSRA and NRA for many years, what does it say about the United Kingdom Government that these kind of issues, with cross-government working and the need for whole-system structures for whole-system risks, was not recognised at an earlier stage?

Mr Michael Gove: I think there would be those who would argue that significant progress had been made following on from the establishment of the National Security Council and the updating of the National Security Risk Assessment and its public manifestation, the National Risk Register. But you can always – one can always learn and improve.

I was struck when I was at the Department for Environment by two things which relate to your question. The first is that the department for the environment is the lead government department when it comes to floods and, of course, animal disease. I had observed that LRFs, local resilience forums – fora, had not performed as they should at the time of the Grenfell fire. I was concerned that they would not be able to cope as they should in the event of severe flooding, and I asked a retired military planner, General Tim Cross, to look at the readiness of local resilience fora in the event of floods.

The report that he prepared for my department, while it highlighted much good work, reinforced the fact that there was a – there were a series of weaknesses in the transmission mechanism from the local to the central, and from the individual government department to the centre.

In addition, when I was preparing within the Department for the Environment for the effects of a no-deal exit, and they would have been significant on food supplies and on other questions, I was struck by the fact that the centre did not seem to have the galvanic energy required in order to make sure that each government department was doing as it should.

This relates ultimately to a dysfunction in the design of the Cabinet Office, which we may turn to.

Counsel Inquiry: Right, thank you.

Moving back, though, to the issue about which I was asking you, and setting out really the reason why I have focused on the XO/XS model, it’s right, isn’t it, that that model was adapted for the Covid-O and Covid-S model, which in fact replaced COBR? And when the Inquiry comes to deal with Module 2, it will no doubt examine the efficiency of those committees. But that was the decision that was taken, I think, at that time, that the model that had been created and worked so well during the preparations for an EU exit was the basis for what happened during the outbreak of Covid in government. So in that sense it was a positive outcome of the EU exit preparations.

But the Inquiry has also heard evidence from witnesses within the United Kingdom Government and also the devolved administrations about the adverse impact that the necessary planning for a no-deal EU exit had on other resilience activities and pandemic preparedness, and in particular heard from Katharine Hammond, who was the director of the CCS whilst you were the CDL.

Do you accept that, as a result of the necessity for workforce capacity to move over and deal with matters that were important in terms of the preparation for a no-deal EU exit, that that had a detrimental effect on the preparation for pandemic planning?

Mr Michael Gove: No.

Counsel Inquiry: Why not?

Mr Michael Gove: Because I haven’t yet seen any activity that has been identified that would have enabled us to significantly better deal with the Covid-19 pandemic that did not occur as a direct result of EU exit.

Counsel Inquiry: Well, are you aware of Exercise Cygnus and the recommendations that came out of that, and the fact that the Pandemic Flu Readiness Board was created, was stood up in order to take forward the recommendations that came out of that exercise, but that that board could not meet and the work that it was expecting to do could not be carried out because of workforce capacity issues?

Mr Michael Gove: I have. My understanding is that the work of that team was shared with the then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, David Lidington, in January of 2019. Various workstreams were requested to be carried forward. That was agreed, and then the PFRB met again in November of 2019 to review process. And I think in Katharine’s evidence, she mentions that a significant proportion of that which was required, including stocking the appropriate antivirals to deal with a pandemic flu, carried on. But as the Inquiry has heard, ultimately the pandemic that occurred was not a flu pandemic, it was one for which we were unprepared because few Western nations, if any Western nations, had anticipated the particular type of pandemic that Covid-19 was.

Counsel Inquiry: The Inquiry has also heard that certain aspects of the preparations within government for a pandemic influenza, and indeed the 2011 guidance which was in the process of being updated, were capable of assisting in relation to the pandemic that hit, the pandemic of a coronavirus. So wouldn’t you accept that the stalling of the work on the updating of the guidance and the Pandemic Flu Readiness Board undoubtedly had an effect on the country’s preparedness for the pandemic which hit?

Mr Michael Gove: I don’t think that can be proven. In Katharine’s own evidence, she alludes, I think, to three areas where she feels that CCS, as the central co-ordinating secretariat, could have done better, in the specific area of the pandemic. She talks about emergency funding, she talks about the work of the Department for Education, and then she talks about CCS’s own readiness to adapt its structures to a pandemic response.

I actually think, and I have an enormous regard for Katharine, that on the first, emergency funding, the speed with which HMT initiated the furlough programme and the Covid business intervention loan scheme shows that the Treasury was agile, and I can’t imagine that it could have been much more so.

I do think she has a fair point when it comes to the whole question of school closure, and we may touch on that.

But on the third point, CCS’s own readiness, I also think that Katharine is being modest there, in that CCS and the Cabinet Office overall did flex rapidly once it was clear what the scale of the pandemic was.

Counsel Inquiry: Well, we’ve looked at two documents dealing with staffing resources. There’s a lessons learned report from the Cabinet Office regarding Operation Yellowhammer –

Which we see at INQ000100183, please, and could we go, please, first of all to paragraph 5 of page 5.

Look at 5(b), which tells us that:

“Staff resourcing was and remains a concern for January 2020 for the majority of Departments, DAs, IGs and the central secretariat, including CCS.”

Could we now go to page 14, please, and look at paragraph 28(a), which deals with the balancing of business as usual and Yellowhammer work. Thank you. In fact, can we go to paragraph (d), please, instead. Thank you.

“Balancing [business as usual] and [Yellowhammer] work …”

Pausing there, there were two periods of time dealing with Yellowhammer, weren’t there, and this is the second such period.

“… a number of people divided their time between ongoing BAU work and YH work in the months and weeks leading up to the IOC.”

IOC being? What does IOC mean in this context?

Mr Michael Gove: I’m not entirely sure.

Counsel Inquiry: All right. We’ll find that out.

Lady Hallett: It proves my point that acronyms don’t always assist communication.

Ms Blackwell: Quite, my Lady.

Mr Michael Gove: Indeed.

Counsel Inquiry: “This was deemed necessary prior to the arrival of the Fast Streamers, but it did result in significant overloading of staff, and caused line managers problems in scheduling work to deadlines.”

It is obvious, is it not, that if an additional important workstream that is to be prioritised over business as usual work takes the workforce away from its business as usual, that is necessarily going to cause overloading of staff and problems in terms of focusing on the work which they were originally doing? Isn’t that a logical conclusion of giving more work to the same number of people?

Mr Michael Gove: I’d say three things. The first thing is that the Civil Service grew and expanded in readiness for EU exit, and the number of people that we recruited overall, both in the Cabinet Office and in other departments, grew to take on this additional load.

The second thing is, as I mentioned earlier, the nature, the pace and the intensity of the work undoubtedly placed pressure on individuals in the system, but it also ensured a greater degree of match fitness for what none of us anticipated but what was to come the year after.

The third thing is, as I say, it is difficult to identify what was anticipated, what could have been planned, and what was not carried forward that might have put us in a better position.

