2. Dame Priti Patel

DAME PRITI PATEL (affirmed).

Questions From Lead Counsel to the Inquiry

Mr Keith: Could you commence your evidence, please, by giving us your full name?

Dame Patel: Yes, my name is Priti Patel.

Lead Inquiry: Dame Priti, thank you for the provision of your witness statement, we needn’t go through it in detail, or even look at the declaration.

You were good enough and those who advise you were good enough to also provide the Inquiry with detailed witness statements from Patricia Hayes, the former Home Office second permanent secretary, called the Home Office Module 2 core statement, and also a statement from the former director general of the Border Force, Paul Lincoln, as well as a timeline, so thank you for all those documents.

I want to ask you first, please, about your career. You were, I think, between July 2014 and May 2015 the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury. Between May 2015 and July 2016 you were minister of state for employment. From July 2016 to December 2017, Secretary of State for International Development. And then, for our purposes the most relevant feature of your career, you were Secretary of State for the Home Department from 24 July 2019 until 6 September 2022.

Dame Patel: That’s correct.

Lead Inquiry: And therefore you were Home Secretary during the entire currency of the crisis.

The responsibilities of the Home Secretary are set out in your witness statement at paragraph 13. May we please have that up.

It will appear on the screen in front of you, Dame Priti, in a moment.

The Home Secretary has responsibility, of course, overall responsibility for all Home Office business, and therefore you had overall responsibility for the Home Office response to Covid-19.

We can see there the wide range of functions for which the Home Office is responsible. I don’t suppose those are all its functions, but they are the main functions, are they not?

Dame Patel: They are predominantly the functions of the – and responsibility of the Home Secretary, and clearly there is much more, including national security, it touches on there, but many other elements that are cross – cross-government effectively.

Lead Inquiry: It is, of course, the lead government department for immigration, passports, drugs policy, crime, fire, counter-terrorism –

Dame Patel: That’s correct.

Lead Inquiry: – and police. So to a very large extent the Home Office is responsible for not operational matters necessarily, but the overall enforcement or compliance with criminal legislation, with, bluntly, obeying the law?

Dame Patel: So, absolutely. I would also describe the Home Office as an operational department primarily because functions, whether they’re at the border, with Border Force, but also within our visa system, are very much based on processes, so operational, passports, et cetera.

And then, as I’ve just touched upon, working across government departments, yes on criminal justice matters with the MoJ, the Attorney General, but even, as we’ll come to discuss later on, other government departments on vulnerabilities, for example, on accommodation, a whole range of areas which do feature throughout this whole period of the pandemic.

Lead Inquiry: Indeed.

If we look down the list, we can see at (ii):

“Reducing and preventing crime … ensuring people feel safe in their homes …”

And at (vii):

“Securing the UK border and controlling immigration.”

Dame Patel: That’s right.

Lead Inquiry: Putting aside the UK border issue, for which the Home Office had a direct operational role and an enforcement role, and just focusing on the reduction and prevention of crime, it is obvious that during the pandemic, during the coronavirus crisis, a large number of regulations were drawn up in order to be able to regulate the behaviour of the population and to provide sanction for breaches of the law relating to their conduct.

The Home Office plainly played a role in the drafting or the promulgation of those regulations. It was aware that this process was going on. But who or which department actually drafted the coronavirus health protection restriction regulations and the like?

Dame Patel: So those regulations were solely the domain of the Department for Health and Social Care, and that – that was the case throughout the pandemic. And interestingly enough, even just speaking about the responsibilities of the Home Secretary, from a policing perspective, we were the people, myself as Home Secretary, my policing minister, but my incredible officials, actually, we had a very strong team, and you would have seen that through the cross-referencing with Tricia Hayes’ witness statement. We had a very significant team, a crime prevention fire group as they were called, CPFG, that would work across government, through the Cabinet Office and then with the Department of Health and Social Care, primarily because the police, as I’m sure you’ve discussed this morning, had to operationalise many of the regulations, and at the same time there was a lot of guidance that was produced for police forces to then help them with regulations.

Lead Inquiry: Bluntly, the Home Office and the police forces and chief constables worked together very closely indeed. Chief constables and the NPCC and police forces would come to the Home Office and say, “We need guidance in relation to these regulations. What do they mean? What is the process by which these regulations are being drawn up?” And presumably the Home Office acted as an interface with the DHSC to say, “This is the position”?

Dame Patel: So absolutely on the interface point. I think some context may be helpful in terms of our overall way of working. Our CPFG group, my officials at the time, myself as Home Secretary, my policing minister, we had set up a very cheer structure of working with the police, so I would suggest, and in fact it’s very obvious, we had a very close partnership working relationship with the police, we would hold regular meetings, in fact they then became Zoom calls. I would speak to the police near enough every single day: we’d have operational calls with the police twice a week, with different chief constables, with the National Police Chiefs’ Council, the police commissioner, the National Crime Agency, every single aspect of law enforcement that would sit under our umbrella. And we would effectively work together – I would listen to representations, concerns, all based around the practicalities of enforcement.

But we were learning all the time, because one of the key features of this particular period, although there was no business as usual per se, policing still had to carry on, policing changed but there was still law enforcement operations taking place.

I’m not sure if the Inquiry is aware, but we had one of the largest law enforcement operations in the history of this country take place during the pandemic and that was called Operation Venetic, and I think to this day there are still prosecutions of known individuals taking place. So there was a vast array of policing activity going on and I feel that the Home Office led a very significant but actually a structured way of working with law enforcement. And by law enforcement I mean our police and our agencies, our security agencies were part of that as well.

Lead Inquiry: We will come back to the issue of public health policing in a moment, but in reality, if concerns were raised with the Home Office about the drafting of the regulations or their effectiveness or the degree of complexity or confusion to which they gave rise, giving then rise to issues about enforcement, was the job of actually drafting those regulations within the role of the Home Office? Was it within your gift to be able to change the regulations, to propose different drafts, or was the drafting itself exclusively within the DHSC?

Dame Patel: So the drafting was not within the Home Office. It was very much within the Department of Health and Social Care. Our interface across government was very much in terms of effectively being an advocate. We’re practical people in the Home Office, our role was very much to bring to light the practical realities of what – the direction of travel – in fact, you know, certain stages throughout the pandemic, what was working and what was not working around enforcement and the application of regulations from policing. And on that basis, from day one – I’ve said this publicly many times – we’d asked the police to almost do the impossible, and we were there to effectively bring – give them the voice that was needed across government.

Lead Inquiry: It’s obviously the case that there was a vast amount of communication, and a great deal of paperwork generated in this interface as to how the regulations should be drafted, whether they were appropriate, whether they could be improved and so on.

Do you happen to know whether or not it was DHSC officials or advisers who actually drew up the secondary legislation or whether or not they would have had recourse to Parliamentary Counsel? Who produced the wording in the regulations?

Dame Patel: So I – I’m going to make quite a wide assumption here, having been involved in drafting legislation myself and having gone through the legislative processes before I even came to the Commons, that Parliamentary Counsel would have had a role, there’s no doubt about that, but central to all of this the Cabinet Office would have been pivotal in terms of setting up the environment for drafting the legislations, also going through some of the clearance processes, but ultimately the department which would hold the pen would be the Department for Health and Social Care.

Lead Inquiry: Do you happen to know whether or not, because we’re dealing here in the main with secondary legislation, the statutory instruments, the DHSC would have had more of a role in the drafting than perhaps would have been the case with primary legislation, which, as you, if I may say so, correctly observe is within the role of Parliamentary Counsel?

Dame Patel: I would say so, yes.

Lead Inquiry: All right.

Now coming back to paragraph 13 and (vii), “Securing the UK border and controlling immigration”, the Home Office role is greater in this sphere, is it not, because in relation to the border, the Home Office is directly concerned with the operationalisation and enforcement of health measures at the UK border?

Dame Patel: So on that basis of course the Home Office is responsible, as outlined here, in the point on securing the UK border and controlling immigration, through the policy levers that the Home Office has.

When it comes to health measures at the border of course that is a piece, effectively, or an aspect, of border measures, not border control but border measures, that also is the responsibility – it crosses over into the public health territory, with the Department of Health and Social Care. And that’s an important distinction because we do not hold the legislative levers around the public health measures.

Lead Inquiry: And is that why, as is well known, the DHSC is responsible for port health measures? To what extent do airports fall within ports? Is the DHSC responsible for public health measures in airports as well as ports? Are airports ports?

Dame Patel: So effectively, and this is down to my recollection and understanding at the time, Department of Health and Social Care, that is correct, were responsible for port health measures, and in fact they stood up port health officials at, I’m pretty certain, maritime ports and airports. Because of course you have to have that differentiation between the port health individuals and Border Force. Border Force have very clear responsibilities, whether it’s at maritime ports or in airports but more broadly at the border.

Lead Inquiry: And of course in the mix as well there is the Border Agency, which practically, of course, carries out border duties on the border. Is that within the political control of the Home Office, or is that an entirely independent agency?

Dame Patel: So Border Force, and clearly the head of Border Force at the time was Paul Lincoln, would absolutely be part of the Home Office and responsible, accountable, working with myself and our ministers, and our BICS team and Border Force team within the Home Office.

Lead Inquiry: In terms of the overarching requirement to draw up and draft regulations in terms of the operationalisation of those regulations and in terms of the enforcement of regulations, you must have reflected that this was a particularly complicated framework?

Dame Patel: So, very candidly, I mean, I do recall some of those discussions and I do also recall what a fraught period that was within government at that time. We’re speaking now very much about the first quarter, the early – in fact the first month of the pandemic effectively, January 2020, and of course with all of that there were a range of border measures that were discussed, I’m sure you’ve touched on them already within this Inquiry, but we had a clear role, effectively, of helping and supporting the repatriation of UK citizens from abroad during the month of January 2020, that was clearly a key thing –

Lead Inquiry: I’m going to come to some specific measures in a moment, Dame Priti, if I may.

Can I ask you, before we look at those, though, about the overarching approach to borders.

Border control is undoubtedly a divisive issue. It’s politically quite a sensitive issue. In the framework of the coronavirus crisis it was not just a political issue but very much a public health matter as well. We’re going to see in a moment how the Home Office receive advice from NERVTAG and SAGE and from your own Chief Scientific Adviser within the Home Office as to what could be done about borders.

So I want to ask you: to what extent were decisions concerning borders and restrictions and closures or whatever they may be driven by political considerations as opposed to pure public health matters?

