2. Mr Imran Shafi
MR IMRAN SHAFI (affirmed).
Questions From Lead Counsel to the Inquiry
Mr Keith: Could you give the Inquiry, please, your full name.
Mr Imran Shafi: Imran Faisal Shafi.
Lead Inquiry: Mr Shafi, you have been good enough to provide a statement at INQ000215035, which you signed as being true on 13 June 2023. I hesitate because I can’t see page 38, but I think we can see the date on the top right-hand corner – there we are, 19 June 2023. So thank you for your assistance in providing that statement.
You were the private secretary to the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, for public services; is that correct?
Mr Imran Shafi: That is correct.
Lead Inquiry: And you were so from March 2018, from which we deduce that you must have been a private secretary before Mr Johnson became Prime Minister, to March of 2021, so approximately a year after the pandemic started?
Mr Imran Shafi: That’s correct.
Lead Inquiry: I think before that you had been a management consultant at McKinsey, and you had also worked for some time in the Treasury as a policy adviser?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: We’ve just been hearing evidence about the role of private secretaries, and it may be that you’ve seen the evidence from Martin Reynolds, Mr Shafi, whilst you were waiting. You were responsible as a private secretary for a particular portfolio. What portfolio was that?
Mr Imran Shafi: It changed during my time at Number 10. When the pandemic started my portfolio was everything to do with the Department of Health, everything to do with the Department for Education, everything –
Lead Inquiry: I’m going to ask you just to go a bit slower, please.
Mr Imran Shafi: Sorry. Everything to do with the Department of Health.
Lead Inquiry: Yes.
Mr Imran Shafi: The Department for Education, the Department for Work and Pensions, and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
Lead Inquiry: In that role, was it part of your functions to deal with the Prime Minister?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: Submit written advice?
Mr Imran Shafi: On behalf of others, yes.
Lead Inquiry: Relay his comments or decisions to others for action?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: Arrange and attend meetings with him?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: It’s apparent from the material that much of the heavy lifting is done in advance of meetings with the Prime Minister?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: Conclusions are drafted, information is conveyed, the general steer or course of what is to be decided is laid out for him or her to decide what need to be done?
Mr Imran Shafi: That’s often the case, yes.
Lead Inquiry: That’s not?
Mr Imran Shafi: That’s often the case, yes.
Lead Inquiry: Often the case?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: How well did the system of private secretaries work, in your opinion, in terms of putting the right information in front of the Prime Minister, providing for clear lines of accountability, and for providing that the best decisions were reached on the information available?
Mr Imran Shafi: I think overall, broadly, well. There are obviously through the pandemic many times where the whole system was under huge stress, but in general I think the system works.
Lead Inquiry: To what extent was Mr Reynolds concerned in the substantive issues in relation to your portfolio areas, so public services, health, education and so on?
Mr Imran Shafi: In normal times, very little, because a lot of the areas that I worked on had quite a strong public spending angle, and so rather than Martin Reynolds being the – sort of my supervisor on that, Stuart Glassborow, who was the deputy principal private secretary, who was more connected to the Treasury, was closer to the work that I was doing.
Lead Inquiry: And in abnormal times?
Mr Imran Shafi: In the early periods of Covid, you’ve heard from Martin about the role that he played in the early days.
Lead Inquiry: Was he engaged, perhaps to a lesser extent but engaged nevertheless, in the substantive debate that was going on about Covid and commenced, as far as the private secretaries appeared to be concerned, late January onwards?
Mr Imran Shafi: I think so.
Lead Inquiry: You must recall so?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes. Yes. But “substantively” sort of stretches in terms of how –
Lead Inquiry: All right.
Mr Imran Shafi: – how far that goes.
Lead Inquiry: My Lady, the Cabinet Office disclosed to us very late on Friday or at the end of last week a WhatsApp group thread between Mr Case, Simon Case, and Mr Shafi, and because of the shortness of time we’ve not been able to disclose that document to the core participants or indeed, I think, the witness. I’m therefore going to read out the relevant part.
On 13 September 2000(sic), so the same year, at 12.30, Simon Case WhatsApped you to say:
“This is all a bit of a farce to be honest. I’m not sure why we don’t just operate a normal private office system which involved the lead private secretary engaging the boss on an issue on behalf of everyone.”
So in light of that WhatsApp, were there times in the course of the first year of the pandemic where the system of information coming up to the boss, the Prime Minister, from the private secretary did not work terribly well?
Mr Imran Shafi: So I’ve just had a chance to look at that exchange this morning. I think that is a reference to some questions that the Prime Minister was asking, and the Prime Minister put those questions on a WhatsApp group with a certain number of individuals – I wasn’t on that group – with individuals. I think – although you’d need to check with the Cabinet Secretary what his meaning was, but I think his meaning is: I wish that the Prime Minister was asking the lead person the question rather than this other group.
Lead Inquiry: But it’s the Cabinet Secretary who describes the private secretary system as all a bit of a farce: Why don’t we have a normal private office system?
So –
Mr Imran Shafi: Again, I don’t have the exchange in front of me –
Lead Inquiry: All right.
Mr Imran Shafi: – but I think what he’s describing as a farce is the way questions are being asked.
Lead Inquiry: In the same WhatsApp group, in July, so two months before, at 11.03 on 31 July, on a related issue Simon Case says:
“These No 10 WhatsApp groups make everyone get more wound up, not less.”
And you reply “Yes”.
I want to ask you, therefore, what do you make – what did you make of the fact that there were so many communications being made by WhatsApp?
Mr Imran Shafi: I think given the need to move at speed with a lot of people working from home, it played an important role in having quick communication. Again, I’ve only just had the chance to review that thread. I think, again, the point there is there were lots and lots of people making comments about policy who might not necessarily have been that close to the policy making, but were part of the wider Number 10 machine, and who were raising questions about the approach. And I think, again, you’d need to check with the Cabinet Secretary what his meaning was, but if I was going to guess it would be: we don’t want to keep on opening up debates once we’ve closed them down.
Lead Inquiry: Would you agree that there are very real problems with any kind of use of WhatsApp for the purposes of governance?
Mr Imran Shafi: I think there are long-term lessons to be learnt about how we use electronic messaging, yes.
Lead Inquiry: There are issues concerning transparency, of course?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: Things are said in the heat of the moment which may simply not be true or accurate or reflect the course of the debate?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes, in the same way that people might have comments in normal times outside of meetings which aren’t recorded.
Lead Inquiry: But they’re a good indication, are they not, of the state of mind perhaps of the interlocutor?
Mr Imran Shafi: They can be.
Lead Inquiry: Were there quite complicated management lines in Number 10? So you’ve got, obviously, the Cabinet Secretary, you’ve got the civil service structure, you’ve got the advisers, you’ve got private secretaries, the principal private secretary, it seems to have made for quite a complex system of advice giving to the Prime Minister; would you agree?
Mr Imran Shafi: It is not a completely hierarchical organisation in the way that other organisations might be. So, for instance, in the army, you know, everybody reports up to one person –
Lead Inquiry: Mr Shafi, you must go slower.
Mr Imran Shafi: Sorry.
Lead Inquiry: So in the army, everyone reports up?
Mr Imran Shafi: You said there might be more clear hierarchy in other organisations. In Number 10, because there is a mix of political staff and civil service staff, the hierarchy isn’t always as clear.
Lead Inquiry: Perhaps it’s the nature of the field, high politics, high governance, the material may suggest that there were a number of competing power sources in Downing Street, personality clashes, and we can see, and you’re aware of it, from Helen MacNamara and Martin Reynolds’ report, a high degree of dysfunctionality in terms of dealing with the Prime Minister; would you agree?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: None of that lent itself well to the best sort of decision-making, did it?
Mr Imran Shafi: No.
Lead Inquiry: When in late January and February Downing Street generally first became aware of the problem of the repatriation of UK nationals from China and the emergence of the virus, what was the general response on the part of the Prime Minister? Was it a big deal? Was it something to be watched out for? Was it to be dismissed like swine flu? What was the position?
Mr Imran Shafi: I don’t think he thought it was a big deal at that time. He had a briefing with the Chief Medical Officer on 4 February, I believe, where some of the potential implications were set out. So I would characterise it as something to keep an eye out on, but also he clearly and repeatedly stressed the need to avoid overreaction, which appears through various meetings in that time.
Lead Inquiry: So there was an email string on 29 January – INQ000146557 – and we’ll start with page 1.
We can see from the top of the page that Sir Patrick Vallance emails Number 10 with minutes of a SAGE meeting which had taken place on 28 January in relation to which Sir Chris Whitty had prepared a summary; is that correct?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: At the bottom of the page we can see that summary where Sir Chris is addressing a member of Downing Street, William Warr. Is a he private secretary?
Mr Imran Shafi: He was a special adviser.
Lead Inquiry: “Dear Will
“Sorry for the delay I have been back to back. I am ccing Patrick Vallance, and some of the key people here so they are aware of what I’ve sent. This is written informally for you … but can be turned into a more formal note for Ministers …”
So he is telling Downing Street what his take is on the SAGE meeting.
“We are working on 4 scenarios, but in practice only 2 are probably worth considering for planning at this point.”
Number 1 is:
“China has a major outbreak but brings it under control … cases [are] seeded …”
That is to say there are infections in small numbers to other countries. But it doesn’t take off.
“The other …”
At 2, at the bottom of the page:
“… is the opposite end of the risk scale and is our reasonable worst case scenario for which plans are also being developed. With R [reproduction rate] of 2-3 …”
So one person infects two to three people in an unimmunised population:
“… mortality of maybe 2% … a doubling time of … maybe 3-5 days and an incubation period of mean 5 [days] this could within the next few weeks become widespread and turn into a significant pandemic relatively quickly.”
Then he addresses who would be most affected: older people or those with pre-existing health conditions. And essentially he says to Number 10 there is, to use his wonderful words:
“… a difficult dichotomous decision in that the economic consequences of overcalling can be substantial, but the mortality and social consequences of under-calling are even more substantial.”
I want to ask you, therefore, what did your team, you’re responsible for this portfolio area as a private secretary, and the Prime Minister make of this warning? Was it something that caused you to think a great deal more carefully about whether or not the reasonable worst-case scenario might ensue or did you take from this that there was a risk in overreaction? Was it something that wasn’t going to go away and you absolutely had to be on top of this to make sure that you knew what might happen? What was the response generally in Number 10?
Mr Imran Shafi: I think I read this as a very serious email and something that required due attention. That’s part of the reason why we got the Chief Medical Officer to brief the Prime Minister on this issue a few days later.
Lead Inquiry: There was a note put into his prime ministerial box, was there not, on 30 January, INQ000136737.
“Prime Minister,
“A brief update on coronavirus and evacuations of British nationals and dependents from Hubei.”