Katharine identified three areas in her evidence. I’ve mentioned the areas where I agree and disagree. But the fact that a committee did not meet does not mean that if it had that that meeting in and of itself would have meant that we were significantly better prepared. And indeed I would argue that the skills acquired, honed and refined during EU exit preparation helped us, not only to have an organisational system that was better in dealing with a crisis, but having a cadre of people who had been through an intense process that enhanced their ability to respond.

Counsel Inquiry: In terms of workforce capacity, of course it cannot be proved that the fact that a committee didn’t meet means that we were not as well prepared for the pandemic as we might have been, but doesn’t it stand to reason that a significant overloading of staff, as is set out in this paragraph here, is a reflection of the fact that there was too much work for the workforce in the civil service at the moment whose focus was bent away from what they should have been doing, preparedness for a pandemic, towards EU exit?

Mr Michael Gove: No, I don’t agree with that, because I think that the preparation for EU exit in and of itself was some of the best preparation that could have been undergone for any future crisis.

One of the points that has, I think, been well made by Oliver Letwin and by others, is that it is training, it is the acquisition of general skills in crisis management, that is among the most useful ways of ensuring that we have pandemic preparedness. And of course it is possible that had a particular meeting or had a particular workstream been taken forward then we might have identified something that could have strengthened our ability to weather the pandemic, but nowhere have I seen, I think outside, you know, one or two scholarly articles from Johns Hopkins and elsewhere, anyone who was suggesting that government should be orienting its work towards the particular type of pandemic that Covid was to become.

Counsel Inquiry: All right.

The Inquiry has heard evidence that there is likely to be an increase in concurrent and cascading risks due to the ever more complex world in which we live, and you have set out in your witness statement why you do not think it appropriate for there to be a “standing capacity ready to co-ordinate fully an emergency situation or a dedicated team of officials on hand to create the scale of intervention which lockdown [or something akin to lockdown] ultimately required”.

But what you suggest in the witness statement is that it’s reasonable to expect the centre of government to have tried and tested plans in place, by way of an alternative to a standing capacity.

You have mentioned Sir Oliver Letwin. He gave evidence to my Lady on the issue of the creation of a national resilience institute, which he suggested to my Lady was certainly worth considering.

What do you think about that suggestion, and would the creation of a resilience institute, bringing with it its new architecture, a chair, a board, the work which it could be doing full-time, does that go any way to fitting the bill in terms of what we need going forwards for the additional challenges that lie ahead?

Mr Michael Gove: I think, as is so often the case with Oliver, that it is a very good idea. And I think it is necessary but not sufficient.

Counsel Inquiry: Why not?

Mr Michael Gove: Because more, I think, requires to be done.

So, in some of the work reviewing the fitness and appropriateness of our structures, including Oliver’s own evidence, I think there is much that is good, I think that the notion that there should be a lead minister at Cabinet level with responsibility for resilience – I don’t think it should be a minister just for resilience – I can expand on that if required – but I think that that is appropriate. I think that elevating the role of the deputy National Security Adviser, who is responsible for dealing with threats and hazards and resilience, is important as well. I think that strengthening the role of the Civil Contingencies Secretariat, the Resilience Directorate, is important. But there is one more thing, which is that my own view is that the relevant minister responsible for resilience should be the lead minister in the Cabinet Office, whether they are called Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster or whatever.

Counsel Inquiry: Yes.

Mr Michael Gove: They would have other responsibilities. But one of the problems within the Cabinet Office is that whoever is the lead minister there does not have full oversight over the whole of the Cabinet Office in the way that a secretary of state does over their department. The National Security Secretariat was an area that was to an extent shielded from my view during a lot of my time when I was nominally in charge of the Cabinet Office, and I think that this is an overhang from the way in which the Cabinet Office was originally set up, to serve the Cabinet Secretary rather than to be a department with a lead minister wholly responsible for its operation.

Counsel Inquiry: Do you also agree with the evidence that the Inquiry has heard not only from Sir Oliver Letwin but also from others, including Sir Chris Whitty, that ministers working within resilience need to have appropriate training?

Mr Michael Gove: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Right.

There is a balance to be struck, is there not, between the challenge that ministers bring to the scientists who are advising government departments, in not being scientifically qualified – and the importance of that challenge as far as this Inquiry has heard is in order to alleviate the possibility of groupthink within the scientific advice that’s being given.

What level of training do you think ministers should have in order to get the balance right?

Mr Michael Gove: I think ministers definitely would benefit from training, and I think there are several aspects to it.

The first is learning from those ministers who either have experience or ex-ministers who have experience in handling crises. I think also undertaking exercises – again, I think Sir Oliver’s recommendation of a much more regular tempo of exercise, involving military planners, so that it is close to the sorts of simulations that the armed forces undertake, is absolutely right, and it’s having something as close to an emergency as possible that will enable ministers to learn better.

But your other point is absolutely spot-on. Sir Oliver is right, politicians, as he said, are amateurs. When we are engaging with professionals and experts, what we bring is not deep subject expertise, but what we bring is the capacity to ask the daft laddie question, and sometimes it is only when someone asks that question that we find out that the Emperor has no clothes or the pandemic preparedness plan has a huge hole in the middle.

Counsel Inquiry: There needs, doesn’t there, to be a level of understanding, though, within ministers –

Mr Michael Gove: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – as to what questions to ask? The way in which Sir Chris Whitty explained that conundrum to the Inquiry was to say that in every emergency he has ever seen there is a desperate need to get scientists in the room, but “Between emergencies you have to kind of elbow your way in”, is how he explained it.

So does there need to be a standing capacity for the provision of scientific advice and a need, perhaps through exercising or through other organised workshops for ministers, to have and to keep having, in other words so that that doesn’t get stale, a level of understanding as to what sort of pathogens and pandemic situations or other scientific matters of risk are coming down the line?

Mr Michael Gove: Yes. It would be a very rare person who had a level of knowledge which would mean that they would be omnicompetent in every emerging crisis. It would be rare to have someone who would simultaneously understand terrorist threats, cyber threats, pandemic threats and the threats to critical national infrastructure. I think the only person I can think of who comes close to that is Oliver Letwin, and as I think David Cameron said, you can’t clone Oliver, if only you had a government composed of Olivers, it would be a better world. But your basic point is absolutely right that ministers, particularly if they have departmental responsibilities, do need to acquaint themselves with some of the scientific issues, and most recently one science issue, a science risk and opportunity, the growth of artificial intelligence, has been discussed around the Cabinet table with the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, and ministers brought to that conversation a base level of knowledge enhanced by what Dame Angela was able to tell us.

Counsel Inquiry: Finally on this point you raise in your witness statement the need for consistent challenge, for what you describe as red teaming?

Mr Michael Gove: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: That’s something which should always be present in any of the groups, be it scientific or governmental or a combination of both, that meet in relation to pandemic planning going forwards and also a nod to resilience?

Mr Michael Gove: Yes, I do think that, and I think – there is a danger in groupthink. There is also a danger, and again Oliver Letwin brought this out, that people within a civil service hierarchy or within a political culture will not wish to seem awkward. They will not wish to be the person questioning their superior in front of another. So having people who are charged explicitly with being awkward and thinking of what may be wrong in a particular case is useful, and I have found that in some of the departments in which I have worked, having a team within the department to do that is useful. So within DLUHC at the moment we have a unit, a policy unit, that is there both to complement but also to challenge the policy propositions that are put forward by others.