Dame Patel: So, I don’t think there’s a straightforward answer to that at all, because there were live discussions across government during that period. As I’ve just mentioned, it was a fraught time, the world was changing quite rapidly, we could see some countries doing different things while at the same time we all witnessed very terrible scenes on our TVs, you know, of the impact of coronavirus around the world in certain countries.

Our hands, I think, were effectively forced, really, because of Wuhan, what was happening in China, and that led to a series of measures, they’re documented in some of the evidence statements that have been provided, around borders, visas, et cetera, so there were a range of discussions, and I can absolutely categorically state – at an official level across government in particular – so I had one official, Paul Lincoln, permanent secretary at the time, others were in active discussions around what this meant in terms of public health, what it meant in terms of our day-to-day operations within government, for example. I mean, I went on and I think it may be touched on in one of the witness statements to look at our resilience plans, for example, what would be business as usual for our department.

Bear in mind the political context of the time, January 2020, we’d just had an election in 2019, I was due to actually implement legislation around immigration, so ending free movement, the Immigration Bill we were working on through that period.

So, you know, there were live discussions. You could argue in some quarters they were political, absolutely they were political for obvious reasons, while at the same time we were having practical discussions every single day with officials and ministers, certainly within my department, and officials were having cross-government discussions, around some of the implications, the health situations we’re seeing and where this could eventually go.

Lead Inquiry: May I just pause you there.

In light of what was obviously a very complex scenario, with competing considerations, some public health, some political, some immigration, obviously the critical issue of applying public health restrictions whilst maintaining a critical flow of supplies and trade and food and medicines and critical goods, was it the case that in the Home Office, as with other government departments, you had to start your assessment of how all these competing considerations could be brought together and resolved from scratch? There was no guide or, to use an inappropriate expression, a playbook for how, in the face of an oncoming viral pandemic, decisions could or should be taken about what to do about borders. You had to really start from the beginning and see where you went?

Dame Patel: I can understand why externally that may be the view and the perception, but there had been work that was undertaken by previous governments, and I’d not been in those discussions, around what to do if there was an influenza pandemic, for example, I think Ebola has been touched on as another example, and there had been – and I am aware of this because I was involved in a conversation in January involving one of my officials at the time – work had been taken, undertaken in the past. So we can’t just say that, you know, fast forward to the pandemic, it was just a blank sheet of paper. There were processes in terms of understanding what could and couldn’t be done.

I think within the context of the coronavirus pandemic, which was different for lots of reasons that you are discussing in this Inquiry, there were measures that were simply not available to us in terms of health measures, identification of coronavirus at the border, for example. I remember having one of those discussions with Professor John Aston at the time in the Home Office.

Lead Inquiry: Just pause there, was he the Home Office Chief Scientific Adviser?

Dame Patel: That’s correct, yes.

Lead Inquiry: Nevertheless, Dame Priti, although there may have been processes in place, and plainly it would be absurd to imagine there were no processes at all in place for determining how to deal with borders, at least within the Home Office, in the face of any sort of crisis, there were no sophisticated or developed plans setting out, perhaps by way of a step-by-step process, “This is what you do to borders in terms of screening, or restrictions, or quarantine or closure, in the event that there is a viral pandemic or epidemic identified offshore, in Europe or the rest of the world, and a clear indication that it’s coming”. You had to effectively sit down and work out step by step what you should do?

Dame Patel: I think that’s fair, I do think that’s fair. And that’s a process of iteration where we’re constantly asking questions. As I said, we’re a practical department, so on that basis, constantly asking challenging questions, a lot of it around technical capability as well as the powers that we may have within the immigration sphere and the border sphere and powers that we may not have.

Lead Inquiry: Indeed.

Your witness statement at paragraph 28 makes plain that on 10 January the Home Office provided route-specific passenger data to Public Health England, and on 3 February you paused the processing of visa applications from any individual who had travelled through or been resident in Wuhan or the Hubei Province.

And that hold on processing was extended to another country, and then of course everything was swept away by the impact of the lockdown.

Could you just make plain, though, that the efficacy of that second measure, the pausing of the processing of visa applications, had a direct impact on the number of persons who could then enter the United Kingdom from that region? You don’t need to stop people at the border to stop them coming to the United Kingdom, you can pause the processing of visa applications and that has a significant practical impact?

Dame Patel: That is correct.

Lead Inquiry: All right.

At paragraph 33, you make plain that following the World Health Organisation’s announcement of a novel coronavirus on 9 January, as you’ve mentioned, Border Force officials began providing passenger data for routes specified. What was the purpose of that? How did that help in the defence of the realm in relation to the oncoming virus?

Dame Patel: So, it was self-evident at this stage, increasingly, that there were hotspots, known hotspots, particular countries, around the world, where coronavirus was clearly a major problem, and of course that information was really pivotal to the Department of Health, Public Health England in particular, in anticipation of potential other measures, but also people travelling back to the United Kingdom, in terms of community transmission, for example, and that became quite a topic of conversation, certainly throughout January but in February and in March, clearly from a scientific perspective, with regard to that reproduction value, the R value, and also what that would mean in terms of public health measures domestically, and then of course the whole challenge that the Department of Health had, which was managing the capacity within the NHS.

Lead Inquiry: Was it the position, Dame Priti, that throughout the crisis the Home Office was guided in relation to decisions in relation to the United Kingdom border by advice from NERVTAG, then SAGE, and of course your own departmental officials, in particular the Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor Aston, whom you’ve mentioned?

Dame Patel: That’s absolutely correct.

Lead Inquiry: In paragraph 34, and in particular 35, do you therefore make plain that decisions as to whether or not screening measures could be put in place, for example temperature checks, decisions as to whether or not there could be any sort of proportionate or percentage reduction in the number of passages through the borders, travellers through the borders, and ultimately questions about closure or quarantine, were all significantly guided by the scientific advice: would it work?

Dame Patel: That’s correct.

Lead Inquiry: Were you placed in a position, in effect, of being informed that screening, temperature checks, seeing whether people were displaying symptoms, was practically ineffective because symptoms can be suppressed and screens aren’t effective, a significant closure of the border would be unlikely to delay the onset of the virus significantly, and would be extremely difficult, and would have terrible ramifications in terms of the passage of people and trade, and there was no real question ever of being able to shut the borders completely and having in place a quarantine system because the practicalities of that had never been worked out?

Dame Patel: So, that’s absolutely correct, and all the evidence and the documents that have been supplied to the Inquiry show that very clearly, and the advice that I received, and I think was shared widely across government at the time, showed that it would have a minimal impact in terms of preventing the spread of the virus, in terms of community transmission.

And importantly, I also recall receiving in advice to me that it would not actually even assist the NHS in terms of preparations, the time that they would need in terms of coping around the number of people that were coming into the NHS.

And I think there are a couple of other important points to make around the documentation and the evidence and the advice that’s that was being provided.

The advice is one aspect of this, but actually coming back to the practicalities of trying to put in technical measures to, I think the term was used, heat test people that were coming through the border, government did not have that capability. And that became self-evident very early on. I was picking up conversations and information from particularly Cabinet Office, through some of the meetings that we were involved in then, that they did not have the technical capability.

Then of course there would be this murky about, who would have responsibility for what, and would you then bring in public health officials. Is it going to work? How much information can you actually operationalise at the border and would that be practical?

Then of course I was heavily involved in – this would be of no great surprise, I was heavily involved in the discussions around critical supplies, so even speaking to counterparts in Europe, for example, our French colleagues, and my colleagues within Border Force, so that would have been Paul Lincoln’s team in particular, they’d be speaking to their opposite numbers in France, primarily because we could see pressures in France at their border and all sorts of restrictions that they were encountering that could actually have a pretty devastating impact upon critical goods and supplies coming into the United Kingdom, and of course that would have ramifications whether it was in the NHS, food supplies, all sorts of things. So we had a lot of intensive work across government taking place very specifically in that area.

Lead Inquiry: Just before the break, just drawing the threads of the advice that the Home Office received together, your statement makes plain that at a relatively early stage, in fact on 3 February, the Home Office had received advice, I think ultimately from SPI-M-O, to the effect that there may – and I emphasise “may”, because it wasn’t in fact until later in February that this was confirmed, but that there may already be sustained community transmission in the United Kingdom. So obviously that had a direct impact on the sense or efficacy of putting into place border arrangements?

Dame Patel: And that really summed up the situation, and the evidence was there, and I think even in terms of community transmission, but the number of people that were clearly falling ill was demonstrating that impact within the NHS.

And even – well, I know we’ll come on to that –

Lead Inquiry: That, I think if I may interrupt, was at a later stage. There wasn’t really an impact to the NHS at that stage?

Dame Patel: Not at that stage but that’s effectively what the information was alluding to, that clearly community transmission was starting to pick up, and therefore all the subsequent – any measures at the border would simply not have made a difference at that stage.

Lead Inquiry: Then moving forward to the time of the lockdown, 23 March, did the Home Office receive from SAGE advice that, by that stage, closing the borders completely or perhaps with a quarantine system to back it up would have a negligible impact on the spread of the virus because the number of people coming in through an open border at the end of March would only comprise a tiny proportion of the overall number of people in the United Kingdom who were already infected?

Dame Patel: And – yes, and on that basis as well people had started to reduce their travel. So we saw internationally other countries were bringing in their own travel restrictions, so that in its own right was working through the system at that particular time.

Lead Inquiry: So finally on this topic of borders, the position that the Home Office and the government confronted or had to face in February/March 2020 was that there was a distinct absence of practical capable to be able to restrict the infection through the border, and secondly there was no sophisticated or effective system already thought about, drawn up, and ready to be put into place when the virus emerged?

Dame Patel: I think that’s absolutely correct, and with that no technical capability and I think the capability, technical skills, there are things that we’ll come on to later, passenger locator form was one example of that, but at that stage the skills and capability certainly weren’t there.

Mr Keith: My Lady, is that a convenient moment?

Lady Hallett: Certainly it is.

I’m sorry, I think you were warned that you may have to go – I’m so sorry about it. I shall return, because we have been overrunning – another apology, a slightly shorter lunch – at 1.50.

Mr Keith: Thank you.

(1.00 pm)

(The short adjournment)

(1.50 pm)

Mr Keith: Dame Priti, I’d like to turn now, please, to the subject of hidden harms.

You have very helpfully in your statement set out a number of ways in which you personally have campaigned for the victims of crime and abuse, including those persons who are the victims of domestic and child abuse, and other vulnerable groups.