You say – or rather it is said at the bottom:
“A COBR ministerial meeting chaired by Matt Hancock will take place tomorrow.”
The material around this time, Mr Shafi, appears to focus on the evacuation, the repatriation of UK nationals, as opposed to addressing in detail the likelihood of the risk that the virus would spread to the United Kingdom in an uncontrolled way.
Why was that focus on repatriation?
Mr Imran Shafi: It’s a good question. I think, erm – firstly, I think the meeting with the Prime Minister on 4 February does talk about a potential chance of the reasonable worst-case scenario. I think it’s about 10% the CMO said.
Lead Inquiry: Yes.
Mr Imran Shafi: But I think you’re right that a lot of the focus at the centre was, “How do we make sure that this doesn’t come to the UK” or “We can contain it”, rather than getting into the difficult measures that you might have to take should you fail to contain.
Lead Inquiry: INQ000136733 is that update from the Civil Contingencies Secretariat on 3 February, where a situation update is given on the outbreak of novel coronavirus, Wuhan novel coronavirus, how many tests have been concluded, how many tests are positive, and so on and so forth.
Then, over the page, British nationals in China, communications, and then this: cross-government meetings, clear references to a SAGE meeting, the fact of a CCS cross-government meeting, further ad hoc cross-government officials’ meetings, CCS chairing a cross-government meeting, and then a COBR for ministers on 5 February.
So it looks as if, Mr Shafi, when the warning was received, a lot was done in terms of setting up the meetings, the structures, the debate; would you agree?
Mr Imran Shafi: How do you mean by the debate?
Lead Inquiry: The novel coronavirus, it’s apparent that it’s in China, it’s beginning to leak (there have been cases outside China), and because of the information that’s been received in the heart of the UK Government, these SAGE meetings, CCS meetings, COBR meetings are all beginning to be held; is that a fair summary?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: On 4 February, there was a DHSC departmental meeting, INQ000146558, and this letter from Downing Street to, I think, a private secretary in the DHSC, said:
“The Prime Minister met your Secretary of State … colleagues from the centre for his first DHSC Departmental Performance meeting …
“We began with a short update on coronavirus … the Prime Minister stressed the need to continue to explain our stance to maintain public confidence …”
Then there is a debate about travel restrictions, and then the letter goes on to deal with objectives for the NHS.
To what extent had the coronavirus issue made its way to the centre of government concern or government action in the first week in February?
Mr Imran Shafi: It had, but probably not to the extent that it ought to have had. So –
Lead Inquiry: Just pause there. Why not to the extent that it ought to have done?
Mr Imran Shafi: So I think this meeting is a good example of that. So it was a meeting with the Health Secretary and the Prime Minister. It had reached Number 10 because the first part of that meeting was focused on coronavirus, but then the rest of the meeting, the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary wanted to discuss progress on building 40 hospitals or recruiting 50,000 nurses or the other manifesto commitments that were very important to the government.
Lead Inquiry: To what extent should Number 10 have stepped in and said to the DHSC, “Forget the NHS and long-term objectives, we want to know what you’re doing about coronavirus”, as opposed to the DHSC saying to Number 10, “Forget talking about NHS objectives, we’ve got a serious problem here relating to coronavirus”?
Mr Imran Shafi: I don’t think we’re the experts on that, so we need to be guided by the department to tell us what the important issues are.
Lead Inquiry: There were – it’s obvious that coronavirus as an issue was put before the Prime Minister repeatedly in February.
We can have perhaps INQ000136739, which is an extract from his diary for, if we can go forward, 14 February – no, I think I’ve got the wrong reference. Friday 14 February, there is between 10.00 and 10.45, or there should be, an entry for a coronavirus meeting.
The matter was discussed repeatedly in COBR meetings, was it not?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: So there are a series of COBR meetings chaired by Mr Hancock MP beginning on 24 February(sic) and a further four meetings, 29 January, 5 February, 18 February and 26 February; is that correct?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: The first one on 24 January is at INQ00056214. Page 1 shows us who was present. Page 2 shows us that from Number 10 you attended, the bottom right-hand corner.
Page 3, at paragraph 2 – it will be over one more page I think then – information is given in paragraph 2 about the number of confirmed cases, confirmed deaths:
“… the true number was likely higher with modelling indicating between 1,000 and 10,000 cases. There was no clear evidence of sustained transmission … outside of Wuhan.”
What did Number 10 make of the fact that the CMO had reported there was no clear evidence of sustained transmission as opposed to saying there was no sustained transmission?
Mr Imran Shafi: I don’t think we appreciated that nuance at the time. And I think throughout February there wasn’t a clear call on whether there was sustained community transmission in the UK, for instance.
Lead Inquiry: Was Number 10 aware of this issue, of course, and the need to ensure that they understood whether there was sustained transmission?
Mr Imran Shafi: I think, yes, we were – we knew that at the point at which in the UK we could evidence sustained community transmission it was very likely that contain approaches would fail.
Lead Inquiry: And you began to understand that there was sustained transmission and that control would likely fail during the course of middle to late February?
Mr Imran Shafi: I think more late than middle.
Lead Inquiry: But well before, of course, the change of strategy on 13 March, about which of course – to which we’ll come.
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: It was understood, wasn’t it, that there was sustained transmission and that if the virus got a grip, got a hold in the United Kingdom, there was no effective means of controlling it thereafter?
Mr Imran Shafi: There were means to mitigate, and the plan through late February and early March was to mitigate the epidemic rather than suppress.
Lead Inquiry: But that wasn’t the question. Was it understood that there was no means of controlling the virus, stopping it from spreading throughout the community?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes, yes, I think that’s right.
Lead Inquiry: All right.
That was, you say, mid, more late –
Mr Imran Shafi: I think more late rather than mid.
Lead Inquiry: All right. On 29 January, COBR – INQ000056226 – you weren’t, I think, an attendee at this COBR. If we go to the second page, a person whose name has been redacted attended on behalf of Number 10.
If you go to page 3, we can see a number of chief medical officers dialled in. If we go to page 5, the CMO and the CSA updated the meeting. Paragraph 3:
“… UK planning assumptions were based on the reasonable worst case scenario. There were two scenarios to be considered.”
The second one, which was that there would be a pandemic, was “plausible but it may take weeks to months”.
It obviously didn’t take months. When did you begin to realise that it would be sooner than had been foretold at that 29 January meeting of COBR?
Mr Imran Shafi: I think the outbreak in Italy was a big wake-up call to everybody.
Lead Inquiry: So the last week of February?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: 21 February?
Mr Imran Shafi: Around then, 21st/22nd.
Lead Inquiry: On 5 February, another COBR took place.
INQ000056215.
If we go to page 2, we can see the official attendees. For Number 10, you attended, along with Sir Ed Lister, as he then was; correct?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: Page 3, we can see the CMOs attended.
Page 5, “Current Situation Update”. More information about incubation period, latent period. Paragraph 3, the Minister of State of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office gives an update.
4, the permanent secretary for the Department of Health and Social Care, Sir Christopher Wormald, talks about arrangements for isolation.
If you could scroll back out, please. Thank you.
Then at 6:
“The Chair invited the CMO to summarise the latest scientific advice on limiting the transmission of the novel coronavirus into the UK. The CMO said that the latest advice from … (SAGE) estimated that if the UK reduced imported infections by 50 per cent, it was expected that the onset of any epidemic in the UK would be delayed by about five days; if this was increased to 75 per cent it would be delayed by ten days; to 90 per cent 15 days and 95 per cent plus delayed for potentially a month.”
Number 10 understood, therefore, from 5 February that restrictions on borders would have to be very, very stringent indeed in order to be able to delay the spread of the virus, and even then it would only buy a limited amount of time?
Mr Imran Shafi: Correct.
Lead Inquiry: Number 10 also understood from as early as 5 February that once the virus breached our borders and couldn’t be controlled by a sophisticated test and trace system, it would then be rampant in the community?
Mr Imran Shafi: No, I think there’s a difference between breaching the borders and sustained community transmission. So you could have people visiting from Wuhan or their families having infections in the UK; I think that’s different from sustained person-to-person transmission in the UK.
Lead Inquiry: So what did you find out when you asked: well, how many cases of inbound travellers can we manage and check, trace, contact, to make sure that it doesn’t get a hold in the community?
Mr Imran Shafi: Erm, I don’t recall that specific discussion.
Lead Inquiry: You were told, were you not, in late February that Public Health England could only manage five coronavirus cases a week with all the contacts that those five cases would give rise to?
Mr Imran Shafi: Could well have been, yes.
Lead Inquiry: So what was your reaction when you realised that you couldn’t stop the virus coming in for any length of time, and there were very, very distinct limits on the amount of index cases that could be tested, traced, contacted, isolated?
Mr Imran Shafi: I think, from late February, increasing concern as to how the UK would manage this pandemic.
Lead Inquiry: What was the solution?
Mr Imran Shafi: I’m not the expert on the solution, but I sought to press the system to provide updates and proposals to the Prime Minister on what they thought the system – what they thought the solution ought to be.
Lead Inquiry: On 18 February, COBR sat again.
INQ000056227.
Page 1, we can see 18 February, and the ministerial attendees.
Page 2, from Number 10, Ed Lister, again.
Then over the page, page 3, CMOs.
Page 5, paragraph 2:
“… the CMO updated on the global risk … the risk to Japan was primarily from domestic transmission. Both escalation to a global pandemic, and the isolation of the majority of cases to China remained realistic possibilities.”
Then if you could scroll back out, please, I think over the page, there are references to planning for legislation:
“The CHAIR said that any Bill would only be employed in a Reasonable Worst Case Scenario …”
Then over the page, “Planning for a Reasonable Worst Case Scenario (RWCS) - next phase”: “The DIRECTOR OF THE CIVIL CONTINGENCIES SECRETARIAT [Katharine Hammond] said that there was work to be done to create a clear plan of activity (across the UK Government) from the moment of sustained transmission to its estimated peak, which was likely to be a period of three months. That a detailed agenda of decisions and actions required over a period of twelve weeks was required.”
Presumably this COBR was reported back to you as being the private secretary in charge of this portfolio in Downing Street?
Mr Imran Shafi: There were two private secretaries working on the issue, so I think the redacted name is the other private secretary, but yes, we probably would have discussed –
Lead Inquiry: [name redacted]
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: Right.
Did you therefore understand from this minute and the director of the Civil Contingencies Secretariat that, as at 18 February, work had yet to be done to create a clear plan of activity? Whatever that means.
Mr Imran Shafi: It’s a fair reading of the minute, I think. Well, I mean, you’d have to ask the person who actually said the comment, but I suspect what they meant was some work had been done and a lot more work was yet to do.
Lead Inquiry: Mr Cummings, the Inquiry is aware, called for plans to be provided to Downing Street.