Counsel Inquiry: The Inquiry has heard that there are very few risks which don’t require the involvement of more than one government department, especially, as I’ve already made mention of, the fact as we go forwards in time there are more concurrent and cascading risks that are likely to occur.

Taking that into account, is the lead government department system flawed?

Mr Michael Gove: It has its flaws. There are obvious areas where the expertise and the personnel within the lead government department will be well equipped to deal with a particular situation.

I mentioned flooding earlier. DEFRA, its relationship with LRFs, and the Environment Agency, and the expertise that it has, means it is the natural lead government department. Sometimes the nature and scale of a flood will mean that there needs to be a MACA request, a request to the military to help the civil power, and you will need an Armed Forces minister or the Secretary of State for Defence there. Sometimes there will be local government or health ramifications. But essentially DEFRA is the logical lead government department there.

But as Covid-19 showed, DHSC, even though it had, I think, a very good secretary of state and an excellent ministerial and official team, simply could not co-ordinate the scale of activity across government required.

Similarly, while it is obviously the Home Office that has the expertise in dealing with terrorism, if, God forbid, there were to be another terrorist incident on UK soil, I don’t believe that the Home Office on its own would necessarily be able to play the role that an enhanced team in the Cabinet Office could provide.

Counsel Inquiry: So is there one system which works for the situation that might be created by all risks, or does the lead government department system have within it a suitable level of flex in order to be able to adapt to the situation?

Mr Michael Gove: I think in the Resilience Framework that the government has just published there’s an acknowledgement that the lead government department model broadly works, which I think is right, as I hope I have explained, but that there needs to be a strengthening of the centre, and I hope that one of the things that the Inquiry will be able to help this government and future governments with is a better understanding of how that strengthened centre might operate.

Counsel Inquiry: On a slightly different topic, but connected, I think, is the division of roles between various government departments in terms of preparedness and resilience.

Mr Michael Gove: Mm.

Counsel Inquiry: We know that the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has within it the Resilience and Recovery Directorate, which was formerly known as the Resilience and Emergencies Division, and the connection that has with local government, which we’ll come on to speak about in a moment.

But the Inquiry also knows and understands that the CCS sits within the Cabinet Office, and indeed connected is the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, which has within it the Civil Society and Youth system, which touches upon the voluntary sector.

If all of these different groups and bodies are necessarily part of planning and resilience, should they all sit within the same government department?

Mr Michael Gove: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Right, and how would that be achieved?

Mr Michael Gove: By what is known as a machinery of government change. It is the case that from time to time areas which are the responsibility of one government department move to another, so it might be the case that the handling of or policy on privacy and freedom of information might move from the Ministry of Justice to the Cabinet Office, depending. My view is that RED should move from DLUHC to the Cabinet Office. And RED developed, as the Inquiry has heard, following the abolition of government offices of the regions –

Counsel Inquiry: Yes.

Mr Michael Gove: – with the personnel there moving to DLUHC, not all physically in the same building, several of them dispersed across the country, but the liaison function between local government, local resilience fora and the centre was subsumed within that directorate.

My view is, while the people leading it are excellent and the people working in it are very good, that it is logical for that to go into the Cabinet Office.

Again, I reflected, and I hope that this isn’t outside the scope of Module 1, early in the onset of the pandemic, when I was briefed by CCS on what my responsibilities might be as the lead Cabinet Office minister at the time, CCS placed a special emphasis on dealing with excess deaths because that was an area that other government departments didn’t deal with, but they did. But there was less emphasis in that conversation on the need for the type of co-ordination which I believe only a central department like the Cabinet Office can lead.

Counsel Inquiry: Are there plans within government to effect that change?

Mr Michael Gove: Discussions are ongoing.

Counsel Inquiry: All right.

Moving on, then, to talk about local government and the connection, as you’ve set out, between the local resilience fora and the government associations going up to central government. You will know that the Inquiry has heard from Catherine Frances, and she told my Lady that, in her experience, there was or has been no detraction from the relationship between local government and central government with the abolition of the regional level.

As you’ve explained, to a certain extent some of those tasks that were carried out by the regional level have moved up to the central level, although they’re still being maintained.

Given that there is such a plethora of types of local authority in terms of their size, complexity – I think it was described as a patchwork quilt of different types of organisation – is there an argument for reinstating the regional level of governance or of the presence of a regional level of connection?

Mr Michael Gove: I’m not sure, is the honest answer. Even though the resilience team within DLUHC, and formerly of course within MHCLG, operates to the Secretary of State within that government department, many of the people who work in it are based regionally, and there are five regional hubs, and the people who work there as government liaison officers and resilience advisers are out in the field. So there is a regional structure, as it were, within the department.

So should one recreate the government office of the region structure? I personally don’t think so, because I think, though it is obviously arguable, that what we should be seeking to do is to empower local leaders rather than – obviously there needs to be liaison, but empower them rather than have someone watching over them as a Big Brother.

But, as your question clearly implies, there is a variation in quality and resource and structural power within local government, and I observed in my time at DEFRA that there were some local resilience fora which are excellent, and others not so much, and the whole question about how we improve and strengthen the hand of local leaders to respond is, I think, a vital one.

Counsel Inquiry: Catherine Frances described to my Lady that one of the purposes of RED is to act as a critical friend –

Mr Michael Gove: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – to the local resilience fora and the Local Government Association. The Inquiry heard yesterday from Mark Lloyd, who is the chief executive of the Local Government Association, who explained to the Inquiry that in his view – which is gleaned from the members of his organisation who are local authorities – there is a problem with information cascading down from central government to the local level. By way of an example, or examples, he told my Lady that it took the launch of judicial review proceedings for the Exercise Cygnus your Ladyship to be published –

Mr Michael Gove: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – despite the fact that six years earlier, when the exercise had taken place, local resilience fora had been involved in the exercise. And as concerning, one might think, the entire existence of Exercise Alice and its report was only discovered by the Local Government Association during its preparations for this Inquiry.

Do those examples show that there perhaps is a difficulty in central government acting with secrecy and not as the critical friend that has been described?

Mr Michael Gove: Yes, is the short answer.

I’ll expand a little. I have found in government that DLUHC or its predecessor department, MHCLG, is a good friend of local government, but not every arm of government – and I think this is true across administrations, Conservative, coalition and Labour – has been as open, trusting and collaborative with local government as it should be. I think that that is part of politics.

But change has come, and in the Resilience Framework that Oliver Dowden has published, it is clear that we will share information more effectively, that we will use platforms like ResilienceDirect in order to ensure that the whole resilience community, as it were, is involved in these conversations.

I would add two other things briefly. The first is that the people who lead local resilience fora will tend to be uniformed officers, principally from the police or the fire and rescue service, and sometimes elected councillors and officials within local government will feel that even at a local level there isn’t always the sharing of information that there should be, never mind between local and national.

Counsel Inquiry: Yes.