This Inquiry and this module in particular is concerned only with the core political and administrative decision-making, and therefore of course – and this is the paradigm – the decisions to lock down, and therefore the Inquiry is concerned specifically with the topic of: to what extent were the needs and the position of victims of abuse considered in the decision-making when those momentous decisions were taken?

The starting point appears to be, and it’s at paragraph 76 of your statement, that there was no pre-existing plan, within the Home Office at any rate, to protect vulnerable people who might be required to stay at home in the event of a lockdown.

That of course was because there had been very little, if any, thinking about the practicalities of a lockdown at all.

So was the Home Office obliged to consider this issue at speed, at pace, and, if so, when was the main body of work done on the potential impact of a lockdown decision and the impact on vulnerable groups and, in particular, victims of hidden harms? When was that thinking done?

Dame Patel: So, I think it’s fair actually to give – give a lot of credit to the Home Office in this entire area, even before the pandemic, primarily because, prior to myself becoming Home Secretary, we were due to implement and bring in the Domestic Abuse Bill, so there was a great deal of work already under way around vulnerabilities and domestic abuse.

Lead Inquiry: I’m sorry to interrupt. That is given and the Inquiry understands that. Of course there was a developed and sophisticated system in place already, no doubt under the governance of the Home Office, to deal with the victims of abuse, and the Domestic Abuse Bill is well known.

But the lockdown decisions –

Dame Patel: Sure.

Lead Inquiry: – were of course of a very different order and the impacts were likely to be very considerable and without the experience of the United Kingdom. So I really want you to focus, please, on when that thinking was done about: what shall we do about the victims of hidden harms in the context of the ready decision-making which we now understand is going to take place?

Dame Patel: So that was in March. I mean, that was in and around the time of lockdown.

And the reason why I tried to contextualise not the Domestic Abuse Bill, but this does apply to children as well, there was work taking place within the department, so there was some county lines work, all sorts of things going on, with police and law enforcement but also with education. That’s partly down to my role as Home Secretary not just throughout the pandemic but prior to lockdown.

So we were agile, we were able to work at pace and we were able to start working across the sector with partners as soon as we were effectively locking down.

That was – the lockdown I think on 23 March, when that came, obviously changed engagement dynamic, concentrated on how people would be affected, but just in that run-up to lockdown I think it could have been even around possibly 18 March, around that time, I had already started to have discussions around vulnerable people, vulnerable groups, as I said, within the Home Office. And that is within the Home Office, this isn’t just across government but within the Home Office. Primarily because, you go back to my roles and responsibilities, that’s the nature of the work of the Home Secretary and the work of the Home Office: we’re constantly thinking about vulnerable people, impacts through legislation and many other things that we were undertaking anyway. And I had some specific programmes, that I’m sure we’ll come on to, where we were already funding work around vulnerable people where we then sort of went to grow that funding pool and then started to reallocate resources.

Lead Inquiry: And briefly, the work that it became understood would be necessary, was that the drawing up of policy documents, guidance, was it the drafting of communication materials, so telling people what their positions were, what their rights were, what they could do to protect themselves and what they would need to do in the event of abuse, was it the making available of resource, money, or was it, lastly, legislative proposals or a combination of all? If you can just briefly –

Dame Patel: So it’s a combination of all, an absolute combination of all. Legislative proposals already under way.

So first and foremost, convening, the power to convene, so convening groups, so partners within the sector, refuges, for example, charitable organisations and groups. Effectively frontline organisations. And not working in isolation but making them part of that dialogue, working with them, understanding their needs, but also understanding from a communications perspective where they needed help and support and how we could use the machinery of government to then communicate messages into lockdown, you know, throughout lockdown, particularly to vulnerable people, as to where they could access help and support. And there’s a policing element to this as well that we –

Lead Inquiry: We will come back to that. All right.

You mentioned a few moments ago that on 18 March, you had by that stage, and of course that’s before the lockdown, already begun to argue the cause of the victims of hidden harms. Was that in the context of a Cabinet committee where you’d engage directly in a debate as to the definition of vulnerable people and you were calling I think for a wider definition to be given in order that the impact upon such groups could be more widely considered and taken account of?

Dame Patel: That is correct.

Lead Inquiry: What Cabinet committee was that? Can you recall?

Dame Patel: I cannot tell you the actual title of that Cabinet committee, because so many of our committees morphed into Covid-Os, Ss, MIGs and different structures, but I think it’s important to reflect at that time, the 18th, if my memory serves me correct, schools closed on the 20th and so the reason why I was pressing for that was to ensure that obviously the children of key workers, vulnerable people, could effectively, you know, still receive access to education and all those types of things. Because definition of vulnerability from my perspective, as Home Secretary and in the Home Office, was very broad. That would also include frontline workers in refuges, for example, different definitions of individuals that are providing support services.

So these were important – important discussions to have at the time.

Lead Inquiry: And the context for that discussion, Dame Priti, was it, that initially the consideration had been given to those who might be vulnerable only in the context of clinical considerations, so maybe those with health conditions, or the elderly, in addition, or perhaps pregnant women, and it became clear, didn’t it, that any sensible scheme for dealing with and meeting the needs of vulnerable people would have to be widened, it couldn’t be limited to those essentially clinical or age-related or pregnancy-related considerations?

Dame Patel: That’s absolutely right, and I think it was quite telling at that particular stage of the pandemic, so March 2020, that very much was the focus, it was on the clinical side, the health side of things, and then obviously the iterations came afterwards, once lockdown had taken place, and then we could see the impact more broadly across society.

Lead Inquiry: That debate about, firstly, the meaning of vulnerable people, and secondly, also, the debate about the definition of key workers which followed on very quickly thereafter, in the context of both those terminological debates, was specific consideration given to whether or not the victims of domestic or child abuse should be brought within those terminologies?

Dame Patel: I can’t recall at that particular time, I cannot recall whether or not it was, but I do know that in terms of pressing for a wider definition of vulnerabilities and vulnerable people, I do know children came into it.

And the reason, as I’ve already touched on, is partly because of the work that I was pressing across government – I’m not sure my colleagues in government thanked me at the time – particularly around children, county lines, missing children. It’s a major part of our work in the Home Office. And we knew that, you know, sometimes the safety net just isn’t there in the way in which it needs to be within the state and the safety net misses categories of individuals. So that was very much front and centre of my concern at the time.

Lead Inquiry: Now, chronologically, there was, of course, the reading of the Domestic Abuse Bill, which I think was on 3 March 2020 and the reason why I interrupted earlier was that was a Bill which of course had been conceived long before –

Dame Patel: Some time before.

Lead Inquiry: – the lockdown –

Dame Patel: Yeah.

Lead Inquiry: – came to pass, and of course long before the coronavirus became apparent. Was that Domestic Abuse Bill signed into law straight away or did it take time until it came into effect?

Dame Patel: Of course, so many challenges obviously even throughout a pandemic is still continuing: the work of government, legislation – I mentioned earlier on the immigration Bill that we brought forward as part of leaving the EU. The Domestic Abuse Act, as it now is, Bill at the time, second reading in March, meant it had to go through the full stages of Parliament, so second reading, committee stage, all the discussions, working with third parties, that takes time. So that was certainly, throughout 2020, pretty much – that was just one of the many pieces of legislation that we had going through Parliament.

But I think, if I may, it is important to just reflect, because it was a live piece of legislation, it naturally facilitated and enabled so much more dialogue to take place with stakeholders, partners, you know, the people that we would work with effectively within the domestic abuse wider family and community, and that clearly helped to shape, inform – I can definitely say helped to shape, inform a lot of the pandemic response.

Lead Inquiry: However, the reality was, wasn’t it, that that Bill was not signed into law until 29 April 2021, and therefore it could bring no support at all, or succour, to the victims of hidden harm during the first, second or third national lockdowns. It didn’t come into law until they had all been and gone.

Dame Patel: So, if I may, I would effectively question that, because of the level of support that was put in place throughout the pandemic for hidden harms and vulnerable people.

The Domestic Abuse Act –

Lead Inquiry: Can I interrupt you, please, Dame Priti, I do apologise.

Quite so, but my question was that that Act could provide no support. I’m about to ask you questions about the other means by which support was proffered. But that Act could have no practical application until it passed into law, could it?

Dame Patel: So the Act was under development, or the Bill at the time, so the Act itself could not.

Lead Inquiry: However, in your statement, and if we could perhaps bring up in quick succession the subparagraphs of paragraph 79.

79(i), you refer to:

“… Additional funding for frontline charities including those supporting domestic abuse victims.”

I think I’m right in saying that a footnote that you provide later in your statement, footnote 54, makes plain, however, that of that £750 million for frontline charities only a relatively small proportion was for domestic abuse charities:

“… £15 [million] … to Ministry of Justice for Police and Crime Commissioners to allocate to domestic abuse charities, £10 [million] … to [MHCLG] for domestic abuse accommodation … and £2 [million] for the Home Office to allocate [Itself towards domestic abuse charities].”

So that was an overarching sum for all charities or –

Dame Patel: That’s right.

Lead Inquiry: – a significant part of charities –

Dame Patel: During the pandemic.

Lead Inquiry: At (ii) we can see a re-prioritisation of the Home Office funding to address Covid-19-related threats for victims of child sexual abuse and exploitation.

Changes, 6 April, to the scheme for support for modern slavery victims.

More money in funding in the Home Office on 11 April.

The important “You Are Not Alone” campaign on 11 April. What was that?

Dame Patel: So this was a public awareness, it was a communications campaign, effectively, and it was effectively launched at a Downing Street press conference on 11 April, I think on the platform with me was Martin Hewitt actually, from National Police Chiefs’ Council, where we specifically focused that press conference on hidden harms.

But specific to the “You Are Not Alone” campaign, it was part of the messaging around domestic abuse, that should you need help and support as a vulnerable person subject to domestic abuse, then (a) you are not alone and that there are ways and means in which you can seek help and support.

So in relation to earlier questions, you know, a lot of communications work clearly, funding allocated for this, but also working with our third parties such as the national hotline for domestic abuse, in anticipation of an inevitable surge. Once you’ve launched your campaign, of course, it would then go into that helpline.

Lead Inquiry: I think that that press conference, it was indeed on 11 April, you spoke together with Mr Hewitt on the emerging crime picture –

Dame Patel: That’s right.

Lead Inquiry: – and as part of that exploration, you directly addressed the issue of domestic and child abuse.

I think you – or at least the Home Office had liaised in advance of that press conference with a number of charitable organisations involved in that sector, so Women’s Aid, Refuge and so on?