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: You’re aware of that?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: In fact, he made repeated requests. It became apparent, didn’t it, that there was no clear plan setting out how the government might respond to a viral pandemic with these characteristics?
Mr Imran Shafi: I agree with that. I think there are two parts to it. There’s the strategic plan of: is this something that we can mitigate whilst protecting the NHS or do we need to suppress? And then there’s the question of operational plans, of do we have enough PPE, do we have enough ventilators, what’s – how are we doing hospital discharge?
So I think on both of those areas the plans could have been more detailed. But – so saying there is a single plan, there are lots of facets to that, I think.
Lead Inquiry: All right.
Let’s have a look at the strategy first. In your statement, you say that the initial approach, the broad approach, envisaged what is called or what was called a one-peak strategy?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: So that we can understand what was meant by this, is this the position: viruses go in waves, and the danger of suppressing a first wave, pushing it down so that the reproduction rate is lower than 1, so as to stop exponential growth, is that it recoils back up as soon as the suppression has lifted; correct?
Mr Imran Shafi: Correct.
Lead Inquiry: When it does so, because you’ve suppressed the first wave, the virus hasn’t been allowed to spread widely, so people haven’t become infected by and large and therefore they haven’t got immunity?
Mr Imran Shafi: Correct.
Lead Inquiry: So the thinking was this: if the first wave is just reduced rather than suppressed, so mitigated, then because the overall size of the first wave of the epidemic is reduced, fewer people will become ill or die?
Mr Imran Shafi: Correct – or at any given point in time.
Lead Inquiry: A byproduct of that approach, the mitigation approach, is because you’re not suppressing the wave completely, large numbers of the population will become infected?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: Is that what herd immunity was thought to mean?
Mr Imran Shafi: I would add a final point to that, which – yes to all of that, and then a final point, which is: at a certain proportion of the population – and I’m not an epidemiologist, so this is just my understanding – at a certain point of the population being infected there are not enough new people for the virus to infect, and that’s sort of the technical herd immunity –
Lead Inquiry: Yes. Herd immunity can either take place when the population is sufficiently vaccinated –
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: – or it’s become sufficiently infected that the virus has got nowhere else to go in terms of infecting new people?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: Correct.
So, and obviously there is an issue about herd immunity, because herd immunity denotes that large numbers of people may still become infected and may die; correct?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes, in a one-peak strategy, many people will die.
Lead Inquiry: And the healthcare system may still be overrun?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: And some people may not be immune or get immunity, may be reinfected.
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes, we didn’t know what the longevity of immunity was at that point.
Lead Inquiry: Right.
There are other issues, aren’t there, about how effective it is, or how possible it is to hermetically seal parts of the population anyway whilst you allow the virus to continue its approach through the rest?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yeah.
Lead Inquiry: Why, Mr Shafi, did the government, so Number 10, the Cabinet Office, SAGE, SPI-M, spend so much time worrying about the strategic issue: shall we suppress and risk a spring back, an uncoiling of the spring, or shall we mitigate? As opposed to asking itself the question: whichever way you cut it, the loss of life and illness is going to be massive and we must take steps to deal with that?
Mr Imran Shafi: So I don’t think there was a proper discussion in February about suppress or mitigate. I think the system, Number 10 included, defaulted into accepting that the pandemic flu pan approach, which is more of a mitigate approach rather than a suppress approach, was the right way forward. In hindsight there should have been advice with different options presented to ministers on: you can go this way and the costs and benefits are as such, and you can go this way, the costs and benefits are as such.
And even at a point where lots of things were uncertain, I think, given that some other countries took an alternative approach, I think it’s a reasonable question to ask why we didn’t frame the choice in that way to ministers.
Lead Inquiry: In essence, give them practical options: this is the problem, we are going to be overrun, what can be done to control it or to regain control or to deal with the death and illness? As opposed to this doctrinal or strategic debate?
Mr Imran Shafi: So I don’t think there was a strategic debate.
Lead Inquiry: There are many, many emails, WhatsApps, from the Prime Minister saying, “Have we won the argument on herd immunity? Is it suppression or mitigation? Reports” –
Mr Imran Shafi: But that’s in the middle of March. So what I’m saying is I don’t think there was that strategic debate in February.
Lead Inquiry: My mistake. There was a debate in March, it just wasn’t in February?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: Why, when the virus, it was plain, had already come to these shores at the beginning of March, was time spent on this doctrinal or strategic debate, which of course culminates in a realisation on 13 March, “We’re doomed”?
Mr Imran Shafi: I think large parts of the system thought there was no alternative to the current plan in the first week of March.
Lead Inquiry: No alternative to …?
Mr Imran Shafi: The current plan, the plan to mitigate.
Lead Inquiry: Was time spent debating reasonable worst-case scenario, mitigation, supression, herd immunity, behavioural fatigue? Because governments like plans, they want to be able to say “This is our plan, this is our strategy, this is what we’re doing”.
Mr Imran Shafi: Erm … I think people genuinely thought in the system as a whole, the Department of Health and the Cabinet Office, in the first week of March, that the plan as published on 3 March was the correct approach.
Lead Inquiry: Is that the action plan –
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: – contain, delay –
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: Do you accept that, as it happened, control had already been lost by 3 March?
Mr Imran Shafi: When you look at the facts now, yes.
Lead Inquiry: Yes. But that was just an action plan, although described by some of your colleagues as a communication paper, which said, “This is what we’ll do, we’ll control it and then if we can’t control it we’ll delay it, and if we can’t delay it we’ll mitigate the consequences”?
Why was this debate about mitigation or suppression still going on?
Mr Imran Shafi: Because delay means mitigate, and so the plan as set out on the 3rd is a mitigation plan, and everything in the language is about delaying the peak. Suppression brings forward and curtails the peak. So the approach was very much the delay approach until it was shifted.
Lead Inquiry: Let me put it bluntly to you: a great deal of time and energy appears to have been devoted to drawing up the action plan, talking about delay and mitigation and suppression and, in the event, behavioural fatigue and herd immunity, whilst all the time it was known that the infection fatality rate was 1%, the hospitalisation rate was 6%, and you knew there was no means of controlling the virus’s entry into the United Kingdom. Why was the focus not on that stark reality, rather than debating the whys and wherefores of herd immunity?
Mr Imran Shafi: I think that’s a very good question, and I think it’s one to put to the senior experts on the pandemic.
I think one of the things that we were missing in the early parts of March was just even a simple, “Here is the path of the infection and here is NHS capacity”, and putting those two lines together. Now, you could say you should have been able to just work that out with a pen and paper, and when you reflect back you probably should have.
Lead Inquiry: You didn’t need models to know –
Mr Imran Shafi: Exactly.
Lead Inquiry: – that the NHS would be overrun.
Mr Imran Shafi: But it was only once we started to see just how stark the gap was between the likely path of the pandemic, even with mitigation, and how many beds were available, that I think it became clear to people in Number 10, including me, just how unprotected the NHS would be and just how many people would die under a mitigation approach.
Lead Inquiry: As at that COBR on 18 February, the COBR we’ve just looked at, there is a debate about a draft Bill, a corona –
Lady Hallett: Are you moving on to a different topic?
Mr Keith: Yes, my Lady, by all means.
Lady Hallett: Sorry, we have to break.
For those who were planning to attend or listen in or watch for Lee Cain, I think we’ve decided we can’t reach him today, sadly.
Mr Keith: My Lady, yes.
Lady Hallett: Very well.
Just so everyone knows, Mr Cain will be called tomorrow?
Mr Keith: Tomorrow morning.
Lady Hallett: Thank you.
Sorry about this, we have to take a break every so often. I shall return at half past.
(3.17 pm)
(A short break)
(3.30 pm)
Lady Hallett: Mr Keith.
Mr Keith: Mr Shafi, we were looking at the COBR minutes of 18 February, and I’d shown you really only part of it, but it was the observation from the director of the Civil Contingencies Secretariat to the effect that there was work to be done to create a clear plan of activity.
That COBR focuses on a number of issues: repatriation, which is still an ongoing issue; a draft Bill dealing with the legality of forcing people to isolate if they have been picked up on the border as having Covid; the testing of local resilience fora, forums; and there is also a reference to a ministerial exercise, a tabletop exercise which was due to take place.
Can you think why COBR was focused on those particular issues rather than getting to grips with the likelihood of spread and the absence of control measures?
Mr Imran Shafi: I don’t know. I think one of the reflections that I have is that there was a very – focus on the immediate and now rather than what’s going to happen in a month’s time, which arguably there ought to have been of. And secondly, I think the lead department model has many strengths, one of the challenges of the lead department model is that issues that sit very squarely within that department don’t often get surfaced in sort of wide ministerial meetings as much as they might have, say, if the chair of COBR had been from central government.
Lead Inquiry: So a couple of points from that. The Inquiry has heard evidence that COBR is best designed to deal with immediate acute crises rather than trying to plan for a long-running crisis requiring it to look further into the future; would you agree with that?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: Secondly, in relation to the lead government department model, this was a cross-government whole-government crisis, but because the DHSC was in the driving seat practically, to a large extent, as the lead government department, other parts of government, including the Cabinet Office in particular, had less control over what the DHSC was doing and less visibility over what it was thinking?
Mr Imran Shafi: I think that’s right, yeah.
Lead Inquiry: All right. Because there was no debate at that COBR about the possibility of control measures, test and trace, PPE, non-pharmaceutical interventions or what the impact might be on the hospital and care sector, none of the areas which we now know were at the heart of the response are debated at all, are they?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes, I think I would break that down into two parts. There is the things that we needed to work on as part of any strategy, so a mitigate strategy as well as suppress, so things like PPE, ventilators, are relevant on all of those issues.
In terms of, you know, setting up a test and trace system, that becomes a lot more relevant in a suppress scenario, where you need an effective test and trace system to help you come out of the suppression, so when you lift the measures you don’t just create a second wave.
So it’s perhaps natural, once we’d gone down the mitigate approach, that you don’t spend as much time on that, but I can’t explain why COBR didn’t spend lots of time on issues like PPE and ventilators in February.
Lead Inquiry: Just on test and trace, are you saying that one of the reasons why there was inadequate focus on scaling up a test, trace, contact, isolate system was because it was thought at the heart of government: well, if we’re going to mitigate, we’re just going to reduce the top level of the viral spread, squash the sombrero, but let the virus run otherwise, we don’t need to test and trace people?
Mr Imran Shafi: I think there was a significant focus on testing capacity, and the recognition that the UK had far too little testing capacity and we needed to scale that up. That’s slightly separate from coming up with a new test and trace system that could be used for the rest of the year, which is I think something that could have been done – we could have paid – put more focus onto that in the early stage, if we’d thought suppression was a viable strategy at that point.