Mr Michael Gove: A wider sharing of information is in everyone’s interests.

Then the second thing is, in terms of the role of critical friend, I think again, as the Inquiry has heard, improving the quality of training matters. We have an Emergency Planning College which the Cabinet Office maintains just outside York. I think more, significantly more, could be done to improve the work that it does and to share best practice.

Again, the Government Skills and Curriculum Unit within the Cabinet Office, which was established by one of the great officials I mentioned earlier, Pamela Dow, and is now being led by another brilliant official, Sapana Agrawal(?).

Counsel Inquiry: In addition to which, does there need to be reflection given to whether or not the practical manner in which information is provided to local authorities and local resilience fora, and I’m thinking in particular in terms of the National Risk Assessment information –

Mr Michael Gove: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – cascading down so that that can be taken into account in the local risk assessment, there needs to be an assurance, surely, within central government that that practically is working, and that everybody who needs to –

Mr Michael Gove: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – have access to the resilience hub is able to do so?

Mr Michael Gove: Absolutely, and I think that that is there in the Resilience Framework that has been published, that the NRA/NRSA work must be shared with those who will potentially be at the frontline of response.

Counsel Inquiry: What do you say about the evidence that my Lady heard yesterday from Mr Lloyd about the level of assurance in terms of pandemic preparedness and resilience of what is going on at a local level? Because we know that the central government doesn’t have an assurance role in terms of the plans that are drafted locally.

One option which Mr Lloyd presented to the Inquiry yesterday was that there needed to be a procedure developed during which local resilience fora could check each other’s plans, some sort of inline assurance given, but that also he said democratic leaders – locally, democratic leaders should be involved in providing a level of assurance.

Would that work, in your view, or should consideration be given to some sort of central assurance during and involving the RED process –

Mr Michael Gove: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – or another body?

Mr Michael Gove: I think both. Again, when I was at DEFRA, I mentioned I commissioned General Tim Cross to look at the level of preparedness across local resilience fora for flooding, and that work was useful in both stress testing, how well prepared LRFs were, and making recommendations, and one of the recommendations that Tim made, and again is there in your question, is peer challenge and peer review helps, that the democratically elected leader who will be accountable – and he or she will often be the face and voice of a community at a time of crisis – should be involved.

Also there will be a level of expertise, whether at an emergency planning college or equivalent or within the Cabinet Office and RED, that can really test plans and preparedness to make sure that they – I was about to say “conform”, but at least match expectations.

Counsel Inquiry: Yes. So a combination of both?

Mr Michael Gove: Yes.

Lady Hallett: Mr Gove – sorry to interrupt – you said a little while ago that in your experience some local resilience fora were excellent and I quote you, some “not so much”.

Mr Michael Gove: Yes, my Lady.

Lady Hallett: What kind of weaknesses did you identify in the local resilience fora where they were not so much excellent?

Mr Michael Gove: The most conspicuous example was in the aftermath of the Grenfell fire. I rejoined government just a few days before the fire occurred. I used to live very close to where the fire occurred and in the days afterwards I spent some time just walking around the scene, and my department is now responsible, obviously, for the aftermath. And it struck me then that essentially, and no individual is to blame, that that individual London borough was simply not up to dealing with that tragedy.

Secondly, when I was at DEFRA I also had responsibility – or the department had responsibility for some of the clean-up work after the Salisbury Novichok poisoning. The local government figures in Wiltshire, leader of the council and others, were excellent, but some of the other people involved in emergency work there a little less so, and I sensed that sometimes we needed to, as we did at Grenfell, step in, in order to help to shore up a structure that wasn’t as robust as it needed to be. In an ideal world every LRF would be as strong as the best.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much.

Mr Michael Gove: Thank you, my Lady.

Ms Blackwell: Community engagement.

The Inquiry has heard from John Swinney, the deputy First Minister from the Scottish Government, that resilience has to be everybody’s business, a sentiment echoed by Gillian Russell, the former director of Safer Communities in Scottish Government, and also Professor Alexander, who told my Lady in his evidence that at one level risks are essentially owned by all of us, rather than by governments alone, and that we are all responsible for our own safety.

Is it imperative that in preparing for a pandemic and attempting to ensure that the community is as resilient as possible, that there is significant community engagement?

Mr Michael Gove: Yes, and even before. I think there are obviously elements of preparedness for certain threats and hazards that can’t be shared with everyone, particularly with threats. It would be obviously foolish to share with states and non-state actors who might wish us harm how we would respond in the event of a cyber attack or so on. However, a broader conversation about the impact that certain threats and hazards can have and how we can build resilience within society, I think, is a good thing.

As we saw in our media and in families and workplaces, during and after the pandemic there has been a lively and informed conversation about the merits and demerits of lockdown. I think that while government can’t mandate, it can help to lead and facilitate conversations about how we, as a country, can be more resilient in the face of certain threats and dangers, whether those are as a result of climate change or as the result of some of the threats to which I’ve alluded.

So I think having that conversation and also more broadly reflecting on how civil society can remain strong is part of a broader programme of resilience.

Counsel Inquiry: The Inquiry has received witness statements from those in positions of authority representing the British Red Cross, the Campaigns and Justice at Inclusion London, and also Disability Rights UK, which is a leading pan-disability charity, whose evidence reflects many organisations in a similar situation, and that is that, in terms of pandemic preparedness, they were not engaged with at all, at any level, by government. Does that need to change?

Mr Michael Gove: I think it is important with preparedness for all sorts of threats and hazards, including pandemics, that the widest possible conversation takes place. But sometimes it will be the case that government will disappoint a particular group. As the Inquiry has heard from David Cameron, George Osborne and others, politics involves competing priorities. It’s not always possible to satisfy every organisation, however noble its aims and means, it’s not always possible to provide them with the list of policy changes or resource allocation for which they press, but it is important to have as many people as possible involved in conversations about risk so that we can hear from voices which, as your question implies, have sometimes been marginalised and overlooked and who represent groups that were, of course, hit particularly hard by Covid-19.

Counsel Inquiry: It’s important, isn’t it, for those who, as you acknowledge, might be the most affected –

Mr Michael Gove: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – by a pandemic for the government to understand the ways in which that might happen and therefore might be avoided, and it isn’t difficult for the government to reach out to – particularly to those who represent a great deal of people who are vulnerable both in terms of general levels of vulnerability and health inequalities?

Mr Michael Gove: Absolutely, but I think it is important when we have these conversations that while groups that advocate for those who are living with vulnerabilities should be heard and should be respected, that we also make sure that the conversation is not exclusively one in which pressure groups take the lead, but wider society has its voices heard.

A brief point: we discovered during the pandemic, medical experts would have known beforehand, that one of the greatest vulnerabilities, one of the likeliest comorbidities, was for those people who were living with obesity, and I think that a broader conversation about public health and the diet that we have and the pressures that that creates is one which no single group, I think, has a monopoly of wisdom on.

Counsel Inquiry: Are you able to assist the Inquiry by telling my Lady what plans are afoot in terms of a greater level of co-operation with and consultation with these sorts of groups?