Dame Patel: That’s right, and also organisations such as Barnardo’s, NPCC, all those that specialise in children and care.

One other point to make, if I may, just about that press conference I think we also spoke about online harms. We had seen a surge once the schools had closed, and this is obviously through our wider networks and the National Crime Agency, a very significant increase in the appalling practice of online harm and abuse towards children.

Lead Inquiry: All right.

Picking up the thread from paragraph 79 we can see the additional funding of 2 May, a letter to technology industry partners on 7 May, the Hidden Harms summit, which was an important event in this chronology, on 21 May. And then if we could go to paragraph 84, you raised at Cabinet in the summer of 2020 the issue of what plans were in place for the provision of free school meal volunteers(sic) and what plans the Department for Education had for addressing the widening attainment gap. And a briefing in advance of a Covid-O meeting in June recorded your concerns about the mental health impact on children as well as your support for a variety of charitable organisations as well as vulnerable children in that context.

In October, paragraph 73, you appointed an adviser, Nimco Ali. What was that appointment concerned with?

Dame Patel: So her appointment was specifically linked to the department’s wider work on violence against women and girls, a very significant strand and pillar of the department’s work on safeguarding. We have a minister for safeguarding, so very significant area. And of course that spoke to everything to do with tackling violence against women and girls, forced marriages, FGM, domestic abuse, domestic violence, coercive behaviour. So having her as a professional, a health professional that’s worked in the sector, but also an individual, a professional that at the same time understands not just the issues but the organisations, third party groups and organisations, that we as a department could effectively work with and partner with in developing a wider strategy.

Lead Inquiry: In November, the Home Office announced further funding for the victims of rape and domestic abuse. We can see that in December 2020 the “You Are Not Alone” campaign was relaunched, and then in January 2021, and again I just want to ask you for your views on this, was a national strategy to protect children announced, I think on 22 January? Paragraph 74.

Dame Patel: That’s correct.

Lead Inquiry: How important was that strategy in the general scheme of things?

Dame Patel: I think it was pivotal, absolutely crucial to all our work. Not just in the Home Office, but all forms of child sexual abuse online, the wider system, the criminal justice system, which we’ve not even touched on in terms of how that part of the system was working during the pandemic, but hidden harms and therefore our relationship and partnership working with third parties, including technology companies.

Throughout the pandemic it is fair to say that I had some very forthright discussions with technology companies about their own responsibilities to data sharing, closing down platforms that effectively promoted and facilitated and enabled all sorts of terrible things on the web that could also compel and entice children to be on those sites, while at the same time working with third party agencies. And a point to make, throughout this pandemic period I remember having a specific discussion with technology companies, I think the National Crime Agency were involved as well, because we saw a surge in activity online, almost the inevitability of lockdown – with that, of course, perpetrators are spending more time online, the dark web in particular is a dreadful place for just terrible activity, but we found that some of the third party organisations that we would work with, for example the Internet Watch Foundation, and others, they themselves were affected by the pandemic, so they were not in the office. Many of their people and professionals that would monitor images, that could then go to law enforcement, they were suffering from Covid. So there were all sorts of wider practical considerations that we had to consider working with law enforcement and working with these partners as to how we could tackle this wider scourge in society, and this strategy was really part of all that.

Lead Inquiry: In March 2022 the Home Office launched a new Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan, and by that stage, Dame Priti, it was obvious, was it not, that to a significant extent and despite all the work that had been done, the impact of the lockdowns and the social restrictions which had been placed on the country from time to time, had meant that online child abuse and recourse to abuse helplines and so on and so forth had continued to increase.

So the question then arises: to what extent do you assess that all this valuable work and the steps that the Home Office and you personally took were able to reverse or to reduce the terrible scourge, the vice of this criminality which you had identified as requiring steps to be taken to address?

Dame Patel: The steps that we undertook, I would absolutely stand by, they were the right steps to deploy, the measures, resourcing throughout the pandemic. Even during the early stages of the pandemic, we knew – and when I say “we” I refer to law enforcement, stakeholders, organisations, practitioners – we knew that when we would come out of lockdown there would be a surge in demand, people seeking help and support, and I guess one of the very significant challenges that I had as Home Secretary, and it’s part of the reason why these strategies came about, is the need for resourcing: to resource what comes next. Never just think it’s all about the present, we have to plan for the future, and meet future demand. And re-prioritising funding, I did – I think I did re-prioritise pretty much most of our departmental budget throughout 2020 into 2021, very much to meet immediate needs but then also to make the case to the Treasury for future needs.

So it’s all hand in hand effectively, but we did know, we knew that there would be a surge. And these issues, they’re always there, they’re always there. It’s a case of how do we as a government effectively put the right support structures in and, where we possibly can, the right mitigations in as well to prevent further abuse.

Lead Inquiry: So are you saying that there was a formalised process by which, as time went on, the Home Office was able to review the outcome of the plans and the procedures it had put in place, and the support, in order to be able to calibrate, or recalibrate better, future work?

Dame Patel: That’s how we functioned in the Home Office, absolutely.

Lead Inquiry: Just two final aspects on this topic.

One of the core participant groups has made this point and makes this point and asks that it be addressed. The Prime Minister’s address to the nation on 23 March did not refer to domestic abuse as a permitted reason to leave home. His announcement on 31 October did refer to the need to escape injury or harm. There was no reference in his 5 November statement to escaping injury or harm, and in December 2020 and January there were various references to permitted exemptions but, again, not to the possibility of victims of abuse being able to escape that injury or harm.

Did the Home Office engage at all with Number 10 or the Cabinet Office in relation to whether or not there was a case for mentioning such exemptions or permitted departures from the legislation for the purposes of the Prime Minister’s announcements?

Dame Patel: So these were all discussions that were taking place. I think it’s fair to say for the first lockdown, that incredibly shocking moment when the Prime Minister announced that we are heading into lockdown, the messaging there was very clear about stay at home and all the measures there.

But in answer to your question, absolutely, certainly from my perspective. And we had a policy adviser, the Prime Minister had his own private secretary for Home Affairs, a great lady called Hannah Young, we would work directly with her to make the case constantly, not just about exemptions but actually the significance of domestic abuse, vulnerability, to ensure that featured obviously in the discussions that the Prime Minister was involved in but also decision-makings and potentially the communications that would follow from there.

Lead Inquiry: Finally, was any consideration given by the Home Office to affording victims of domestic abuse an open and clear permissible legal route by which they could leave the location of the abuse and stay with friends or family?

Dame Patel: Yes. There were endless discussions about this within the department. And I think in terms of public communications, I know you’ve touched on the Prime Minister’s previous statements, there were communications that took place publicly about, if you as an individual are vulnerable or subject to harm, you can leave. At no stage did we say you cannot leave.

Lead Inquiry: Was it necessary to provide for a legal exemption in the regulatory structure for such a departure, or was guidance and the declaration of an appropriate message sufficient?

Dame Patel: So, if we come back to – we’ll come on policing later on, and there’s some policing examples here too, guidance and messaging were absolutely crucial.

And if I may just use a police example, throughout even the early stages, and this was during lockdown, during my policing calls we would speak very clearly each day about domestic abuse. And in fact Lucy Rolfe (sic), who is a very senior officer in the Metropolitan Police, she was a dedicated officer working on domestic abuse and would feed back to myself and to the department regularly on the domestic abuse landscape. Yes in London but, more broadly as well, through the National Police Chiefs’ Council.

And we know for a fact during the pandemic when officers – during lockdown I should say, when officers were out and about practising the “Four Es”, there are examples of police forces around the country that would check on specific households where they had known that there were issues of domestic abuse.

So if I may, to your point, communication was critical, guidance, but also the professionalism of those individuals that were working in the community at the time, absolutely paramount.

Lead Inquiry: All right.

The legislation and the regulations. I don’t know whether you heard the evidence from Martin Hewitt concerning the complexity of the regulations that were drafted, promulgated, and, as to the speed with which they were drawn up, leaving the police with very little time, if any, to be able to reflect upon what was coming and to be able to draw up their own guidance as to how their officers should approach such matters.

In general terms, do you assess that the Home Office was sufficiently consulted in a proper and timely manner, in advance of regulations being laid?

Dame Patel: So, so much moved so quickly during that period, a proper and timely manner would, you know, be generous in some – on some days effectively. But I spent most of my time actually working with and speaking to Martin Hewitt, National Police Chiefs’ Council and colleagues within policing and colleagues within our own department. We would anticipate regulatory changes coming, and – I may have said earlier on today as well – our role was to basically be advocates for policing on the practicalities.

So, you know, we were never engaged on line by line, never really part of that discussion. Things changed later on, but so much of this decision-making, the thought processes, the holding of the pen was very much with the Department of Health and Social Care, and then obviously the interface with the Cabinet Office.

Lead Inquiry: I’m not going to read out all the regulations, they are extraordinarily complex, and they range from (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations, numbers 1, 2, 3, all tier regulations, amendment regulations. There was a proliferation, an impenetrable thicket of regulations.

Why, over the course of the whole pandemic, was the system not properly regulated to allow the Home Office and the police more time to see what was coming? It appears that even at the end of the pandemic regulations were being laid at short notice and without a full consultation process.

Dame Patel: So I think there’s quite a bit to effectively think about from the first set of regulations to perhaps even when the regulations disappeared, and that’s down to the context of various stages of the pandemic. So –

Lead Inquiry: I’m so sorry to interrupt, Dame Priti, the system by which line departments and Parliamentary Counsel draw up regulations and they’re debated in the heart of government, and perhaps circulated through an overarching Cabinet Office system, we know not, is well known.

Why was the system not varied or recalibrated over these many months, in fact years, to allow better time for the Home Office and the police to be able to be consulted on the next set of regulations?

The contents of the regulations may well have changed over time and did, and there were very complex issues about the contents. But the process by which they were drafted, dreamt of and then delivered appears to have been significantly flawed throughout.

Dame Patel: So the drafting, the delivery, sits with the Department of Health and Social Care. I mean, the Home Office was very much, as I’ve said, our – we were there to actually explain potentially what would work, what wouldn’t work, and there was a lot that didn’t work, but I can’t account for the system itself in terms of its lack of interoperability and the inflexibility of the Cabinet Office and the Department of Health and Social Care during –

Lead Inquiry: Forgive me.

Dame Patel: – at the time.