Lady Hallett: Can I just ask a question? I’m sorry to interrupt, Mr Keith.
You agreed with Mr Keith that there hadn’t been a focus on the aspects he put to you, PPE, ventilators and the like, but they’re all aspects that might come within the remit of DHSC, so that’s not – if there was a failing there, that can’t be attributed to the lead government department model, because they were all matters or most of them were matters that would come within the remit of Health, weren’t they?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes, so they do come within the remit of Health. I guess my question is: was there appropriate scrutiny from the centre as to the depth and robustness of those plans? If you look in March, the Prime Minister was having to spend quite a lot of his own time doing manufacturing calls to arms for ventilators and trying to, like, inspire people to create PPE. I think a reasonable question that I would have is: could we have deployed the centre earlier to help solve some of these enormous problems?
Mr Keith: Just to finish test and trace, test and trace is not very effective for flu, is it, because you show symptoms when you become infected and you don’t need, therefore, to be tested? But you had to have, did you not, test and trace for coronavirus, whether it was mitigation or suppression, because it’s the only way of knowing how far the virus has spread in your population?
Mr Imran Shafi: Erm … I … potentially, although again I’m not an expert on this issue, so this is just me thinking it through, I suspect there was a feeling that by the time the first wave had worked through the population, we wouldn’t have been able to scale up sufficient tests in time to sort of respond to that need. So in that strategy we would be slightly blind as to sort of like the true state of the virus in March/April.
Lead Inquiry: So you’re saying it was a strategy of failure? We don’t need to have a test and trace because we’re going to suppress the virus, or we’re going to mitigate it, in which case we’ll allow half the population to be infected anyway?
Mr Imran Shafi: No, what I was saying was if you’re going to suppress the virus you do need test and trace, because it’s an important part of the arsenal as you come out of suppression.
Lead Inquiry: To stop the uncoiling of the spring –
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: – you’d need to be able to –
Mr Imran Shafi: Yeah.
Lead Inquiry: – test it out of –
Mr Imran Shafi: Yeah.
Lead Inquiry: – operation?
Mr Imran Shafi: And that was a large part of the debate in May, in terms of how low had we got incidence and would that be sufficiently low in order to allow test and trace to work effectively.
Lead Inquiry: But the suppression/mitigation dichotomy debate was resolved around about 13/14 March: when you realised the NHS would be overwhelmed you had to suppress. So why wasn’t test and trace ramped up at that stage?
Mr Imran Shafi: I think there were a number of people, including within Number 10, who were pushing for that. I don’t know the answer to why it wasn’t.
Lead Inquiry: But you know that it didn’t happen. There was no ramping up, was there, in March or April?
Mr Imran Shafi: I think there was a push to ramp up testing capacity. Whether there was an equal focus on pushing up the wider infrastructure around it, I’m less clear on.
Lead Inquiry: Community testing was stopped on 12 March, was it not?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes, and I think my understanding of that is that that was a function of just a lack of tests –
Lead Inquiry: There weren’t enough to go round?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: They had to be preserved for hospitals?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: So there was no community testing?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: And until May it never restarted, did it?
Mr Imran Shafi: I don’t know.
Lead Inquiry: No.
COBR, on 26 February, INQ000056216, at page 5, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Professor Sir Jonathan Van-Tam, says:
“… official data from China shows that case numbers continued to increase. Internationally case numbers in South Korea, Iran and Italy highlighted clear person to person transmission …”
Including in Italy. And of course in Italy by this stage, the 26th, there had been a lockdown of ten municipalities and near collapse of its healthcare structure in the Lombardy area.
“Sustained human to human transmission in Italy – which receives a high number of travellers to and from the UK.”
On that occasion, on this – in this COBR on 26 February, if we just scroll forward we can see that COBR was concerned with “Health advice for travellers and schools”, “International response”. Under “HMG preparedness”, even though the reasonable worst-case planning assumption looked close to becoming the reasonable planning assumption, a debate took place on the Covid-19 legislative policy, excess death management, and there is a recognition there that, on the reasonable worst-case scenario for pandemic influenza, 800,000 deaths, being the reasonable worst-case scenario, would greatly exceed ordinary capacity.
So there all the links are joined up, are they not? There is human-to-human sustained transmission in Italy, where lockdowns have been imposed. There are links to the United Kingdom. It’s coming, there’s no means of control. Excess deaths under the reasonable worst-case scenario – which is now looking more and more like it’s going to be the outcome – is 800,000. And the debate focuses on excess death management and legislative policies?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yeah, so I think on the previous page it said it’s still unsure whether – if it will come to the UK in great scale, so I think there was still a level of uncertainty there. But I think you’re absolutely right that alarm bells should have been ringing at this point that had – did we have the detailed plans in place to sort of respond to this were it to come into the UK. And as you say, the medical advice was that it was becoming increasingly likely that it was going to be a pandemic. And that’s one of the things that I was trying to push to get sort of more detailed plans for the Prime Minister on, what happens in that scenario.
Lead Inquiry: And you personally do push, I make that absolutely plain, but the government as a whole was in the position, was it not, in which the alarm bells were not being rung loudly enough, there were no real plans, it was bogged down in a doctrinal debate about suppression and mitigation, and there was no focus on what would happen?
Mr Imran Shafi: I think there was too much focus on excess death management and not enough focus on preventing those deaths in the first place.
Lead Inquiry: Quite.
In an email or a WhatsApp with Simon Case on 18 September 2020, you say or rather Mr Case says and you agreed:
“The fetishisation of COBR is so tiresome.”
What did you mean by that?
Mr Imran Shafi: I can’t recall exactly, but I think probably by that point we had a much more sophisticated approach of engaging with local government. I think this is a response to a request from the Mayor of London for a COBR. I think the point was probably there are quicker ways of taking action rather than having to call a big formal COBR meeting. If we need to take action in a local area, we could do that through other fora, direct conversations with the Health Secretary, et cetera.
Lead Inquiry: So, generally speaking, COBR continued long after the crisis had become chronic rather than acute?
Mr Imran Shafi: It did, but at much more infrequent –
Lead Inquiry: At a slower rate?
Mr Imran Shafi: At a slower rate, yes.
Lead Inquiry: And it was an important forum because it allowed the devolved administrations to participate?
Mr Imran Shafi: Correct.
Lead Inquiry: On 24 February, INQ000146563, you sent an email to Sir Patrick Vallance, Katharine Hammond, Martin Reynolds, Ed Lister, Stuart Glassborow and others in which you said:
“… I’d like to start exposing the [Prime Minister] to the potential decisions he might have to take in short order on this …”
So you’re raising the alarm through your email, are you not? We can see the reference in the bottom half of the page, your email on 24 February.
At the top of the page, Ms Hammond, the director of the CCS, responds in this way:
“… we’re working at the moment on a whole sequence of decisions that would be needed in the event that we concluded a pandemic was the most likely scenario which should be also be useful in exposing some of those concrete points … It’s taken a few different approaches to get what we need but there are workshops running today and tomorrow to bring it together.”
What did you make of that response?
Mr Imran Shafi: I don’t remember my exact emotions at the time. I think this is all part of a wider growing concern within Number 10 as to whether the plans were detailed enough to take the UK through March and April.
Lead Inquiry: Bluntly, the CCS is saying, “We’re working at the moment on a whole sequence of decisions, we’re trying to draw something up, we’re going to plan something for you in Number 10”?
Mr Imran Shafi: That’s what the email looks like, yes.
Lead Inquiry: Right. But you were saying – because of course you were aware of what was occurring in COBR – that there was sustained human-to-human transmission, no means of control, it was spreading, and there would be no debate on measures?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes, I mean – again, I mean, the Deputy CMO says “if there is transmission”, and Katharine’s email here says, “in the event that we concluded a pandemic was the most likely scenario”. So at this point the system hadn’t said that was the most likely scenario, but what I was concerned about was: were that to be the most likely scenario, what are the interventions that we would want to bring in? What does it actually mean for real people in terms of individual isolation, household isolation, what became known as shielding? Had we done the detailed work to really both work out all the kinks in those approaches and then think about how we explain that to the public?
Lead Inquiry: There were cases in the United Kingdom by 24 February.
Mr Imran Shafi: Yeah, so I’m not denying that there weren’t cases, I think what I’m saying is that the …
Lead Inquiry: May I assist?
Mr Imran Shafi: – advice wasn’t that that was going to be a – definitely turn into a pandemic in the UK at that point.
Lead Inquiry: Although there were cases in the United Kingdom –
Mr Imran Shafi: Yep.
Lead Inquiry: – and the government was aware of the explosion of the virus in northern Italy –
Mr Imran Shafi: Yeah.
Lead Inquiry: – and the fact that lockdowns had been deployed, and that people were dying and the healthcare system was likely to be overrun there, there was a degree, systemically, in the heart of the government, a degree of optimism bias that “It’s not coming here, this virus won’t come to our shores or, if it does, using the methods that we don’t have to control it, it won’t go any further”; is that the nub of it?
Mr Imran Shafi: I’m – because I’m not an epidemiologist, I don’t want to, like, give a firm view on one –
Lead Inquiry: You –
Mr Imran Shafi: – or the other.
Lead Inquiry: You sent this email, Mr Shafi:
“… I’d like to start exposing the PM to the potential decisions he might have to take …”
Did you seriously doubt that the virus was going to come, and to come and overwhelm the United Kingdom?
Mr Imran Shafi: I think at that point I thought there’s a strong enough chance that it might come that we need to be very much further ahead in terms of the detailed planning that we have in that case.
Lead Inquiry: Because you were aware of the precautionary principle, which is if there is a reasonable chance of this fatal viral pandemic reaching us, we’d better be ready, we’d better take precautions?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: All right. But, generally speaking, insufficient precautions had been taken by the United Kingdom Government by this stage?
Mr Imran Shafi: I think … at this point I don’t think I knew that for sure. All the detailed work might have been happening elsewhere and we just hadn’t seen it, and the question was: can we bring some of that detail to the Prime Minister? I think it was in the course of asking for the detail and then not seeing a huge amount of detail, that’s when I think –
Lead Inquiry: The penny dropped?
Mr Imran Shafi: – myself and colleagues in Number 10 sort of realised that maybe the detail of the planning wasn’t as deep as others had thought, and I think that those are the comments that Helen MacNamara and Mark Sweeney also sort of refer to in, sort of, later in March.
Lead Inquiry: We’re going to look at the meeting on 25 February after the half term in a moment. It’s clear that there were a number of emails and minutes and notes sent to Mr Johnson in the first half of February, but there was no COBR from 18 February to 26 February, no Cabinet meeting on coronavirus between the 14th and the week of the 25th, it doesn’t appear as if indeed there were any emails or any notes to the Prime Minister between 14 and 24 February concerning this fatal viral epidemic. Why was that?