Mr Michael Gove: In my view, government has to ensure, and this Inquiry helps, that we are in conversation with those in local government who are elected leaders from a variety of parties and traditions, and that we are also in conversation with groups that represent the marginalised and those who are vulnerable. And in my own department, the levelling up component involves me and my ministers and officials spending as much time as possible hearing from those people who are economically more vulnerable and socio-economically more disadvantaged, and when it comes in particular to one of my other areas of responsibility, housing, what has struck me, not just because of the pandemic but because of other factors, is that many of those who suffered most in the pandemic were living in overcrowded housing conditions or poor housing conditions, and the quality of housing particularly but not exclusively in the socially rented sector, has been an issue that has been underplayed. And we’ve made it our mission to ensure that the voices of tenants, particularly in the socially rented sector, are amplified when it comes to policymaking.

Counsel Inquiry: Are you confident that the ties between those organisations, representing as they do the most vulnerable and those with health inequalities, are tight enough or could more be done?

Mr Michael Gove: More can always be done. I do not wish to make it seem trite, but I think health inequalities are some of the most striking inequalities within our society. But our society has a number of levels or layers of inequality. Again, in my work on levelling up, it’s striking that while there is an enormous amount to celebrate about our country, that regional inequality, geographical inequality, is quite marked, and health inequalities are also geographically very striking, and the point has been well made that the difference in life expectancy between Kensington and Chelsea and Blackpool or even Glasgow is something that no country can contemplate with equanimity.

Counsel Inquiry: You tell us in your witness statement that as the pandemic took hold and you became involved in meetings specific to the government response, that it appeared that the assumption had been that behaviours such as lockdown would not be viable for more than a brief period?

Mr Michael Gove: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: You will know that the Inquiry has heard from Matt Hancock, who talked about flawed assumptions being in place which affected the way in which planning went forwards.

This week we heard from Dr Kirchhelle, who suggested to my Lady that it was imperative going forwards for behavioural science and social science to form an important place in any planning of how we are going to be able to fight the next pandemic coming down the line, and the importance of appreciating the effect of how that pandemic is not only going to affect different people in different ways, but what society is likely to do by way of reaction to rules being imposed and matters of that nature.

Do you agree that behavioural science and social science has an important place in planning?

Mr Michael Gove: Oh, completely, but one of the reasons why ministers were told that there was a risk in lockdown and that toleration of lockdown would be limited was because of the behavioural science consensus with which we were presented. That’s not to say that the people who were presenting were anything other than entirely rigorous and thoughtful in the way in which they assessed the evidence and presented it to us, but it’s simply the case that the behavioural science assumptions turned out to be less, what’s the word, accurate about the durability and the willingness of the public to accept restrictions on liberty.

Of course none of us would want to impose these restrictions, but it was an example, as it were, of a scientific consensus, framed on the basis of what was known, then changing over time as new evidence and new facts force the existing theory to adapt.

When – you know, it became a cliché during the pandemic when people said we needed to “follow the science”, what some sometimes forgot is that science itself changes and evolves as models improve because new evidence arrives.

Counsel Inquiry: Does that suggest that the advice that was being provided to the government then on behavioural science and behavioural reactions to the imposition of rules and regulations, that that was out of date?

Mr Michael Gove: Well, I think it was the best available evidence at the time. So, again, all of us have to recognise that when it comes to behavioural science it is different from, as it were, physics, chemistry and mathematics, where there can be a greater degree of precision in the expectation of what is going to happen if you – you know, if you introduce one element into water or if you apply a certain degree of force to mass then certain things are likely to follow. Behavioural science, by its very nature, is based on observation but it is also the case that human beings in our infinite, what’s the word, unpredictability will sometimes react to new crises in ways that people cannot predict accurately.

So behavioural science, like economics, is informed by past evidence and is shaped by expertise, but it cannot predict with certainty in the way that the hard physical sciences can.

So it became out of date, as we saw how people changed, but I would not want to criticise the people who put forward that evidence because they were acting in good faith, that was the best available evidence, it was just that new facts meant that we saw that it wasn’t as accurate a predictor as we might have hoped.

Counsel Inquiry: Is there a need, do you think, for there to be a greater challenge to behavioural science before the advice gets to ministers? In other words, if there was a wider pool of scientists from whom that advice was sought, there might be challenge inside the system which would bring about perhaps a more accurate depiction of what the reality is.

Mr Michael Gove: I think that is fair, but I think it is also politicians who are sometimes at fault. Because we ask our advisers for the facts, and, as I’ve mentioned, sometimes it is – what we’re really asking for is a prediction, and expert advisers can offer their best advice, we seek certainty but it’s often elusive, and it would be better if politicians and decision-makers were to say, “Tell me about the debate, what is the lead option within the academic community here, but what also are the alternatives?”

So most people think that a lockdown would be very difficult, but are there some who argue that the tolerance for it would be greater? Similarly, most people assume that this virus emerged in the wet market, but some suggest it might be a lab leak. Where is the evidence? We need to have a certain degree of tolerance for the fact that we can’t have certainty.

Ms Blackwell: My Lady, I’m about to go on to a new topic. Is that a convenient moment to break?

Lady Hallett: Mr Gove, we take a break for the benefit of the stenographer, but we’ll make sure that you leave this afternoon, we’ll finish your evidence today.

The Witness: Thank you very much, my Lady.

Lady Hallett: Back at 3.10.

(2.57 pm)

(A short break)

(3.10 pm)

Lady Hallett: Ms Blackwell.

Ms Blackwell: Thank you, my Lady.

Mr Gove, I’m asked to revisit one of the questions and answers that took place in the earlier session before the break, and it related to the evidence that you gave that, in your view, there was no proof that the workforce within government being focused or refocused on planning for the possibility of a no-deal EU exit had a detrimental effect on pandemic planning.

I have been asked on behalf of Scottish Covid Bereaved to draw to your attention one aspect of the result of the workforce being diverted that was covered by Mann and Alexander, Bruce Mann and David Alexander, in their expert report, in which they considered the recommendations and actions that had arisen out of Exercises Alice and Cygnus, including the adaptation of plans for and the revisiting of plans for social care, for the workforce capacity, and infrastructure of social care, and the fact that the lack of attention or the diversion of attention away from those recommendations, particularly in relation to adult social care, were a direct result of staff having to concentrate on preparations for a no-deal EU exit.

Do you accept that example as being a concrete example of a detrimental effect in terms of adult social care?

Mr Michael Gove: I’m not sure that I do, because I don’t know what it is that would have been different in the approach that was taken toward adult social care that could have been anticipated beforehand. But of course the way in which the discharge of patients from NHS beds into adult social care was handled is an object of regret and concern, and in particular also the spread of Covid-19 because of the use of agency staff who sometimes worked in more than one care home was a factor as well. So I think it is open to reflection.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you very much.

You are currently Minister for Intergovernmental Relations. What does that mean?

Mr Michael Gove: It means that I act on behalf of the Prime Minister in liaison with the devolved administrations. The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson when he took office, wanted to emphasise the importance of the Union and, as well as being Prime Minister and Minister for the Civil Service, was also Minister for the Union.