Lead Inquiry: The Home Secretary is an important beast in the jungle. When the DHSC presented at the eleventh hour another set of regulations, you must have screamed at them and said, “You cannot do this again, this is unacceptable, these are matters of criminal law, they are matters regulating the behaviour of the populace” –

Dame Patel: And we did.

Lead Inquiry: – “give us more time”?

Dame Patel: And we did.

Lead Inquiry: And what happened?

Dame Patel: So they would proceed. So the Department of Health and Social Care would say “We need these regulatory changes” and they would go ahead with it, and our department, so the teams that we worked with, and then worked – we had Operation Talla that was led by Martin Hewitt, or led by the National Police Chiefs’ Council, we would support them in literally translating this into the guidance that would then be drafted, more often than not overnight ready for the new teams of officers that would come on to duty in the morning, and then their morning team and operational calls would then walk their officers through. I mean, it was suboptimal at every single level.

But let’s not forget, policing practices throughout the pandemic – and it was our objective collectively, I say this, within policing – was to at least be consistent where we could.

So I’m sure Martin Hewitt spoke about the “Four Es” earlier on, the methodology behind that, so we wanted consistency, absolutely wanted consistency and of course when you have local lockdowns coming in and the regulations are changing in one part of the country, it makes the life of police officers very difficult –

Lead Inquiry: Can I pause you there. I hadn’t asked you about enforcement, and I wasn’t asking you about generality of enforcement across the country. The question was directed at the system by which these regulations were presented and produced.

Would you accept that there was throughout a high degree of confusion surrounding the meaning of the broad thrust of these regulations, they were complex, they were difficult to understand, and that led to both confusion on the part of the public as to how they could regulate their behaviour and confusion on the part of the police as to how they might be enforced? It’s a general proposition?

Dame Patel: So I would agree. I completely – I would agree.

Lead Inquiry: Would you advocate, therefore, for a significantly better system in the future for the production, promulgation and bringing into force of regulations in a public health crisis?

Dame Patel: I think there would need to be a different system completely. Totally different system.

Lead Inquiry: Coming now to enforcement, could you just explain the interface between the Home Office and the police.

Martin Hewitt has explained already that operational matters are of course exclusively within the reach of individual police forces, they are responsible for the enforcement of law. What is the position of the Home Office at that generic level?

Is it to ensure that the police forces have the resources and the wherewithal to be able to enforce the law operationally or does the Home Office take a view and have a stance on to what degree the law should be enforced?

Dame Patel: So it’s very much the former, and it is absolutely working alongside the police. Particularly in a pandemic, when they’re being asked to do, you know, unprecedented things effectively around policing.

To give them support, often guide them as well, if that’s required.

Resourcing was a constant feature of our conversations and, as I said, I spoke about re-prioritisation of resourcing.

And respecting operational independence. We’re policed by consent in our country.

Every police force led by a chief constable, reporting in to, during the pandemic that is, Operation Talla, giving feedback.

Those were the mechanisms by which we had our engagement, dialogue and discussions.

Lead Inquiry: To what extent is the Home Secretary or the Home Office able to issue a general declaratory call for greater enforcement or less enforcement or enforcement of and prosecution of – or investigation and prosecution of the more egregious offending as opposed to a lighter touch? To what extent can the Home Secretary delve into those murky waters?

Dame Patel: So the Home Secretary can ask questions, clearly, around some of the operational activity that’s taking place. I did that all the time. And not just throughout – not just on coronavirus, there were other activities taking place in policing throughout the pandemic. That is, partly holding them to account, asking them, around operational work, what is actually going on and taking place. But specifically around the pandemic, and “egregious breaches” is a phrase obviously that has been used and was familiar throughout the pandemic as well, the police have to exercise their professional judgement, and when it comes to egregious breaches, the police were very clear about the approach that they were taking throughout the pandemic: it was about engaging, explaining – going through the “Four Es” process. The enforcement piece was only in last resort. When they felt that there was potentially an egregious breach or something serious that may have happened, that’s not for a Home Secretary to second-guess what that act would be, because law enforcement and our police officers are the ones that are there to look after public safety and enforce the law, they’re the ones that make the judgement, effectively, in terms of when to apply that.

Lead Inquiry: Did you formally call on the Cabinet or the Prime Minister at any stage to take a particular position on the level of enforcement? So did you formally call for only egregious breaches to be enforced or to be prosecuted or investigated? Did you call for a lighter touch, formally, to your colleagues in government?

Dame Patel: So I – throughout the pandemic, I felt that I spent a great deal of time reminding my colleagues of the role of policing, and the “Four Es” in particular, and also operational independence, and that we as politicians are not there to dictate directly to the police as to when to arrest people, enforce the law. Very clearly.

Secondly, I had reminded many colleagues, including my colleagues in Downing Street, but across government as well, in unprecedented times we have asked the police to do unprecedented things as well, in terms of law enforcement, and the roles and responsibilities that they were taking were very much based on public health and public safety and public protection.

Lead Inquiry: But did you nevertheless take a position on the degree to which the police should be, to use the vernacular, coming down hard? Did the Home Office intervene in the debate, effectively one of operationalisation, and say “We think the police should enforce in a harder way, there should be tougher sanctions”, or “We think the police should only prosecute the most serious offending”?

Dame Patel: Not in a general sense. If there were dreadful acts that were taking place, then clearly that’s not for the Home Secretary to dictate, there have to be specific examples of egregious breaches.

Lead Inquiry: I ask because in your statement you say:

“Throughout the Pandemic my advice to the Prime Minister and Cabinet was that the police would focus enforcement activity only on egregious breaches …”

So I ask again: to what extent did you, the Home Secretary, and the Home Office, take a position on the degree to which these regulations were in practice being enforced?

Dame Patel: The enforcement of the regulations and the practicalities of those enforcements again were very much down to the circumstances that the police themselves were dealing with. So egregious breaches, that’s – that is a term. Just to give an example, if I may –

Lead Inquiry: I’m going to invite you not to –

Dame Patel: Okay.

Lead Inquiry: – if you’ll forgive me, Dame Priti, because you have made the point and I don’t think we need an example to make good that proposition.

Could you a quick look, please, at INQ000137249.

This is a document to the Prime Minister dated 13 August 2020 from Imran Shafi, from whom the Inquiry has heard. It’s a document concerning the proposed reopenings on 15 August. It says in the last paragraph:

“We will need to handle the Health Secretary if you do agree to open as he is likely to continue to want a more cautious approach (as do Chris and Patrick).”

I’m not going to ask you about what was meant by handling the Health Secretary, but if we could just scroll through, please, the document to the handwritten comments of the Prime Minister – there we are, thank you.

“I agree with the openings but [and then in capital letters] the OVERRIDING MESSAGE should be about tougher enforcement and [in capital letters] BIGGER FINES.”

Putting aside the crushing irony, prospectively, of this observation, to what extent, Dame Priti, did you directly debate with the Prime Minister the putting into practice of such a course?

Dame Patel: So, we – we absolutely had discussions, not – I wasn’t involved in this particular discussion and meeting – around enforcement, and fines, the fines spectrum altered throughout the pandemic, which is another subject in itself around FPNs. But, I mean, this was August 2020, reopenings, I suspect there were concerns about what would happen, people going back out, behaviours.

I do know as well we had incidences involving UMEs, unlicensed music events, that would become a magnet for other factors, drugs and other nefarious activities. So, again, I would not direct the police, but I would, through the policing calls that we had, re-state and reiterate the need to ensure that the law is being upheld, enforced. It’s not a case about, you know, go out there and get bigger fines or things of that nature, but again upholding the law in the right way. And our police officers who are on the ground, they’re the ones to judge effectively the steps that need to be taken in certain cases.

Lead Inquiry: But the system from 15 August in fact provided for a new flat fine of £10,000, it was a flat fine introduced around this time and of course reflective of the direction, if we may call it the direction, from Downing Street.

Did you, on behalf of the Home Office, believe – and this isn’t an operational question, the police may or may not investigate and prosecute and impose the fine, or have the courts impose the fine, but did you think that a new flat fine of £10,000 was proportionate?

Dame Patel: It was very high. It was – it was just –

Lead Inquiry: Was it proportionate in light of the civil libertarian issues, the public health context and the fact that these fines were being produced and imposed for breaches of social movements?

Dame Patel: The answer is no.

Lead Inquiry: Did the Home Office push back and say, “Our view is this £10,000 flat fine is disproportionate, you just can’t do this”?

Dame Patel: And it was the Home Office in that collective sense, so myself, my officials, again talking to policing colleagues at the time.

Lead Inquiry: Thank you very much.

The right to protest. There is an obvious balance, and it must be a balance which you must have sought day in day out to navigate as Home Secretary, between the individual freedom to protest, the right to protest in fact, and the governmental public health obligation to ensure that freedom of movement is curtailed to prevent the spread of the infection and, ultimately, death.

Do you assess that through the particularity of the regulations and the operational activities of the police, that balance was correctly struck, with particular reference, of course, to the Black Lives Matters protests in June 2020 and the Sarah Everard vigil in March 2021?

Dame Patel: Yeah. So, two different periods in the pandemic, for a start. If I recall rightly, and I was involved in a lot of the operational calls around that time, throughout the pandemic, around protests, I think between May 2020 and then perhaps March 2021 we had had something like 65 protests take place across the country. And specific to Black Lives Matter, I think there was one – there was one weekend, I remember being literally – working at my desk, involved in policing calls, I think there were 200 Black Lives Matter protests across the country, involving 100,000 people.

So a few things to say here. I think it’s important to reflect around the right to protest, freedom of expression, and the decisions that the police make in particular to allow and enable protests to go ahead.

Lead Inquiry: Forgive me, those are the limbs in that balancing exercise that I’ve already identified and you’ve agreed are the appropriate legs in that balance.

What was your view on whether or not – across the general approach throughout the pandemic to the exercise of that balance, do you think that balance was correctly struck in the eventuality or not?

Dame Patel: So, reflecting back, I do. At the time it probably felt uncomfortable, where – quite frankly, where we had lockdowns, for example, and people’s movements were being restricted and the public discourse would be: why are these protests happening?

Of course those are difficult challenges, it feels uncomfortable. And then the role of the police is clearly to facilitate, enable those expressions of free speech and expressions that the public felt strongly about – I mean, Black Lives Matter in particular – in a peaceful and respectful way.

My recollection is that the majority of those protests were peaceful. We had one particular protest in Whitehall where it turned particularly violent, and police officers were injured and assaulted, I think a bicycle was thrown at mounted police. I then remember going to visit the family of officers.