Mr Imran Shafi: I don’t know for sure, I mean, the Prime Minister was on leave for a part of that time. If there had been anything that was urgent and the Cabinet Office or the Department of Health had flagged to us as critical that we inform the Prime Minister, in my job as a private secretary I would of course have forwarded it on to the Prime Minister, but I don’t think I received anything in that period flagged in that way.
Lead Inquiry: COBR had been sitting regularly, SAGE, SPI-M, SPI-B, all these scientific committees, you were asking everyone for plans, the penny had dropped.
Mr Imran Shafi: So I was asking for plans on the 23rd, sort of immediately after seeing what had happened in Italy, and that was I believe for a morning discussion with the Prime Minister the next day.
Lead Inquiry: Do you accept that, given that this was a crisis – or we were on the edge of a crisis – concerning a fatal viral pandemic, that the lack of communication with the Prime Minister for those ten days, a bare month before the lockdown, was in hindsight rather unfortunate?
Mr Imran Shafi: I don’t know what conversations he had with other people. I think that’s something you’d need to ask him. I think, in hindsight I think it’s unfortunate that we didn’t spend every day in February focused on all the detailed operational plans.
Lead Inquiry: On 25 February there was a meeting, an important meeting, INQ000146565, in which reference is made to the domestic preparedness, at the bottom of the page, and the CCS was asked to provide a four to five-page note for the PM.
Was that a note that was asked for immediately, or did a further few days elapse before the CCS was obligated to provide a note on options?
Mr Imran Shafi: I think the note hadn’t been drafted at that point, so whenever you’re in private office there’s always a balance between getting a note quickly and getting a good note, and you need to give people a little bit of time to write it and then, as you can see, we requested that it was cleared through a number of different people. If you ask for something immediately, it won’t be as high quality as if you give people a couple of days to put something together.
Lead Inquiry: But a further three to four days elapsed, and then he would read that note over the weekend, and then we would be in another week?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes, although this was off the back of a conversation here on the 25th with all of the key people, as far as I can see, in terms of the attendance of the meeting. So the PM would have had an update in this meeting. I think the sense would have been: he needs a further update, which is why the note was requested, and then a few days elapsed before that further update is provided.
Lead Inquiry: But that 25 February was, I think, a Monday or a Tuesday?
Mr Imran Shafi: I can’t remember.
Lead Inquiry: He wasn’t going to get the note til Friday, he was going to review it over the weekend, we would then be a further week further forward, and of course that was the beginning of March.
Mr Imran Shafi: My understanding is that there were – I can’t remember exactly the dates, but there were further calls the following weekend.
Lead Inquiry: On 28 February a briefing was circulated by the CCS, the Civil Contingencies Secretariat. INQ000146569, page 1. You can see in the top right-hand corner you wrote:
“[Prime Minister], this is a short update paper on domestic plans on coronavirus. Attached is the full action plan …”
Was that action plan what became the action plan of 2 March –
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: – contain, delay, mitigate?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: “… Matt [Matt Hancock] wants to publish on Tuesday [and] which COBRA will review Monday.”
So that’s Monday 1 March, or Tuesday 2 March I suppose?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: If you could scroll back out, you can see that the CCS say in the first paragraph:
“Covid-19 looks increasingly likely to become a global pandemic, although this is not yet certain.”
In paragraph 2:
“Based on existing assumptions for a severe pandemic flu outbreak, in a reasonable worst case scenario about half of the UK’s population would become ill … and up to 520,000 people could die … [but this] advice is to use these numbers for planning – they are not a prediction …”
But the COBR meeting the week before had shown that the reasonable worst-case scenario was increasingly likely to be the scenario, was it not?
Mr Imran Shafi: Increasingly likely but not – not probable, is my reading of those minutes. But again, this note was agreed between CCS, the Chief Medical Officer and the Chief Scientific Adviser and the Health Secretary, so this was their joint assessment of the situation, and I think you need to ask them on the precise wording of this.
Lead Inquiry: If there was no realistic control, if the virus was coming and it had a 1% fatality rate, infection fatality rate, these numbers weren’t just numbers for planning; the reasonable worst-case scenario envisaged these numbers of deaths, did they not?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: In paragraph 3, the CCS said:
“Preparations are well underway, COBR is meeting regularly and our best scientists are advising on when this step … will be needed.”
Paragraphs 7 and 9. 7:
“Our strategy is to protect lives, maintain normal life, limit economic and social impacts … we are preparing for the reasonable worst case scenario.”
And 9:
“We need to strike a balance between taking precautionary steps and overreacting.”
To what extent did you think that the appeal to or the appeal against overreacting was a valid point to make on that day, 28 February?
Mr Imran Shafi: In hindsight, a lot less valid than it might have seemed at the time.
Lead Inquiry: Following the meeting, INQ000136750, you wrote around with an update on coronavirus at the bottom of the page, the CMO and the Health Secretary gave a general update.
And then over the page:
“We need a major ramp-up of [other government department] activity on domestic preparedness …
“The PM agreed with … an action plan …”
So the primary decision made by the Prime Minister was to agree the action plan, that document, “contain, delay”, which was then published the following week; correct?
Mr Imran Shafi: It looks like it, yes.
Lead Inquiry: And he agreed the need for early emergency legislation?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: Where was the decision-making in relation to control measures, or quarantining, or self-isolation, or analysis of the spread of the virus, or how far it had extended into the United Kingdom?
Mr Imran Shafi: As I said earlier, I think we should have been looking at those issues at that time, and we weren’t.
Lead Inquiry: You kept a notebook with your thoughts and your recollections, but in large part a contemporaneous note of some of the meetings that you attended.
INQ000146636, page 21. At the top of that page it says:
“PM [meeting] 28/”
Which we think is 28 February?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: “PM – what’s the strategy.
“- when are we going to take big decisions, of what evidence.
“- biggest damage done by overreaction.”
So in that meeting, Mr Shafi, was the primary concern, “This virus is coming, it’s going to kill and maim” or “We mustn’t overreact”?
Mr Imran Shafi: A bit of both.
Lead Inquiry: If you could scroll back out, there was a reference – there is a reference to the Prime Minister being “sceptical that our interventions will do anything”.
I think it’s probably on the next page. No, it’s on this page. If you could scroll in the bottom fifth, thank you:
“PM – sceptical that our interventions will do anything.”
What was that a reference to?
Mr Imran Shafi: I can’t remember for sure. I think this was perhaps more around the hand washing campaign and the other sort of very non-intrusive measures that had been put in place and promoted at that time.
Lead Inquiry: So where is the debate that further more stringent measures might be required?
Mr Imran Shafi: Again, it’s not here.
Lead Inquiry: On 4 March, INQ000056158, a paper was circulated called “Potential impact of behavioural and social interventions on [an] … epidemic”. So during this week, so the week that the coronavirus action paper was published, the action plan, on the Monday or the Tuesday, the 2nd or the 3rd, this potential impact of social interventions paper was published. And did this – who did this come from?
Mr Imran Shafi: I’m not sure. It looks at the bottom like it’s from the SAGE secretariat, but it may have gone from them, from the Department of Health, or the Cabinet Office. I don’t know.
Lead Inquiry: Now, in paragraph 2, there are these words:
“SAGE has not provided a recommendation of which interventions or package of interventions … that Government may choose to apply. Any decision must consider the impacts these interventions may have on society, on individuals, the workforce and businesses, and the operation of Government and public services.”
Were you surprised in Number 10, as the private secretary with responsibility for this area, that the government had not received a recommendation from SAGE as to what you should do?
(Pause)
Mr Imran Shafi: I think at this point – what date was this again, sorry?
Lead Inquiry: This is 4 March.
Mr Imran Shafi: 4 March. I think at this point everybody had a sense of the sort of three lead interventions of individual isolation, household isolation and shielding, cocooning, being sort of the lead measures that we would consider. So I think there was a broad sense from the Department of Health that was the recommended approach.
So I think it’s correct that, you know, SAGE can’t consider the impacts on society, on individuals, the workforce and business; that’s for government to provide an overall assessment on, because there are lots and lots of different harms of all these measures. Some of them are Covid harms, and some of them are non-Covid.
Lead Inquiry: That’s the second part of the equation, if you like, what might be the social or economic consequences of an intervention. But SAGE was not even recommending an epidemiological intervention, was it?
Mr Imran Shafi: Erm … I think at this point it was trying to articulate what the impact of each intervention would be rather than say “Do this one over that one”.
Lead Inquiry: Even though the Lombardy area of Italy had been subject to a lockdown now two weeks prior, there was no debate, was there, at this stage about the possible need for lockdown?
Mr Imran Shafi: So I think if you look a little bit further on this in document, social distancing is one of the measures that’s looked at.
Lead Inquiry: Yes, page 5.
Mr Imran Shafi: What’s – on reading this document in the last week, what I found interesting was social distancing there just implies a 25% reduction in workforce contacts. Non-essential retail is not closed, there’s no stay-at-home measure. So even social distancing, as referenced here, I don’t think was the lockdown that we ended up with on 23 March. I think this is more akin to the 16 March measure that we took.
Lead Inquiry: There was no debate of a mandatory style stay-at-home order of whole-society isolation?
Mr Imran Shafi: I think this goes back to our earlier conversation about: was there a debate about mitigation versus suppression? And because the approach in the UK was very much along one of those tracks, it was judged that the actions taken in other countries weren’t appropriate in the UK.
Lead Inquiry: Was there debate in Downing Street, perhaps with the CMO and CSA, about the need for timing, so that if the government were to apply the most stringent measures, because they can’t easily be undone and they can have significant consequences, they shouldn’t be applied too soon?
Mr Imran Shafi: There was very significant debate about that, yes.
Lead Inquiry: And to what extent was there push-back, if any, from Number 10, saying, “Well, if the NHS is going to be overrun, if the deaths and the illnesses are on this magnitude, the reasonable worst-case scenario magnitude, we can’t wait”?
Mr Imran Shafi: So, again I think that goes back to the overall strategy. In a mitigate scenario, timing becomes really important because you do want to time it along with a peak. In a suppress scenario – and if you look at the debates in the autumn and the sort of reflections of the Chief Scientific Adviser that it’s always better to go early, that was not the advice in the spring, but I think that was a lesson that was learnt over the – over the course of the year.
Lead Inquiry: Your notebook of a meeting on 11 March at a pre-briefing says, or records the Prime Minister as saying, “People won’t sustain a long period of seclusion, every week of seclusion will damage people, we need to delay seclusion to align with peak”.
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: So by September it was realised that to save lives, to prevent collapse, you need to go and you need to go early?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: In that first ten days of March, as part of this doctrinal debate about mitigation and suppression, time was spent arguing about whether or not going early would be an effective measure.