Counsel Inquiry: Yes.

Mr Michael Gove: He wanted to have a minister working alongside him when he was liaising with the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive, to take up some of the day-to-day liaison work, and that devolved on to my shoulders.

Counsel Inquiry: What does that liaise work consist of?

Mr Michael Gove: There are two aspects to it. One is there was an overhaul of structures, influenced very much by Andrew Dunlop’s excellent report, which put on a firmer footing the nature of the co-operation conversations that we have.

The second is making sure that when the First Ministers and deputy First Ministers and other ministers –

(Interruption)

Ms Blackwell: I think that’s my voice, unfortunately.

Mr Michael Gove: I’m so sorry, terrible moment.

The – so it involved making sure that when they needed to talk to the UK Government, if the Prime Minister was otherwise engaged that I would always be there, and particularly during Covid I had regular calls with – Zoom calls with representatives from the devolved administrations.

Counsel Inquiry: John Swinney, deputy First Minister from the Scottish Government, has told the Inquiry that at one point in the run-up to Covid, and as the four nations were attempting to do their best to work together, that the relationship between the administrations, particularly in terms of Whitehall and Scotland, were pretty poor. Is that something that you recognise?

Mr Michael Gove: I think it operates on two levels. So quite a lot of the time – the majority of the time, in fact – there was effective co-operation, and I think in the witness statement from the former First Minister she was pretty clear that, even though she has a radically different view of what the future of Scotland should be within the United Kingdom and a radically different view from the UK Government about Brexit, nevertheless on a day-to-day basis there was effective co-operation, and that was my experience.

However, the Scottish Government and those leading it have – because of that divergent political view that I mentioned, they sometimes have an incentive to accentuate the negative in the relationship, because the overall political aim of the SNP is to present the United Kingdom as a dysfunctional state. But to their credit, Scottish Government ministers and Scottish Government officials on a day-to-day basis operate in a collaborative way.

Counsel Inquiry: How often do you, in your role as intergovernmental minister, meet with relevant representatives from the other four nations and does that happen altogether or individually or both?

Mr Michael Gove: Both. The government publishes a quarterly report on the meetings that take place between the United Kingdom Government and ministers in the devolved administrations. There are some government departments that meet more frequently, like DEFRA, because of certain shared interests, others that meet less often, and sometimes the frequency intensifies. During Covid-19 it was very regular.

Counsel Inquiry: Yes. Do you see your role as minister being beneficial to the sharing of plans for pandemics and for other national risks going forwards between the four nations?

Mr Michael Gove: Yes, for everything. Again, it can sometimes be the case that there will be some ministers at UK Government level who will express irritation that the Scottish Government or the Welsh Government might, after a particular meeting, place a political slant on it. I accept that, and it can be an irritation, but ultimately we all benefit from working as closely as possible together, and I believe that although there have been ups and downs in the relationship that it is important to see and talk to colleagues in the devolved administrations as often as possible.

Counsel Inquiry: In the situation that is currently persisting in Northern Ireland, the breakdown of the power-sharing agreement and the lack of ministerial oversight, how do you keep contact with Northern Ireland? Is there somebody in the absence of a minister there with whom you will share your concerns and reflections?

Mr Michael Gove: Yes. So, in the absence of the Executive, it will be the Northern Ireland Civil Service, and the respective leads in the Northern Ireland Civil Service government departments with whom we will interact. Jane Brady, who leads the Northern Ireland Civil Service at the moment, for example came along to the recent British-Irish Council meeting at which the First Minister of Scotland, the First Minister of Wales, the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste, the UK Government and others were represented, and she did very effective job in making sure that Northern Ireland’s interests were represented. But ultimately it’s regrettable that we don’t have ministers there.

Additionally, there is a bigger role to play for the Northern Ireland Office in the absence of an Executive, not direct rule, of course, but certainly a bigger role to play in making sure that the liaison between UK Government and NICS is effective.

Counsel Inquiry: Finally I would like to touch upon the United Kingdom Resilience Framework.

Lady Hallett: Sorry, just before you do, could I ask a question following on –

Ms Blackwell: Yes, of course, my Lady.

Lady Hallett: I don’t know if you heard the evidence, Mr Gove, but Michelle O’Neill talked about how, when she had worked at the Northern Irish equivalent of DEFRA, they had had a Fortress Ireland policy with the Republic of Ireland, and she was talking about how the same kind of thing ought to apply in the course of a pandemic because it’s one epidemiological unit. I can never say that word.

So, question: to what extent, as far as intergovernment relations are concerned, you’re involved with liaising with the devolved administrations but would it be the Foreign Office who would be involved with liaising with the Republic of Ireland?

Mr Michael Gove: It’s a very good point, my Lady, because during the course of Covid-19 I would also have conversations with Simon Coveney and others in the Irish Government, and, for precisely the reasons that you mention, because the island of Ireland is a single epidemiological area, there were questions about people who might arrive in the Republic of Ireland, because they had a slightly different approach towards flights and ferries, who could then obviously, using the Common Travel Area, go to Northern Ireland and then into the rest of the UK.

So we needed to have those conversations. The conversations were generally led by the Foreign Office and by our ambassador in Dublin.

It was also the case that there are very good relations between our Cabinet Secretary, whoever he or she is, and their equivalent in the Irish Government. So it operates on several layers, but the FCDO is the lead department.

Lady Hallett: Thank you.

Ms Blackwell: I was turning to ask you about the United Kingdom Resilience Framework and to seek your views on this: Bruce Mann and Professor David Alexander have told the Inquiry that they don’t think that, in its present form as currently drafted, it fulfils the function of a UK-wide resilience strategy.

The Inquiry has also heard that the Scottish Government has published a hub and spokes model of guidance, and that in Northern Ireland a civil contingencies framework now replaces and consolidates a series of former protocols.

Will the government reflect upon the evidence that the Inquiry has heard and look again at the way in which the Resilience Framework is currently drafted and seek to improve the current state, if indeed those reflections suggest that improvement can be made?

Mr Michael Gove: Absolutely, and I think in my own evidence I reflected on that. It’s important that the devolved responsibilities of the devolved administrations are respected, and we can learn from, and I’m sure the Inquiry has and will learn from, good practice in each of the different parts of the United Kingdom.

But sometimes it is the case that the UK Government needs to think UK-wide, and one of the reasons why Public Health England was reformed and the UKHA was set up was because, quite properly, some pandemic preparedness and indeed some public health advice should always be the province of devolved administrations, but sometimes you do need, particularly in a polycrisis, a UK-wide response that will involve consultation with the devolved administrations but where sometimes you need to take decisions at speed and the UK Government flex there is critical.

Ms Blackwell: Thank you.

My Lady, that concludes the questions that I have.

You have provisionally provided permission for ten minutes of questioning from Covid Bereaved Families for Justice. May that be done, please? I think it’s Mr Weatherby.

Lady Hallett: Mr Weatherby.

Questions From Mr Weatherby KC

Mr Weatherby: Mr Gove, I ask questions on behalf of Covid Bereaved Families for Justice UK, which represents the interests of many families from across the UK, and I’ve got permission just on a discrete area, so not many questions from me, you’ll be pleased to hear, but relating to the interplay between no-deal planning and its effect on the response to Covid.