So striking the balance, difficult. I think at the time it felt very uncomfortable, which is why operationally so many of us came together to ensure that the police were resourced. They were engaging with a lot of the organisers of the movements as well.

I recall throughout that time, and I think in particular with regards to the Black Lives Matter protests, and it may be the one that took place on telegraphing, communicating publicly, you know, “Please be respectful if you’re protesting, because there’s a pandemic, there is a health pandemic taking place, and, you know, we are restricting people’s movements because of public health considerations”.

Lead Inquiry: Precisely, if I may say so. The regulations at that time, I think from a certain amount of research, the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) amendment regulations in general terms prohibited outdoor gatherings of more than six. I therefore want to ask you about the discomfort to which you have just referred, because in a tweet on 6 June you tweeted: “Protests must be peaceful and in accordance with social distancing rules.” Which rather tended to imply that it was possible to have a protest in accordance with social distancing rules, which in fact wasn’t possible because you can’t protest meaningfully with more(sic) than six people. Then in a Telegraph op-ed on 8 June, you said any large gatherings of people are unlawful. So from the standpoint of a potential protester, you do appear there to be speaking with two voices.

Dame Patel: There’s inconsistency there.

Lead Inquiry: There is. June – it may be, I’m not saying it is – even A. Yes, I can see that. I do also recall, though, through the discussions that took place, and this is very specific to Black Lives Matters, and possibly the team with the Metropolitan Police, because the main protest took place in London, they in particular were focusing on the need to social distance throughout that protest.

Lead Inquiry: The position was reached, was it not, as we saw in the WhatsApp from Lord Frost – and we’ll just have it put up, INQ000236372, page 86.

This is a WhatsApp communication in the specific context of the Sarah Everard vigil, I think on 13 March.

Yes. So the High Court ruled on the lawfulness of the Metropolitan Police’s declaration that the vigil would be unlawful, and it did so on 12 and 13 March, and then the protest took place in the evening of 13 March, notwithstanding that High Court ruling, and of course the police then arrested, as we know, to large numbers of people’s distress – the arrests of the persons who had attended.

This WhatsApp group reflects a recognition on the part of politicians and advisers in Downing Street and the Cabinet Office that the truth is that those rules on outside gatherings were close to being unenforceable, and other of these WhatsApp contributions make plain that the government was in a very difficult position, and they call in fact for you to give an interview or to tweet yourself your views as to the protests and the arrests.

Was it generally recognised, both at the heart of government in Downing Street and the Cabinet Office, as well as the Home Office, that these rules were indeed practically unenforceable?

Dame Patel: Well, within the Home Office, yes, absolutely. And this is clearly within the context of the vigil that took place to remember Sarah Everard. This was a very emotional time and a difficult time –

Lead Inquiry: The Inquiry recalls that.

Dame Patel: So there was no doubt, and I’d been involved with discussions with the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in the run-up to this particular vigil, around the sensitivities of this particular vigil, plus the legal action that was taking place, and it was – it was self-evident, people were going to come out. It was a very, very fraught and emotional time and people wished to express their grief, and rightly so. I think I had also publicly suggested that people may come forward and find other ways of showing that expression of grief.

But to this particular WhatsApp, it absolutely speaks to the wider challenges, not just with this vigil but the wider challenges.

Specific to this vigil, I was dismayed with what I saw. I saw the news that night and I – I saw the news and just felt that that was totally inappropriate policing. And so inevitably I had to raise that with the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, and then a lot of other work took place thereafter.

Lead Inquiry: Thank you.

Finally, racial disproportionality.

Your statement makes plain that you were informed by the Metropolitan Police Service that in June 2020 data which they had collated, and we heard evidence on this earlier, would show that black people were, in your words, roughly three times as likely to be issued with a fixed penalty notice than white people compared to the resident population.

Two questions, please.

Firstly, would you agree that the disproportionate imposition of fixed penalty notices on people of black and minority ethnic backgrounds did undermine public confidence in that scheme?

Dame Patel: I’m not sure at the timing, because we had mixed evidence throughout, in the early days we had very limited evidence, so if you could just remind me as to the –

Lead Inquiry: This data was in June 2020 and it showed clearly that black people were roughly three times as likely to be issued with a fixed penalty notice.

Dame Patel: That was the Met?

Lead Inquiry: So this is the data – yes, the data that had become apparent and was very clear by June.

It’s a basic proposition: would you agree that that data, when it became apparent, did undermine public confidence in the operation –

Dame Patel: It raised concerns, absolutely.

Lead Inquiry: Secondly, did the Home Office itself, mindful of course of your remit –

Dame Patel: Yes.

Lead Inquiry: – take any steps in relation to the ongoing development of the regulatory and criminal scheme, to take account of this data?

Dame Patel: So throughout, I think we were very conscientious. I in particular was very conscientious about public confidence in policing. And yes, within the widest sense but also through the pandemic, we’d asked the police to police something that had never been policed before, and therefore there would be knock-on ramifications in terms of the public trust and confidence. We’ve just touched on the Sarah Everard tragedy, that really demonstrated – took a real knock for public confidence in policing.

So throughout the pandemic, partly because if there are concerns of this nature around public confidence in policing, that could spill over into public order issues and challenges and problems. So there are a range of considerations and discussions that were taking place throughout.

Mr Keith: Thank you very much.

My Lady, I’ve no further questions. There are some Rule 10s.

Lady Hallett: There are some Rule 10s.

Ms Davies – oh, you can go first? Very well, Mr Thomas first.

Questions From Professor Thomas KC

Professor Thomas: Thank you.

Dame Priti, I represent FEHMO, the Federation of Ethnic Minority Healthcare Organisations. I have three areas of questions for you, and I won’t take up much of your time. First, some very brief context.

Can we agree on the following: can we agree that as Covid-19, the pandemic, swept across the UK, the responsibility for formulating and implementing regulations to protect public health fell on key government agencies, including the Home Office, to advise on shape and enforce these regulations; can we agree on that?

Dame Patel: Yes.

Professor Thomas KC: Secondly, can we also agree that central to this effort was a delicate balance between safeguarding public health and upholding individual rights, and ensuring equitable application of rules, particularly within diverse community and ethnic communities; can we agree on that?

Dame Patel: Yes.

Professor Thomas KC: You see, against – amidst that backdrop, FEHMO recognises the critical role of the Home Office led by you, Dame Priti, the then Home Secretary. So just in terms of just trying to unravel some of the decision-making process, let me turn to my questions.

Firstly, what specific criteria and considerations were taken into account by the Home Office when advising on the proportionality and impact of Covid-19 regulations?

Dame Patel: In terms of on the communities?

Professor Thomas KC: Yes.

Dame Patel: There were extensive discussions, across the board, I have to say, not just on the regulations, but, you know, on vaccines and also sorts of things.

I’ve just touched on, in my conclusive statement, before we moved into your question, the whole – there’s a balance here in terms of literally public confidence – from a Home Office perspective, law enforcement in particular, regulations. The most visible aspect throughout the pandemic of the Home Office equities was policing, policing in the community, through the regulations, but the visible manifestation effectively through police officers in the community. So that ongoing dialogue was constantly taking place. In the sense, as well, that challenge back to us from – what is practical, what was working, what wasn’t working, and then, to your earlier point, doing the advocacy within government, the wider machinery of government, to reflect upon the wider impacts across society, communities, particular ethnic groups.

Professor Thomas KC: Okay.

How did the Home Office assess the practicalities of enforcing the Covid regulations, particularly with regard to the police’s ability to implement them effectively and fairly?

Dame Patel: So if I may just touch on my earlier comments in reflection as well. The key for the police throughout the pandemic, and this cuts across the entire country, all our police forces, through the operational structures of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, Operation Talla was attempting to be consistent. And it’s fair to say we found that deeply challenging, found it challenging in certain parts of the country, through different regulations, whether it’s through national lockdowns or local lockdowns. We wanted to have consistency, and that’s why the principle of the “Four Es” I think was probably the most consistent aspect actually of policing.

Professor Thomas KC: Can I just jump in there, what methodologies or assessments did the Home Office use to ensure that there was that consistency?

Dame Patel: So that is very much – in terms of you specifically asked about methodologies, we were having operational calls with our police virtually every day, then several times a week, and it’s that feedback mechanism which matters, because there is no one size fits all, at all, in terms of policing in different parts of the country, particularly where we’re at the stage where we had local lockdowns and some communities were more affected or there were certain communities where there was a greater policing presence. So it would be very much based upon the period of certain regulations, what was going on in different parts of the country. But effectively the guidance would come from National Police Chiefs’ Council and then go out to police forces and it would be down to local forces to operationalise that.

Professor Thomas KC: Dame Priti, we heard just a moment ago, just before the lunch, that the impact of some of the disproportionalities were getting worse, not better, the stats were showing that it was impacting particularly on black communities, it was getting worse as the pandemic went on. Did that concern you?

Dame Patel: I was concerned throughout the pandemic.

Professor Thomas KC: And what did you do about those concerns?

Dame Patel: So, through policing, again through policing, who are operationally independent, to ensure that they were engaging and explaining in the way in which the “Four Es” specifically outlined, obviously enforcement was the last – the last aspect of – effectively in a fine, moving to that level.

I do, however, think it is important to note that we now have more data, particularly towards the end of the pandemic, and if I may, you may be referring to one particular document which is from Edinburgh University, which actually collates the whole ethnic profile of FPNs, and it shows throughout the pandemic a range of data but also throughout the pandemic I think the figures in particular reflect the extent of public frustration around lockdowns much later in the pandemic, and I think if memory serves me right there is a particular table in that Edinburgh University report that highlights something like over 120,000 FPNs being issued across England and Wales but there is a point in the document as well that also goes to say that within ethnic minority communities they had the highest number of their fines cancelled.

Professor Thomas KC: Dame Priti, two things. Firstly, there was a significant amount of data during the pandemic, not just at the end; would you accept that?

Dame Patel: Yes, I do, and a lot of that data came from National Police Chiefs’ Council and the policing operations, primarily because we wanted the police to be transparent throughout in terms of their work on what was going on, FPNs, but also the community impact. We police by consent in our country and that is through community engagement at the grassroots.

Professor Thomas KC: Let me turn to my last question. Could you provide examples of regulations where the Home Office raised concerns about potential breakdown in policing by consent, and how those concerns were addressed?

So I’ll repeat the question: can you provide any examples of regulations where the Home Office raised concerns about the potential breakdown in policing by consent, and how those concerns were addressed?