Mr Imran Shafi: I don’t think that was a debate. I think that was –
Lead Inquiry: It was just assumed?
Mr Imran Shafi: – that was assumed, that was the plan.
Lead Inquiry: All right.
Analysis began to emerge from 9 March that the NHS would not be able to manage the level of demand; correct?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: And I think you received a note from the DHSC on 9 March, INQ000146571. Those two charts at the bottom of the page – on the basis of 81% infected, with no mitigation – showed that the number of people normally requiring a hospital bed or intensive care massively exceeded capacity.
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: Was any more needed to raise the alarm?
Mr Imran Shafi: In hindsight, no.
Lead Inquiry: But did the government pull the alarm cord on 9 March?
Mr Imran Shafi: It did not.
Lead Inquiry: You yourself said in an email following this chart, following this document:
“Should we put this into COBR for Thursday? It’s frightening that even if we pull all levers we are still overwhelmed.”
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: So you knew, and you told others, that given the death rate, given the hospitalisation rate, whatever you did, the system would be overwhelmed on the current plan for mitigation and for the limited measures which were being debated?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes, I think this was the time at which I was becoming increasingly concerned about the approach that we were taking. It’s then another thing, as a relatively junior official, to question the entire approach that we’ve been taking, and so this was a thing that I continued to think about and debate with others in Number 10 over the next coming days, ahead of the whiteboard strategy meeting on the 13th.
Lead Inquiry: There was a meeting in Downing Street with Lord Stevens of the NHS on 12 March –
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: – where this issue about demand was debated and how it would be excessively – it would be exceeded. Slides were given to the Prime Minister showing how, even if all the current measures which were contemplated were imposed, there would still be a massive shortfall of hundreds of thousands of beds; yes?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: And then on Friday 13 March there was a Prime Ministerial meeting. The Prime Minister wanted to see scientists out there developing an action plan, “get it going this weekend”, this is from your note of that meeting, and there was still a debate about herd immunity, wasn’t there?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: On that Friday night, there was a meeting between Mr Cummings, Mr Warner, Mr Glassborow, yourself and Helen MacNamara –
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: – correct? And that is the meeting at which Mr Cummings puts up his whiteboard, INQ000196060, which says:
“To stop the NHS collapse, we will probably have to ‘lockdown’.”
If we could scroll in, we’ll remind ourselves, number 2:
“Must avoid NHS collapse [and] collapse is non-linear. If happens, not 1% but 2% [will] die in [reasonable case] …”
It’s meant to be reasonable worst-case scenario, but:
“… [reasonable case worst].
“3. To stop NHS collapse, we will probably have to ‘lockdown’.”
This led to a meeting on Saturday 14 March attended by the Prime Minister, the Chief Scientific Adviser, the CMO and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and there was a debate, was there not, about what needed to be done?
Mr Imran Shafi: So this didn’t actually lead to that meeting because that meeting had already been in the diary –
Lead Inquiry: Ah, right.
Mr Imran Shafi: – before we had this. Because this session was very late at night on the 13th. The meeting with all the other ministers was on the 14th. So we had a debate about whether to scrap that meeting and then have a private internal conversation with the Prime Minister first, or go ahead with that meeting and then do an internal session. So we decided, given the plans were already in place for that discussion, to proceed with that conversation on the morning of the 14th, but that wasn’t a direct consequence of the meeting on the 13th.
Lead Inquiry: After the meeting, you itemised a list of things to be done?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: INQ000136751. You can see at the bottom of the page:
“We require a cross-Government signed-off package on shielding the vulnerable and elderly by Wednesday lunchtime …”
You need more information about who the vulnerable groups are, you need advice, the Prime Minister wanted advice on what we do on mass gatherings.
Mass gatherings had not yet been prohibited, had they?
Mr Imran Shafi: No.
Lead Inquiry: “How we could implement further social distancing …
“The near-finalised approach on household isolation for announcement by Monday …”
Despite the meeting with Mr Cummings on Friday night, and despite the recognisation that the NHS would be overwhelmed if there was to be no lockdown, the government at this meeting on Saturday 14 March did not decide to impose a lockdown, did it?
Mr Imran Shafi: No.
Lead Inquiry: In your notebook, INQ000146636, at page 64, your notebook shows that one of the matters being discussed was the possibility of planning – or the need to plan for a lockdown in London, because London was ahead of the epidemiological curve, was it not?
Mr Imran Shafi: I can’t – oh, yeah, right at the bottom. Yes.
Lead Inquiry: So probably about a third of the way up the page, or a quarter of the way up the page.
Mr Imran Shafi: Yeah.
Lead Inquiry: “… need to do in next 72 hours to avoid NHS lockdown.”
Who is that?
Mr Imran Shafi: That’s Dom.
Lead Inquiry: “Matt [Hancock] – explain plan into Sunday.
“… everyone should stop unnecessary social activity.”
So they’re at odds as to what should be done.
PM Johnson, “PMJ”?
Mr Imran Shafi: Sorry, that’s “PM” and a squiggle, just to –
Lead Inquiry: Oh, it’s just a squiggle.
Mr Imran Shafi: – to mark …
Lead Inquiry: “… Government must define vulnerable. We are on war footing now. We need detail of what mean …”
Mr Imran Shafi: “… what mean by social distancing.”
Lead Inquiry: “… what mean by social distancing.”
Then if you could scroll back out. So if you could go back one page, I was just going to read out the bottom of the page.
Ben Warner?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yeah.
Lead Inquiry: “… need plan to lock down London on Saturday.”
And then this:
“MG.”
Who is that?
Mr Imran Shafi: Michael Gove.
Lead Inquiry: “… why not tomorrow?”
Over the page, at the top of the page, the next page:
“[Dom Cummings] – tell the media today – SAGE for the …”
Work, week?
Mr Imran Shafi: SAGE thinks we’re further than we thought.
Lead Inquiry: Oh, “further”?
Mr Imran Shafi: It’s a new situation, accelerating through the plan, where this is going over the next seven days.
Lead Inquiry: “Gove: Go now!”
Exclamation mark, underlined. He said it with some degree of force, did he not?
Mr Imran Shafi: He did.
Lead Inquiry: But the meeting did not decide that there should be a lockdown, let alone for London, and what was imposed the following week was a further ratcheting up of the social distancing mitigation measures?
Mr Imran Shafi: So if you look back at the whiteboard, that wasn’t necessarily saying “Immediately on Monday move to the 23 March position”, it was to say: we need to bring in all of the measures we have been discussing ASAP, and then lockdown probably within a week. And ministers obviously wanted to impose the minimum amount of restrictions consistent with getting the virus under control, because all of the restrictions have horrible effects too.
I think the advice from SAGE, from 16 to 18 March, was that the measures including the school closures, if properly implemented, should be enough and I think ministers probably took – were hoping that the measures from the 16th to the 18th would be enough, and …
Lead Inquiry: In the event they were not?
Mr Imran Shafi: In the end, they decided they couldn’t take the risk that they were not. I think we don’t actually know for sure because there was a lot of behavioural change at the time, and I think the issue was: by the time we worked out whether they would be enough or not, it would have been too late, because we’d only have lagging indicators, sort of hospital admissions and deaths, so we wouldn’t know if we’d done enough until it was too late.
Lead Inquiry: The precautionary principle?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: But during the course of the week there was a debate about the need to plan for a London lockdown?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yeah.
Lead Inquiry: There was an agreement that an announcement would be made between the Prime Minister and the Mayor of London?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: But that press conference was called off, was it not?
Mr Imran Shafi: It was.
Lead Inquiry: It became apparent that even if a lockdown were called for, the arrangements for shielding were not yet sufficiently developed?
Mr Imran Shafi: They weren’t on that week of the 15th, no.
Lead Inquiry: By the end of that week, the Prime Minister was still taking the view, was he not, that the measures announced, if properly implemented, would be enough?
Mr Imran Shafi: I don’t think that was the Prime Minister. I think that was the scientific advice that he was getting.
Lead Inquiry: What was the Prime Minister’s view?
Mr Imran Shafi: I don’t think he’d have his own independent view of the impact of the measures. I think he – that was … at every stage I think he was hopeful that each measure would be effective, and if you read the minutes of SAGE through that week, they don’t say that the measures of 16 March are not enough.
Lead Inquiry: The Prime Minister actively resisted, did he not, a decision to impose a lockdown? He didn’t want a lockdown?
Mr Imran Shafi: He definitely didn’t want a lockdown, no.
Lead Inquiry: And even though the evidence was mounting that the NHS would be overwhelmed, it’s what you had been debating for a week or ten days, against hope – or in hope against expectation, perhaps – it was thought these measures, the measures of 16 March, would do the trick, they would suffice?
Mr Imran Shafi: That was the advice that the Prime Minister was getting from the scientific community, if the measures were properly implemented, and the “if” is the key element there, and through the course of that week we got increasing amounts of data on the level of reduction in social contact, for instance, and the realisation that the measures weren’t enough, because there wasn’t sufficient population change to be sure that we would bring R below 1.
Lead Inquiry: The Prime Minister didn’t want a lockdown because he believed, at least in part, that the consequences would be so damaging that, given that large numbers of people would die anyway, there was no point?
Mr Imran Shafi: I don’t recognise that. I think he was extremely concerned about the other harms that would be caused with a lockdown in terms of –
Lead Inquiry: There was a –
Mr Imran Shafi: – non-Covid health, sort of people – deprivation, education, all of these sort of incredibly important issues, alongside the incredibly important issues of protecting people from Covid.
Lead Inquiry: And the no less important issue of death and harm?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes, and I think – I can’t remember exactly when the Chief Medical Officer started to sort of categorise it, but he has quite a clear way of sort of demonstrating how death and harm can be caused through lots of different routes, of which direct Covid deaths is just one of those routes that you need to worry about.
Lead Inquiry: On 19 and 20 March, the Prime Minister met the Chancellor of the Exchequer on at least two occasions. Perhaps they were meetings or phone calls, but …
Mr Imran Shafi: Probably. I don’t have the full record.
Lead Inquiry: Could we have INQ000146636, please. This is your diary, your notebook, at page 92, halfway down the page we can see “CX bilat”. Is that a reference to a bilateral meeting between the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer?
Mr Imran Shafi: It is, yes.
Lead Inquiry: In quotes:
“… ‘we’re killing the patient to tackle the tumour’.
“- large ppl …”
Numbers of people?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yeah.
Lead Inquiry: “… who will die – why are we destroying [everything] for people who will die anyway soon.”
Mr Imran Shafi: I think that says “economy”. Sorry, it’s my own handwriting.
Lead Inquiry: Sorry, “[destroy] the economy for people who will die anyway soon.”
Mr Shafi, who said those words?