So I think your position is that there were advantages that were gained from the no-deal planning which – they were unintended, but there were unintended advantages which assisted with the response to the pandemic as it happened.

So, for example, I think it’s your position that the standing up of a whole-system emergency structure was something of a rehearsal which gave people experience; is that fair?

Mr Michael Gove: Yes, it is fair.

Mr Weatherby KC: Now, would you also agree, though, that the planning for no-deal identified a number of systemic weaknesses which were as likely to arise in the event that the UK was affected by another type of civil emergency, and obviously we’re looking at pandemics here, but which hadn’t been previously identified in that sense; would you agree with that proposition?

Mr Michael Gove: Yes, I think that preparation for any significant challenge of that kind will stress test systems and will expose some weaknesses within those systems. Government is a project of continuous improvement, so it is undoubtedly the case that some areas for improvement will have been identified.

Mr Weatherby KC: Yes, they’re pretty big areas, some of them. I just want to advert to a couple of them. Did you hear Mr Hancock’s evidence?

Mr Michael Gove: I heard some of it and read all of it.

Mr Weatherby KC: Okay, that’s helpful. I don’t need to put it on screen, then, but I’ll just read to you a short passage from Mr Hancock.

For the record, Day 10, page 64.

He said this:

“… the work done for a no-deal Brexit on supply chains for medicines was the difference between running out of medicines in the peak of the pandemic and not running out. We came extremely close, within hours, of running out of medicines for intensive care during the pandemic, it wasn’t widely reported at the time, and I think the only reason that we didn’t run out is because of the work that Steve Oldfield and his team did, which they did during 2019, in preparation for a no-deal Brexit, but became extremely useful in saving lives during the pandemic.

“At the point at which the pandemic struck, because of the no-deal Brexit work, we knew more about the pharmaceutical supply chain in the UK than at any time in history, and we had relationships with the pharmaceutical suppliers, and the data to know exactly who had what available and where, and the extent of that information was the difference between running out and not running out of drugs in intensive care in the pandemic.”

Do you agree with that, first of all?

Mr Michael Gove: I don’t disagree with it. It certainly chimes with my recollection, yes.

Mr Weatherby KC: Yes, so a major unintended advantage coming from the no-deal preparation; but the corollary of that is that it highlights that before that the pandemic planning hadn’t identified this key problem?

Mr Michael Gove: Yes, I think that both the preparation for a no-deal Brexit and the pandemic itself reinforced the fact that, not just with medicines but with many other medical goods and items of medical equipment, that the nature of our supply chains in a globalised world – and I know it’s something of a cliché – was such that we were – they were fragile, and we reliant on – as other countries were – the just-in-time delivery –

Mr Weatherby KC: Yes.

Mr Michael Gove: – of commodities from some countries and actors that, at a moment of crisis, would not necessarily be reliable for us.

Mr Weatherby KC: Yes. So without the happenchance of another near miss civil emergency, the no-deal Brexit arising, then we would have gone into the pandemic in a very vulnerable position with respect to vital drugs and, as you follow on, other medical devices?

Mr Michael Gove: Yes, and I think that – I hope it’s not taking things too far, but obviously one of the issues of concern during the pandemic was the availability of PPE –

Mr Weatherby KC: I’m coming on to that, if I may.

Mr Michael Gove: Okay. Please, please.

Mr Weatherby KC: Sorry to cut across you there.

Mr Michael Gove: No, not at all.

Mr Weatherby KC: But, before I do, you mentioned earlier in your evidence food supply.

Mr Michael Gove: Yes.

Mr Weatherby KC: And of course you were at DEFRA.

Mr Michael Gove: Yeah.

Mr Weatherby KC: And the lack of knowledge of food supply chains was something that was identified with DEFRA around 2018 as part of the no-deal preparations. So again, something which may well have turned out to be highly pertinent in a pandemic situation, again something that hadn’t been spotted before the happenchance of the no-deal situation arising?

Mr Michael Gove: I think that is a perfectly legitimate conclusion. I take one step back, which is that overall – and this is a critical question of resilience – overall one of the lessons of the pandemic is that if you are reliant on just-in-time supply chains –

Mr Weatherby KC: Yes.

Mr Michael Gove: – and if you’re reliant on a very integrated network of suppliers, some of whom if they come under stress might fall over –

Mr Weatherby KC: Yes.

Mr Michael Gove: – that has an impact on resilience, and there’s a trade-off between the efficiency that globalisation has brought and the resilience of what might either be called reshoring or friend-shoring.

Mr Weatherby KC: That raises the issue, doesn’t it, that there may well be clear economic advantages of last minute supply chains, but in terms of planning for potentially catastrophic events, we had the nearest of misses, according to Mr Hancock, in terms of medicines, and so that was headed off at the pass, if you like, by the happenchance of no-deal planning.

In terms of food supply chains, again we’ll no doubt look at this later on in another module, but perhaps the same position wasn’t quite so acute in the response with food supply chains, but it might well have been.

But then you raised PPE. So PPE doesn’t really arise with no-deal preparations, so here we have a systemic problem and it’s not spotted by the happenchance of something else and things turn out to be not so great, again because of last minute supply chains?

Mr Michael Gove: Yes, I think that’s true, and I think it was true for most western democracies. PPE was, in many cases sourced, either from countries in the Middle East or the Far East, not all of whom are necessarily reliable democratic partners. And it was the case, I think, that, for example, in Germany doctors protested outside the Bundestag because of the lack of PPE, and there was a strain here.

So I think again, to be fair to Matt Hancock and his team, as part of pandemic flu preparedness there were PPE stockpiles.

Mr Weatherby KC: Yes. We’re going to deal with that later, but my point here is in terms of supply chains –

Mr Michael Gove: Yeah.

Mr Weatherby KC: – and the fact that fortuitously in some areas another near miss problem –

Mr Michael Gove: Yes.

Mr Weatherby KC: – led to them being averted with Covid, but in other areas it didn’t, because it didn’t arise.

Mr Michael Gove: I think that’s –

Mr Weatherby KC: That’s right, isn’t it?

Mr Michael Gove: I think that’s a legitimate point, yes.

Mr Weatherby KC: Okay.

Just finally, in terms of looking back at the Brexit readiness, there was a report in December 2019 from the Brexit Readiness Unit of the Cabinet secretariat. I think you’ll be familiar with that report, so I probably don’t need to go to it, but I can if we need to.

Now, just for the record, it’s INQ000149081, and at paragraphs 5 and 6 it highlights that there were a variety of issues regarding borders and in paragraph 6 what were termed regional sector support. So the –

Mr Michael Gove: Oh yes.

Mr Weatherby KC: – there were challenges of the flow of people and goods, security, trade, problems related to strategy, policy, planning, contingency and operational management; and reference was made to political direction and accountability, and a confusion of co-ordination roles and the inefficient use of data, all relating to borders.