Dame Patel: So I specifically, and this was at the outset of the pandemic, I was very concerned about public order issues, and there is extensive work and documentation within the Home Office around what could lead to the breakdown of policing by consent, effectively. So that was very much in the early stages, I would say March and April 2020. I was involved in a number of discussions, and at the time that may have – I cannot categorically say – that may have gone on to, you know, shape the direction of travel. But there were active discussions within my department involving myself, involving my officials, around how do we effectively preserve, safeguard, make sure that our policing operations in the UK effectively, across all our police forces, do not break down and policing by consent does not break down.

Professor Thomas: My Lady, those are the questions I ask.

Lady Hallett: Thank you, Mr Thomas.

Ms Mitchell, I think you’ve got a short question or two, and then we’ll go to Ms Davies.

Questions From Ms Mitchell KC

Ms Mitchell: I’m obliged, my Lady, I do indeed.

I appear as instructed by Aamer Anwar & Company on behalf of the Scottish Covid Bereaved.

As Home Secretary during the pandemic, I’d like to ask you about borders during that time, specifically between Scotland and England, and England and Wales.

My question is this: did you have discussions with anyone about the possibility of banning travel between Scotland and England or England and Wales during that time?

Dame Patel: So I do recall discussions, particularly through the Cabinet Office, there were Cabinet committees, specifically focused on the devolved administrations, and policing within the devolved administrations, and in fact I’ve already, my Lady, touched on the policing calls that I led within the department.

We would also have our police constables from Wales, from Scotland, representatives as well, join those calls. They were – absolutely vital that we heard from them in terms of pandemic response from the police in the devolved administrations, and also to hear directly, in terms of whether it was the Scottish Government or the Welsh Government, any particular areas of policy changes that were being advocated there.

So our discussions were constant. And with that, of course, with our opposite numbers within the devolved administrations, and then, of course, my colleagues across other government departments, the Prime Minister himself, and then, through the Cabinet Office, respectfully with leaders in the devolved administrations, those calls and conversations were taking place constantly.

Ms Mitchell KC: And what were the nature of those discussions? What were the topics that were being asked about?

Dame Patel: So they were very practical, it’s fair to say. I can only really relay on the ones that involved Home Office areas, and specifically you’ve mentioned the borders, so naturally that would sit with some of the policing colleagues that I would speak to, my opposite numbers. And particularly on borders, wasn’t just about road borders and land borders, obviously we would have Border Force teams in Scotland and in Wales, later on throughout the pandemic we then brought in – people will recall – travel corridors, for example. We had regulations that would enable people to travel or not to travel, we brought in passenger locator forms. We would have to work together throughout the pandemic to operationalise many of these elements of, you know, a form of border measures, not quite border controls, but – and all that data would then come back to us, go to the Department of Health, go to the devolved administrations, really as part of the wider governance that was taking place throughout the pandemic.

Ms Mitchell KC: Your response has been to identify “we did this and we did that” as a group, as the Home Office.

Dame Patel: Yes.

Ms Mitchell KC: Did you specifically deal with anyone in Scotland?

Dame Patel: So, yes, I did. I have had – I had calls, I know, and I can’t remember specifically when, but I know that I – I think I probably spoke to Humza Yousaf at some stage. I think it was quite early on, actually, during the pandemic. There are various issues, practical issues that would effectively mean, you know, let’s pick up the phone, let’s just have conversations, sharing information.

So I can’t be more specific than that, but there was – there was active dialogue throughout, and that’s the nature of government and governance, effectively we have to work together through a crisis, learn from each other, but also find ways to engage and support each other.

Ms Mitchell: Thank you, my Lady, those are my questions.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much, Ms Mitchell.

Ms Davies.

Questions From Ms Davies KC

Ms Davies: Dame Priti, I ask questions on behalf of Southall Black Sisters and Solace Women’s Aid who, as you know, are part of the violence against women and girls –

Dame Patel: That’s right, yes.

Ms Davies KC: – sector, so I’m going to be concentrating on domestic abuse, part of your hidden harms agenda, but that part of it.

And I want to start with the well documented and, as you’ve referred to, the rise in domestic abuse during social isolation and then lockdown, and I want to look at the early period of the pandemic.

You gave evidence earlier in response to a question from Mr Keith that you started, and I’m going to be paraphrasing here, but essentially grappling with the issue around 18 March. Do you remember saying that?

Dame Patel: Yes.

Ms Davies KC: Yes, and we see in your statement that on 18 March at COBR you are requesting that the definition of key workers be expanded to exclude – include volunteers and workers in domestic abuse refuges. I’m going to key workers later on in my questions. But that’s what you’re saying at that point, you’re not saying “and there are all these other measures to take in relation to a rise in domestic abuse”, you’re just concentrating on –

Dame Patel: On 18 March –

Ms Davies KC: On 18 March.

Dame Patel: – you’re specifically saying?

COBR meetings are very specific in the areas.

Ms Davies KC: Mm.

Dame Patel: So it was very much focused, if memory serves me right, on vulnerability, definitions of vulnerability, and just the – the definitions –

Ms Davies KC: Yes, you say that in your –

Dame Patel: – question earlier on –

Ms Davies KC: That’s part of your statement.

Dame Patel: – not specific measures, not to the extent as we went on to, for example funding allocations and the type of initiatives that we set up.

Ms Davies KC: So I can take you through the chronology as we’ve pieced it together from the documents. The announcement of the national lockdown, as we all know, is on the evening of 23 March, in fact the Prime Minister’s address to the nation you’ve talked about it a minute ago, there was some social isolation in the week before that, from 16 March, and at COBR on 23 March there is a reference to domestic abuse. But we first see something concrete in a memo to you and to the minister for safeguarding on 26 March, so three days after national lockdown, and that’s a Home Office memo and it’s proposing various matters to do with funding and communications and so forth.

After that, you do write in the Mail on Sunday on 29 March, and on 11 April you launch the “You Are Not Alone” campaign.

My question to you is this: if it’s the case that the Home Office starts grappling with the issue of the rise in domestic abuse as a result of lockdown on 26 March, isn’t that far too late?

Dame Patel: I don’t think that’s accurate, if I may say so, and I touched on this earlier on. There is – I know for a fact I’d asked for all sorts of analysis, gap analysis I commissioned within the department. There was a lot of work taking place. We have a whole team, you’ll be familiar with the directorate, within the Home Office specifically working on these issues. So it’s an iteration primarily because we are – we were, I say, again collectively, the department, our ministers, engaging with third parties, domestic abuse commissioner. These are live and active conversations. So I appreciate in documentations, departmental submissions, they’re date-specific, but throughout our time we are having live discussions, picking up information, the feedback from policing calls as I touched on earlier on, none of this work is done in isolation.

Ms Davies KC: Could I ask for INQ000005274 to come on the screen, please.

Do you have it?

Dame Patel: No.

Ms Davies KC: No.

(Pause)

Lady Hallett: Can you read from it, Ms Davies?

Ms Davies: I will read from it.

This is the memo I referred to a moment ago, 26 March. It’s to yourself from Victoria Atkins, the minister for safeguarding. It is – without annexes, it is seven pages, and then there are two annexes, and it starts, it’s headed:

“Update on Violence against Women and Girls in COVID-19.

“Issue:

“Government response to the potential impact of COVID-19 on crimes involving Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG).

“Timing:

“Pressing. A speedy response will allow us to implement the plans below as quickly as possible.”

And it starts:

“[Home Office[, MHCLG and MOJ are working together” –

Lady Hallett: It’s come up on screen, Ms Davies.

Ms Davies: I’m very grateful, thank you.

So you can now read it for yourself, Dame Priti.

So my suggestion to you is this is certainly the first time that we see anything that relates to the Home Office starting to get a grip with the inevitable rise of domestic abuse as a result of social isolation and lockdown?

Dame Patel: So this is one submission, it’s dated 26 March, as you’ve rightly pointed out to. These discussions – I mean, we touched on the Domestic Abuse Act going though at the time. That Act, along with these issues, involved the same departments that are referenced here, MHCLG, as it was at the time, the MoJ, there were discussions, certainly from policing, and I do recall this, about the impact on the pandemic lockdown on the courts system earlier on as well and what that would mean for domestic violence protection orders, some of the practical things, so I cannot definitively say that this was the first time something was documented, there was a documented piece of work on violence against women and girls specific to the pandemic, primarily because I do know my colleagues and I were working constantly on these issues and, as I touched on earlier on, we started as soon as we could.

Ms Davies KC: Will you take it from me that this seems to be the same time that it’s documented?

Dame Patel: Well, we’re referring to this particular submission –

Ms Davies KC: Yes. That’s –

Dame Patel: But there could be other informal documents within the Home Office –

Ms Davies KC: Clearly. We’ve gone through everything that’s been disclosed.

Dame Patel: Fine.

Ms Davies KC: Thank you.

The police, we heard evidence this morning from Mr Hewitt, they were planning by very early in March for the consequences of a lockdown, including a rise in domestic abuse. Very early in March he said, so that’s earlier than 18 March, which is when you raised key workers, earlier than 26 March, which is that memo?

Dame Patel: So we would be speaking together early on in March anyway, so we were having police operational calls before the lockdown. So we – we had a system in the Home Office, and this does come back to my point that these discussions were taking place before this submission that we have here in front of us on 26 March.

There is a lot of work taking place in the Home Office, I can tell you now, throughout January, February but also early March. And I’m not – I can’t specifically say when we first started off our operational policing calls but they would have been before this period.

Ms Davies KC: I don’t know if you’ve read the statement of Ms Rebecca Goshawk for Solace Women’s Aid? It was in your bundle.

Dame Patel: I have.

Ms Davies KC: Yes. She refers to a very alarming statistic, which is that the calls to their advice line, Solace Women’s Aid, in March, prior to lockdown, went up by an extraordinary 117%, so there were women, primarily women – domestic abuse obviously affects men and women, but primarily women – who were anticipating domestic abuse as a result of lockdown and seeking help.

My suggestion to you, Dame Priti, is that certainly in terms of documentation the first time we see the Home Office grappling with the issue is three days into national lockdown, 26 March?

Dame Patel: So I would come back to my earlier point on this as well, I touched on this in my previous remarks, we were working with – I presume these calls were predominantly in London or were they nationwide? – we were working with Louisa Rolfe at the Metropolitan Police and within our policing call frameworks as well early on in anticipation, as I said, even – lockdown, post lockdown, the surges that would come within helplines, and also the inevitability of the consequences of domestic abuse, violence, vulnerabilities.