Mr Imran Shafi: I can’t say for sure. I think it was the former Prime Minister.
Lead Inquiry: And people in hospital, the elderly or the infirm or the ill, were described as “bed blockers”?
Mr Imran Shafi: I think that was a term that was also widely used in DHSC and the NHS of people who didn’t need to be in hospital.
Lead Inquiry: The Prime Minister did not decide to proceed with a London-specific lockdown; the press conference, as you’ve said, was cancelled; and there matters remained until over the weekend he became concerned, the Prime Minister became concerned by reports of continued social mixing.
Mr Imran Shafi: No, so I think he didn’t proceed with the London lockdown. Again, lockdown at that point wasn’t necessarily like the stay-at-home message that we ended up with on the 23rd. There were two reasons why I think he didn’t go for the London measures. The first was: would there be confusion between London and the rest of the country? And the second was: the following day the Treasury was preparing an exceptional support package for the economy, and it was felt that it was better to go nationally rather than regionally, and also to announce the economic package that we were providing to businesses and people at the same time as closing down hospitality, clubs, bars, restaurants. And so I think that was done before the weekend.
Lead Inquiry: In your statement, you accept that it’s reasonable to ask whether, knowing what the government knew at the time, the full lockdown could or should have been announced ahead of 23 March. And you agree, do you not, that there were very real – as is obvious – difficulties faced by the government? The costs of the lockdown were of course enormous, and understood to be so; there was a genuine scientific debate about whether the measures of 16 March would suffice; and SAGE had itself not called for, not called clearly for, a lockdown.
But why, Mr Shafi, were the insights, the understanding of that week, or maybe the week before, the week of 2 March onwards – that control had been lost, that there would be a massive effect on the NHS, that nothing short of a lockdown would suffice – why was that understanding, that insight not understood earlier?
Mr Imran Shafi: I think I understood it. I think a lot – quite a few people understood it. It took it a while to get through the system.
Lead Inquiry: You referred to a collective mindset. What did you mean by that?
Mr Imran Shafi: Could you … could you give a bit more context to –
Lead Inquiry: Yes, of course. Paragraph 99 of your statement:
“… it is possible to see how this collective mindset emerged.”
This is in the context of:
“… I am sure Ministers across the whole of Government would have wanted to spend more [time] … stress-testing implementation plans … ramping up testing capabilities … preparing more detailed plans …”
The action plan was published.
“… it [just was] felt that the … tools that the Government had developed would suffice. The scientific advice did not demur … Given the [consequences of a lockdown or] … overreaction … it is possible to see how this collective mindset emerged.”
Mr Imran Shafi: I think I’m referring there to the mindset that the only approach was mitigation rather than more draconian measures, and that wasn’t really challenged in February in the way that I think, in hindsight, it ought to have been.
Lead Inquiry: Now just some final questions, please.
In relation to care homes, the issue of care homes and the care home sector and the impact on the care sector is for another day and another module, but could you just please tell us: to what degree was Number 10 involved in the discussions about discharge plans from the hospital sector to the care sector and on concerns that may have been raised at the time about the impact? Was it something that was the focus of specific debate in Number 10, or was this a DHSC/COBR issue?
Mr Imran Shafi: So I – as of sort of the second half, second third of March, my responsibilities were split out across a number of people. So I wasn’t looking at the care homes issue post, I think, sort of 20 March. Before then, I believe it was raised in the meeting with Simon Stevens on 12 March, but very much in the sense of we needed to have generous discharge packages to allow people to move from hospital into care homes. The question of the risk of infections going from hospitals to care homes wasn’t really discussed at that meeting.
Lead Inquiry: Then – and I’m conscious of the time and also that this is an issue which, of course, has been put and will continue to be put to other witnesses – the consideration of the circuit breaker in September 2020.
Your own notes describe the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, in the words of somebody else, as “Eat out to help out the virus”. I think the Chief Medical Officer described the Eat Out to Help Out scheme to you as “Eat out to help out the virus”; is that right?
Mr Imran Shafi: That’s correct.
Lead Inquiry: There was obviously a high level of concern in government at the beginning of September as to the rise in the infection rate?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: And a number of documents were prepared, a Covid-19 winter strategy document, there was a meeting on 20 September with the Prime Minister, a further meeting on 7 October and 8 October, a strategy meeting in Chequers on 25 October. But in general terms, although SAGE had recommended positively for more stringent action to be taken from September onwards, the Prime Minister resisted implementing the full effect of what was being suggested; there was a tier system, no circuit breaker, and then finally a belated lockdown. Is that a fair summary?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: The Prime Minister decided that there had to be a lockdown eventually at the end of October, he received an advice from the Covid-19 Taskforce dated 28 October which made plain that the situation had continued to deteriorate; correct?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes, if that’s what the advice says, yeah.
Lead Inquiry: But, as your statement recognises, the rise in infections and the risk to the NHS had in fact followed more or less the trajectory that the Chief Medical Officer and the Chief Scientific Adviser had warned about since at least 21 September 2020?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Lead Inquiry: And there was a general understanding, was there not, that local restrictions would be unlikely to work but were worth trying, but it quickly became apparent that they weren’t working?
Mr Imran Shafi: Where do you get the reference that they were unlikely to work?
Lead Inquiry: From the chronology, from the imposition in October of the tier system and the fact that –
Mr Imran Shafi: So, but in September there was a debate about whether they could work or not. I think the – what October teaches us is that they didn’t work –
Lead Inquiry: They didn’t work, precisely.
Mr Imran Shafi: – to the effect that they should do, but that doesn’t mean that they couldn’t have been made to work in September.
Lead Inquiry: But they were allowed to continue not working for the whole of October until the lockdown decision was made at the end?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Mr Keith: Thank you very much.
My Lady, there are a significant number of Rule 10 questions. I think there is one question which we indicated I would ask. May I put that question, with your permission?
In your statement, you say that one of the things that struck you was that how in the end the Prime Minister was often the only person in a position to balance the health, economic and other dimensions of pandemic decisions. You recall that I put to you that segment from the SAGE minutes, or at least the segment from COBR where SAGE openly recognised that over and above the epidemiological issues there are the health, economic and other dimensions of pandemic decisions.
Did you ever get the impression that the Prime Minister understood the differences – that is what is called, I think, a leading question – did you ever get the impression that the PM understood the differences between how lockdowns and social distancing restrictions impact adults and children?
Mr Imran Shafi: I think he did understand that, yes.
Lady Hallett: Right. Well, I have been asked to take a short break, so I shall just rise for three or four minutes and we will definitely – just so those who are asking questions know, we will definitely finish by 5.10, and we will complete your evidence this afternoon.
Thank you.
(4.33 pm)
(A short break)
(4.37 pm)
Lady Hallett: Right, I think it’s Ms Gowman. Where is she? There you are.
Questions From Ms Gowman
Ms Gowman: Thank you, my Lady. I’m here.
Lady Hallett: The usual place.
Ms Gowman: Thank you.
Mr Shafi, I ask questions on behalf of Covid Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru. My questions centre on the UK Government’s engagement with the devolved administrations, and in particular the Welsh Government.
At paragraph 95 onwards of your statement, you discuss the Coronavirus Bill, and at paragraph 97 you state that the Prime Minister expressed that “it was important the Devolved Administrations were fully bound in with this”, this being the Coronavirus Bill.
What engagement had there been with the devolved administrations in respect of drafting and approval of the Bill?
Mr Imran Shafi: I don’t know, because I think that would have largely been led out of either the Department of Health or the CCS. I wasn’t that involved in that, sorry.
Ms Gowman: It may be that you can assist with the next question. Why do you think it was so important for the Prime Minister that the devolved administrations were fully bound in the approach to the Coronavirus Bill?
Mr Imran Shafi: I think … you probably need to ask him about the specifics. If I was guessing, I think there were two – two reasons. The first is that there were some very contentious and exceptional measures in this, and so I think it was important to have as common an approach as possible on – in terms of, sort of, like, the political handling. And secondly, he very much wanted as much as possible to have a single UK approach through the pandemic.
Ms Gowman: By “contentious measures”, do you perceive that the Prime Minister felt that the devolved administrations, if not buying into the united front, may have seen the Bill as an attempt to water down their own respective powers?
Mr Imran Shafi: I don’t think that was the angle that he was coming at, but again I think you’d need to check with him.
Ms Gowman: Can we pull up exhibit number INQ000146574, please. This is a Covid-19 emergency legislation advice note dated 9 March which discusses the Coronavirus Bill, and if we turn to page number 5, we see the Prime Minister’s comments on the advice note. We can see comment number 1 states:
“Make sure …
Then in capitals:
“… STURGEON [and] DAs [which I take to mean devolved administrations] stay locked in.”
As far as you’re aware, was there a concern held by the Prime Minister that the devolved administrations would not stay locked in?
Mr Imran Shafi: What date was this again?
Ms Gowman: So 9 March, as I understand it.
Mr Imran Shafi: I think the implication of that comment is that, yes, he was concerned. I think a reading of some of the COBR discussions around that time also – around issues like mass gatherings, there was a slightly different emphasis from different parts of the UK on the approach there. So I think that might have been in his mind.
Ms Gowman: With that in mind, what steps were taken to ensure that the devolved administrations were bound in with the approach, as far as you’re aware?
Mr Imran Shafi: I don’t know. I think my involvement in this was to feed that back to the team, who I assume spoke to their counterparts in the four nations, and obviously this was something that was continually discussed at COBRs.
Ms Gowman: If we can pull up INQ000146570, this is an email dated 10 March 2020 that you sent indicating that the Prime Minister agreed with the proposed approach, ie the Coronavirus Bill, and had commented:
“We must make sure that the DAs are closely bound in on this.”
And at the bottom of that email we can see that you state:
“I’m sure that both of these are already in hand but good to reiterate those messages.”
Who did you think was taking forward those actions?
Mr Imran Shafi: Again, I think it would be some combination of the Cabinet Office and the Department of Health. I can’t remember exactly what was responsible for leading on the draft legislation, but it would have been in either of those two bodies, and they’re both copied in on this email.
Ms Gowman: Moving on to the next and final area of questioning, this relates to the UK Government’s engagement with devolved administrations, in particular the Welsh Government, more generally as the pandemic progressed.
What was the nature of the communication and co-ordination between the UK Government, in particular the Prime Minister, and the devolved administrations, particularly the Welsh Government?
Mr Imran Shafi: Erm, I think he … I don’t know the full extent of his conversations, because I know he spoke to people, the First Ministers of the devolved administrations regularly. I wasn’t the lead responsible official for that. He would certainly have engaged with them at COBR meetings where he and they were present, and Michael Gove, as the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, was also responsible for a significant amount of engagement with the devolved administrations.