I stress that this was related to the Brexit preparedness or the no-deal preparedness, but the issue of borders is again something that needed to be planned for for pandemics, so some of those issues may well have overlapped with pandemics as well, and again these are issues that are only arising through no-deal; is that right?

Mr Michael Gove: Yes. I think that there would have been some people in government who would have been aware of them, but – again if it’s helpful – the barriers to data sharing referred to I think is a reference to the fact that HMRC was not able, for understandable reasons, to share commercial data with other government departments because of the obligation of confidentiality it has to the commercial actors with whom it deals. I found that frustrating, but I can understand why it’s a policy factor.

More broadly, one of the issues is there was no single government department in the lead for border issues, so when it came to the sanitary and phytosanitary checks that food required, then DEFRA was in the lead.

Mr Weatherby KC: Yes.

Mr Michael Gove: When it came to intelligence-led checks on migration and whether or not there were individual bad actors who might pose a threat to the country, obviously the Home Office –

Mr Weatherby KC: Yes.

Mr Michael Gove: – was in the lead.

Mr Weatherby KC: Yes.

Mr Michael Gove: Again, the point that I would make is that of course when you have the sort of challenge that no-deal planning required, you can often find that there are parts of government or parts of the operation of government that can be strengthened and were, but it is never the case that any government can anticipate all of the –

Mr Weatherby KC: Yes.

Mr Michael Gove: – weaknesses within its operation.

Mr Weatherby KC: The point being, the conclusion at paragraph 5 is that “These must be resolved quickly” and here we are in December of 2019, just about on the cusp of Covid occurring.

Mr Michael Gove: Yes.

Mr Weatherby KC: No doubt some of these wouldn’t be related to the pandemic, but some of these issues would overlap with it, and yet here again there’s a systemic failing, isn’t there, to recognise in planning for pandemics that there are issues that need to be looked at at borders?

I mean, borders are an obvious point with pandemics, because you may need to control the flow of people through them or to screen people or to quarantine people.

So again, a systemic weaknesses in the pandemic planning; yes?

Mr Michael Gove: Yeah, well, I’d put it slightly differently, which is that: no matter how much thought might have been given to some of the lessons learned from no-deal planning, there was a broader question as well – which the Health Secretary alluded to – which is that our approach towards pandemic flu planning was that, and that of many other countries, was that it was almost impossible to so control our borders as to prevent the disease spreading, it was about the mitigation of the disease once it was here.

Mr Weatherby KC: Yes. Okay. With respect, that’s a slightly different point.

Mr Michael Gove: Indeed.

Mr Weatherby KC: As it turned out, we know that the control of borders or issues relating to borders were relevant.

Mr Michael Gove: Oh, they absolutely were.

Mr Weatherby KC: Yes –

Mr Michael Gove: But I think –

Mr Weatherby KC: – so a failure?

Mr Michael Gove: But I think for the Inquiry – again, it’s not for me to say, but I do think that for the Inquiry one of the interesting questions – and again I think Matt Hancock mentioned this – is, you know, he outlined what one might call the Hancock doctrine, which is that rather than simply dealing with the consequences of a pandemic one should seek to prevent it arriving in the first place.

Mr Weatherby KC: Yes.

Mr Michael Gove: And I think that that is a lively debate and I have a lot of sympathy with the position he put forward.

Mr Weatherby KC: Yes. And if that’s the way forward, then getting the border situation and the co-ordination of people and all the matters I’ve just been through –

Mr Michael Gove: Completely.

Mr Weatherby KC: – is absolutely key and –

Mr Michael Gove: Completely.

Mr Weatherby KC: – therefore was a systemic failure at the time?

Mr Michael Gove: Well, it was – there are live counterexamples of countries that closed their borders, New Zealand being the most prominent, and again I’m sure the Inquiry will want to look at what the strengths and weaknesses of that approach were –

Mr Weatherby KC: Yes.

Mr Michael Gove: – because again, lockdown and border closure inevitably impose economic and social costs –

Mr Weatherby KC: Okay.

Mr Michael Gove: – even as they can be very powerful tools in preventing or slowing the spread of a disease.

Mr Weatherby KC: Yes. So having the option was essential?

Mr Michael Gove: (Witness nods)

Mr Weatherby KC: Now, finally what was referred to in this report as regional and sector support –

Mr Michael Gove: Yes.

Mr Weatherby KC: – which is aka business and economic support.

Mr Michael Gove: Yes.

Mr Weatherby KC: The same point arises here, doesn’t it, that here were issues spotted with respect to no-deal, a whole-system civil emergency, where there was a realisation – certainly in the no-deal planning, and here in the report at just before the Covid strikes – that with such a whole-system civil emergency there may well be a need for proper economic support, both to businesses and furlough and other stuff, and again a systemic failure to look at that at all in terms of pandemic planning. Yes?

Mr Michael Gove: I don’t think there was a failure at all. I think the point that was made here was, again, there was a tension between the Treasury, which wanted to make sure that it was aware of what the differential impact on certain sectors might be of a no-deal Brexit – certain sectors would have been more exposed, others much more resilient – and the individual government departments that hoped that they might be able to appeal to the Treasury for support for their particular sector, whatever it might be.

Mr Weatherby KC: Yes.

Mr Michael Gove: But if we look at the pandemic –

Mr Weatherby KC: Yes.

Mr Michael Gove: – I think one of the things that was striking is the speed with which the Treasury –

Mr Weatherby KC: Okay.

Mr Michael Gove: – was able to provide support and, as George Osborne pointed out in his evidence, that was a consequence of two things: one, the relative fiscal strength that the –

Mr Weatherby KC: Okay, well –

Mr Michael Gove: – government had as a result of the decisions he took.

Mr Weatherby KC: All right. I think, with respect, you’re moving on to what actually happened in the response –

Mr Michael Gove: Sure.

Mr Weatherby KC: – and no doubt the Inquiry will come back to that, and no doubt it will be arguable about the position that –

Mr Michael Gove: Of course.

Mr Weatherby KC: – Mr Osborne adverted to.

But here what I’m focusing on is that here’s an identification that there isn’t – there hasn’t been the thinking put into how you stand up quickly business and economic support more generally; and it’s a systemic failure, isn’t it, in respect of pandemic planning that that hadn’t been thought of at all?

Mr Michael Gove: I’m not sure that’s the case, and I think that one would have to look at what the Treasury had prepared in the event of requiring rapid economic support for certain sectors, because the Treasury as a department tends to play its cards very close –

Mr Weatherby KC: Okay.

Mr Michael Gove: – to its chest.

Mr Weatherby: All right. No doubt we’ll do that. Thank you very much.

The Witness: Thank you.

Ms Blackwell: My Lady, that completes Mr Gove’s evidence and indeed the evidence for today.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much indeed for your help, Mr Gove, and you are now free to go, really grateful to you.

The Witness: Thank you very much, my Lady, thank you.

(The witness withdrew)

Lady Hallett: We shall resume at 10.30 on Monday for the final evidence and closing submissions in this module.

Ms Blackwell: Thank you, my Lady.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much.

(3.43 pm)

(The hearing adjourned until 10.30 am on Monday, 17 July 2023)