So I would absolutely say particularly with policing colleagues, and that’s predominantly where our equities were at the time in the run-up to lockdown, there were a range of discussions taking place within the Home Office and with policing colleagues.

Ms Davies KC: All right.

Let me move on to my next topic, and that’s victims subject to domestic abuse who also are subject to a no recourse to public funds condition. And, again, I think you will have been given notice as a result of the information in the evidence pack that this was a topic that was likely to come up.

Lady Hallett: I didn’t realise that the question that I have allowed includes a reference to Parliamentary debate; if you could exclude that part.

Ms Davies: I was intending to exclude it, thank you, my Lady.

So women who were subject to domestic abuse are clearly trapped as a result of the domestic abuse and they need to leave, come lockdown they are also trapped as a result of lockdown, we know that the regulations allow them to leave but there are all sorts of issues about whether they know that, where they can go and so forth, so lockdown traps people.

If you also have no recourse to public funds and you are dependent financially on your abuser, then you are destitute if you leave as a result of abuse. So those women were, as it were, subject to a triple threat, a triple trap.

You were lobbied extensively – and when I say you I mean the Home Office and you as Home Secretary – extensively by violence against women and girls sector, by the Mayor of London, by Liberty, by a number of organisations to suspend the no recourse to public funds condition during the pandemic, so that, for our cases, women who were subject to domestic abuse and had that condition hanging over them would find it easier to leave because they would not be facing destitution.

And the Home Office took a – didn’t just ignore that, there was a positive decision not to suspend the condition, wasn’t there?

Dame Patel: So the Home Office did not ignore those requests at all. I think categorically I should just put that on the record. There is plenty of evidence actually across government, it is not just solely a Home Office decision, around the policy of no recourse to public funds. The prospect of destitution crosses over into the territory of accommodation and homelessness, which was the area of MHCLG.

I would need to check, my Lady, but I think there was a legal case involving MHG – MHCLG at the time, around no recourse to public funds, and certainly there were discussions across government that were taking place. This policy area also cuts across DWP, would be familiar with that as well.

Then my final point to make on this, it would specifically address the issue of concerns around funding and support for those that did not have access to public funds, that the coronavirus financial measures, including help and support, but it’s mainly support if – I should say, around accommodation, which is not a Home Office decision, but also NHS, access to health and healthcare, without having any personal data being shared or transferred over to the Home Office, because this does move into the area of immigration and immigration enforcement, if you do not have a legal right to be in the country and you’ve got a case going through the courts and things of that nature, that there would be protections in place and support in place. And in particular, may have to check the record, but MHCLG themselves had put funds aside particularly around accommodation provision for migrant women and working with refuges. I may have to check the record on that, but that was my recollection of the work that took place in response to the requests at the time.

Ms Davies KC: I’m going to move on to funding in just one moment, but just to follow that up, the easing, as it were, in relation to housing and homelessness assistance was in a letter call that’s become known as Everyone In from the MHCLG, which meant that local authorities would house rough sleepers regardless of their immigration status.

This was a different call, it was a call for those people who had no recourse to public funds as part of their leave to remain, so they’re lawfully in the country but with that condition on them, for that to be suspended during the pandemic so that women who were subject to domestic abuse could leave, would be able to access public funds and would not have to go through the appalling additional trauma of sleeping rough in order to be picked up through that Everyone In initiative.

Wouldn’t that have been the humanitarian thing to do –

Dame Patel: So I –

Ms Davies KC: – to suspend –

Dame Patel: I can’t –

Ms Davies KC: – the whole condition?

Dame Patel: So, well, we could get into a wider debate about the implications of suspending that condition, because there are then legal implications. If you suspend a condition for a period of time, if you then reinstate those conditions, it then takes – and I do recall reading advice at the time, some of the legal challenges just around suspending – it may seem straightforward to organisations lobbying for that change, but I do specifically recall receiving advice at that time saying that it would be legally challenging to then go back and restate. And I appreciate, the organisation you’re representing, the position that you take around no recourse to public funds, but obviously that condition exists for a reason.

You’ve asked specifically around accommodation and housing provision. My understanding at the time was that MHCLG in particular were providing funding, so that – it’s not just the Everyone In policy, which clearly I do recall that existed there for good and proper reasons, because homelessness – there we have to protect people that were homeless, but specific funding for refuges so that they could provide that provision that was deemed to be so essential and that was raised at the time.

Ms Davies KC: Can I move on to funding.

Lady Hallett: I’m afraid it’s going to have to be the last area, I’m afraid, sorry. I should have taken a break ages ago, I’m sorry.

Ms Davies: I’m grateful, and I’m aware of the stenographer.

Last topic, funding, and it’s page 20 of your witness statement. You were asked about this by Mr Keith. Is it coming up?

Dame Patel: No, not yet.

Ms Davies KC: I’m hoping it’s coming up.

Dame Patel: We’re getting there.

Ms Davies KC: I’m grateful, page 20, paragraph 79, it’s the list of funding, you’ll recall that.

So 8 April, £750 million additional funding for a number of things including domestic abuse, and that’s not actually allocated on 8 April, that takes time to allocate. That’s right, isn’t it?

Then (iv), 11 April, that’s the same day as the “You Are Not Alone” campaign, and the Home Office announces an additional £2 million for the domestic abuse helpline, so that’s concrete money, that’s allocated and announced that day, it goes out very quickly; yes?

Dame Patel: That’s correct, yes.

Ms Davies KC: Then we come to 2 May, and that’s £76 million for a number of different groups, and when we break it down the – it’s in your footnote 54 – the amount to domestic abuse groups is 25 – £27 million, I’m so sorry, £15 million for Ministry of Justice –

Dame Patel: That’s right.

Ms Davies KC: – £10 million for MHCLG, another £2 million from the Home Office; and that’s the allocation from the original money of the £750 million on 8 April.

Dame Patel: That’s right.

Ms Davies KC: It’s not additional to that, is it?

Dame Patel: That’s right.

Ms Davies KC: No, so if we look at the £750 million on 8 April, it’s £27 million plus the additional £2 million from the Home Office that comes to domestic abuse?

Dame Patel: That’s correct.

Ms Davies KC: The money doesn’t actually start to get allocated and reach the recipients until after 19 June. You may not recall that exact date, but does that sound right to you?

Dame Patel: So I do recall – I recall a few things actually. It took time to do the allocations and, my Lady, I can’t remember why, but I think there could have been some Treasury processes around that which could be why.

Secondly, I think we may have had – we’ll have to go and check the record – a system where organisations, including organisations such as Southall Black Sisters and Solace Aid, could then apply directly to the Home Office. That might’ve taken time, that could be why the money was not allocated. But we’d have to check the record as to what the processes were around that, because having an allocation of funds from the Treasury does not automatically mean they go out immediately, there are various organisations we were speaking to.

And just one final point to make about the money: I had been in touch with, for example, it could have been Women’s Aid, who specifically wrote to me at my request where I’d asked them for a breakdown of the type of funding that they needed and what that would be used for. So understanding how this money could be allocated resourcefully, to provide the direct and additional help that was really needed, was certainly part of the process that we were undertaking at the time.

Ms Davies KC: So two questions – and they are my last two questions – arise from that under this topic.

Could we have up on the screen INQ000280173, please. I’m hoping that that comes up quickly. That is a letter sent to the Government Legal Department by those who instruct me, in fact Public Interest Law Centre on behalf of Southall Black Sisters, and it’s addressed specifically to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, but I imagine it probably crossed the Home Office desk as well, and that’s dated 27 April.

And it’s a lengthy letter, it’s over 34 pages, but it is in effect a threat of legal action. It’s a pre-action protocol letter of claim in respect of the government failing to provide that emergency funding for the domestic abuse charities. That’s 27 April.

It’s right, isn’t it, that the £27 million that we’ve just looked at was allocated on 2 May. Was it allocated as a result of that threat of legal action?

Dame Patel: I – I can’t – I don’t think I could give a categorical answer to that because, my Lady, I know the work that took place within my department, I cannot speak for other government departments such as MHCLG, it’s referenced in this pre-action protocol. My government department, my officials and our safeguarding minister worked diligently with many of the third party organisations, the frontline organisations. I think I mentioned Women’s Aid, Refuge, the domestic abuse national helpline. I may have visited some of them at the time.

For us, and for me in particular as Home Secretary, we needed to understand what the pressures were, where the money was needed, how we could actually allocate the resources that we had – these are significant resources – resources allocated in the best possible way.

And just one final point to make as well: because of lockdown, many of these organisations, they didn’t have their offices up and running in the way in which we see now and today. We had gone into partnership with Fujitsu, for example, to provide laptops and all sorts of equipment to help many of these organisations assist victims of domestic abuse, vulnerable people, while they were working from home and doing all sorts of things.

So there was a panoply of activity taking place so, if I may, in response to your question about this actual pre-action protocol, I can’t categorically say that this is what prompted the allocation of resources. Certainly for this department, within my own department we had a lot of work under way anyway.

Ms Davies KC: What it comes down to, though, Dame Priti, doesn’t it, is – for all the reasons you’ve just explained – the money doesn’t come out to providers until after mid-June 2020, when the key times were March, April, May? Isn’t that too late?

Dame Patel: So we were working with all the providers and organisations throughout that period, and I know officials in the department were looking at all sorts of support mechanisms, solutions. We wanted to be part of the solution to what was a national challenge, so this for us – if we could fast-track resources, of course we’d be at the front of the queue to do that, but we were working alongside our partners and then trying to give them the financial support in the right way. And additional support, I should add, laptops being one example, doing working across government departments being another, particularly with the MoJ. This focuses on MHCLG and working with the Ministry of Justice on how they could provide support as well.

We – the MoJ –

Lady Hallett: I think we’ve got the message.

Dame Patel: They had their own silver group, so we were pretty – pretty engaged on this.

Ms Davies: Thank you, Dame Priti.

Thank you, my Lady.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much, Ms Davies.

Thank you very much, Dame Priti.

The Witness: Thank you.

Lady Hallett: Thank you for your patience, staying here all this afternoon.

(The witness withdrew)

Lady Hallett: I think we are going to have one more witness, and so we will take a break now, and I shall return at 25 to 4. And I am finishing at 4.30 at the latest this evening, just so everyone knows.

(3.25 pm)

(A short break)

(3.35 pm)

Mr Keating: My Lady.

Lady Hallett: Mr Keating.

Mr Keating: Could I call Jun Pang, please.