Ms Gowman: Just unpicking that a little bit, if I may, who would have been the person responsible for arranging the Prime Minister’s diary in respect of engagements with the First Ministers of the other devolved administrations?
Mr Imran Shafi: I don’t know, sorry.
Ms Gowman: And insofar as the meetings are concerned, you’ve said in response to my question that there were regular meetings between the Prime Minister and the First Ministers for the devolved administrations; are you aware that certainly Mark Drakeford raised concerns that there was in fact an absence of regular meetings between the Prime Minister and the First Ministers for the devolved administrations?
Mr Imran Shafi: So, as I said, I assumed there would be. I’m not sure exactly how many meetings there were. I wasn’t aware of that comment, but if that’s something that the First Minister felt, then that’s an important point.
Ms Gowman: And you assumed that there would have been because that’s something that should have happened?
Mr Imran Shafi: I think, both through Covid and other means, politicians are talking all the time.
Ms Gowman: And similarly you’ve referred to COBR, but you also said in your evidence earlier that those COBR meetings became less frequent as the pandemic progressed; is that fair?
Mr Imran Shafi: That’s fair.
Ms Gowman: And so as a mechanism for there to be dialogue between the UK Government and the devolved administrations, that was also reduced as the pandemic went on?
Mr Imran Shafi: Erm, there were other fora set up, including the sort of meetings with the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to have that engagement. Those fora didn’t really exist in the early days. So I don’t think there was a lessening of overall engagement, it was just through slightly different avenues.
Ms Gowman: The meetings with Mr Gove, the Chancellor, were those meetings that were specifically requested by the devolved administrations or prompted by the UK Government?
Mr Imran Shafi: I wasn’t involved in arranging those meetings, so …
Lady Hallett: I think you’ve moved beyond the permitted questioning, Ms Gowman, I think probably with this witness. Maybe these questions are better directed to another witness.
Ms Gowman: Yes, certainly. My Lady, I only asked them in response to –
Mr Keith: I appreciate that.
Ms Gowman: – the witness’s answer, but I appreciate that it does go beyond the scope of my original questions.
It may be, Mr Shafi, that you can’t assist with my final question, but insofar as intergovernmental communication is concerned, between central government and the devolved administrations, do you think that there are any lessons that can be learnt moving forward?
Mr Imran Shafi: I think just stressing the importance of ongoing conversation and discussion, especially on issues where different parts of the UK have the legal right to take different approaches.
Ms Gowman: Thank you, Mr Shafi. I have no further questions.
Thank you, my Lady.
Lady Hallett: Thank you, Ms Gowman.
Mr Metzer.
Questions From Mr Metzer KC
Mr Metzer: Thank you, my Lady.
Mr Shafi, I ask a small and indeed reduced number of questions on behalf of the Long Covid groups.
Please can we put up INQ000146628.
In the note dated 15 January 2021, you advised the Prime Minister on the choices ahead. I think we can see that at page 2, second paragraph. You referred to the long-term after-effects on younger people, and said you were getting objective clinical advice from Chris Whitty on the extent to which Long Covid is a reasonable policy consideration; yes?
Mr Imran Shafi: That’s correct.
Mr Metzer KC: Back on 13 October 2020, Sir Patrick had advised the Prime Minister and Cabinet these words:
“Another argument against shielding only the elderly was that many young people were being hospitalised with coronavirus or suffered from Long Covid.”
Then on 25 October 2020, at a meeting with the Prime Minister, you noted in your diary, “Long Covid is important,” at page 4. We don’t need to go to that.
The first question is: why was the risk of a significant number of young people suffering from Long Covid not confirmed as a reasonable policy consideration by January 2021, given that the Prime Minister had been advised that it was a policy consideration back in October 2020?
Mr Imran Shafi: I think it was, part of the way that the Chief Medical Officer and the Chief Scientific Adviser thought about these issues and sort of the impacts and harms of … of Long Covid. I certainly knew people who were suffering from it and it was something that I took very seriously. I think it is a matter of record, and I think something that the Inquiry’s already revealed, is that the then Prime Minister was more sceptical than most about the existence of Long Covid as a … as an actual thing.
Mr Metzer KC: So does it flow from that that there was a reason why you did not commission advice on Long Covid for the Prime Minister before January 2021 connected to the Prime Minister’s scepticism?
Mr Imran Shafi: I think I would have expected any advice to come up through the overall Covid Taskforce approach of looking at all of the various issues around measures, and that would have been one part of that consideration. I put a reference to it in this note, largely to sort of try to raise awareness again of the issue, and to try to create space for the Chief Medical Officer to further advise the PM.
Mr Metzer KC: Thank you.
On 21 Oct – sorry, can we put up a different INQ000072835, please.
Chris Whitty had prepared a written note on Long Covid, which was discussed in an email exchange on 18 February 2021 between you and the DHSC, suggesting that Mr Whitty thought a verbal update was better and would try to raise it in a meeting in the next weeks or add it to the agenda. We can see that from that exchange.
Can you help, please: why was the Prime Minister not provided the written note before this exchange?
Mr Imran Shafi: So a written note was drafted, as you can see at the end of that email, it was drafted I think by the Office of the CMO rather than the CMO himself. I think the judgement that both the CMO and I reached was that because we were aware that this was something that the PM was sceptical about, the method of communication to him might be more powerful if it’s a direct conversation with the Chief Medical Officer rather than a note from an anonymous bureaucrat.
Mr Metzer KC: I see. So did Mr Whitty explain why a verbal briefing was better?
Mr Imran Shafi: I think the PM held the CMO in the highest of regards, and I think for difficult messages or when you’re telling somebody something that they might not want to hear, a verbal discussion is sometimes better than a written discussion.
Mr Metzer KC: Right. So you had anticipated that this would not go down well, you and Mr Whitty?
Mr Imran Shafi: I judged the note as drafted risked getting a reaction from the Prime Minister that wouldn’t be helpful.
Mr Metzer KC: Thank you.
Last question: do you know why the suggestion that Mr Whitty had of a verbal briefing did not happen?
Mr Imran Shafi: So I don’t know whether it did happen or not. I know that it didn’t happen in any of the formal meetings that we had, because I think there’s an email from me a little bit later on saying, “We didn’t get the chance to have this conversation”. But the Prime Minister and the Chief Medical Officer spoke all the time separately without me being there. I don’t know whether they covered this, and I think that would be something you’d want to ask them, whether that conversation happened.
Mr Metzer KC: Yes. I just want to press you a little bit, because the Prime Minister says in his witness statement he received a note on 1 June 2021 from Mr Whitty on Long Covid, which was – that note was dated 31 May 2021, which appears to be a different note to the one first signed back in February.
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes, so I left Number 10 in March 2021, so I don’t know to what extent there were verbal conversations between then and May/June. I think that’s something you’d probably need to pick up with the Chief Medical Officer or the PM.
Mr Metzer KC: Would you agree it looks unlikely that the verbal briefing took place?
Mr Imran Shafi: I don’t know.
Mr Metzer: Thank you very much indeed.
Thank you, my Lady.
Lady Hallett: Thank you, Mr Metzer.
Ms Morris.
Questions From Ms Morris KC
Ms Morris: Thank you, my Lady.
Mr Shafi, I ask questions on behalf of the Covid Bereaved Families for Justice UK.
I’d like to ask you, please, about another entry in your notebook.
So that’s INQ000146636, and it’s page 18, please. Page 18, please. Thank you very much. Just at the top there, if we could zoom into the top two lines, please. Thank you.
This is an entry that I think, giving you some context, Mr Shafi, we can date between 7 February – which is noted on page 12 – and 28 February, which Mr Keith has already been to with you, on page 21, where he discussed with you the overreaction point. So it’s somewhere in February, just to locate you in time.
It says, I think:
“Trade-off – short sharp peak good [for] economy.”
Mr Imran Shafi: Yeah.
Ms Morris KC: “long flat … good for health system.”
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Ms Morris KC: Have I got that right?
Mr Imran Shafi: Yes.
Ms Morris KC: Thank you.
Does this note of a discussion indicate, using the words “trade off”, that there was a government view at that stage that the interests of the health system were in some way in opposition to that of the economy?
Mr Imran Shafi: I can’t remember who said this. It’s just me jotting down comments made in a meeting. I don’t think that was an overall government view, it was just probably the view of someone just thinking about the issues.
Ms Morris KC: Would you agree it’s a quite binary presentation of those two things, using the words “trade off”?
Mr Imran Shafi: I mean, the way it’s written down, yes. Although I think even when it says “long flat”, I think that’s the mitigation approach rather than the suppress approach. So even that is sort of contained within what the actual trade-offs were.
Ms Morris KC: Understood. Was there a sense at this time that there was this presentation of the economy on one side and public health on the other? Was that prevalent within Number 10 discussions?
Mr Imran Shafi: I don’t think so.
Ms Morris KC: Was there, by contrast, any appreciation for a more nuanced and complex interrelationship between the two, so in particular the reality that without good public health there is no prospects of a strong economy?
Mr Imran Shafi: I think that became increasingly part of the thinking around March –
Ms Morris KC: Okay.
Mr Imran Shafi: – and into the autumn.
Ms Morris KC: But before March, so in February, which is when we’re looking at –
Mr Imran Shafi: Yeah.
Ms Morris KC: – is it more likely, do you think, that there was this kind of binary trade-off mindset?
Mr Imran Shafi: No, because I don’t think it was seen in that way. If you look at some of the economic impacts from the – estimated economic impacts from Covid in late February, early March, the GDP impact is a lot smaller than what it actually came out to be. I don’t think people quite realised what the potential economic impacts would be in February.
Ms Morris KC: Was any independent advice sought or obtained by the government in respect of the potential economic aspects of the pandemic and interventions such as lockdown and NPIs?
Mr Imran Shafi: There was – when advice was put to the Prime Minister in March, and COBR, there was always, I believe, some assessment of the economic impact of measures in that – in that advice.
Ms Morris KC: Separate from the Treasury advice, was there anything outside Treasury advice?
Mr Imran Shafi: I don’t know, I think you’d need to ask the Treasury that.
Ms Morris: All right, thank you, that’s helpful.
Thank you, Mr Shafi.
Thank you, my Lady.
Lady Hallett: Thank you very much, Ms Morris.
Anything further, Mr Keith?
Mr Keith: No, thank you, my Lady.
Lady Hallett: Thank you very much indeed, Mr Shafi, I’m very grateful to you. I think you were here this morning, thinking you might be called this morning, so thank you very much for your patience with us.
Thank you for all your help.
The Witness: Thank you.
(The witness withdrew)
Lady Hallett: Right. 10 o’clock tomorrow.
Mr Keith: Thank you.
(5.00 pm)
(The hearing adjourned until 10 am on Tuesday, 31 October 2023)