3. Mr Simon Hart

MR SIMON HART (sworn).

Questions From Lead Counsel to the Inquiry for Module 2B

Mr Poole: Could you please start by giving us your full name.

Mr Simon Hart: Yes, Simon Anthony Hart.

Lead 2B: Mr Hart, thank you for attending today and for your evidence and assisting the Tribunal.

If I can ask you to just keep your voice up so that I can hear you, so that everyone hears you, but also so your evidence can be recorded. If I do ask you something that you don’t understand, just ask me to rephrase it. If we could, please, have a look at your witness statement, please, at INQ000270271.

That is dated 30 August. Now, we just need to make one correction to that.

If we can have paragraph 12, thank you very much.

You refer in the second and third sentence there to attending a tabletop exercise held on 12 February 2020, but I understand, having considered this further and having seen the minutes of that tabletop, you can now confirm that you did not attend that exercise, so we should just score through those second and third sentences of that paragraph; is that right?

Mr Simon Hart: Correct.

Lead 2B: Subject to those corrections, are the contents of those statements true to the best of your knowledge and belief?

Mr Simon Hart: Correct.

Lead 2B: Mr Hart, you are currently the Chief Whip of the House of Commons, and MP for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire. You previously, though, served as Secretary of State for Wales from December 2019 until July 2022; is that right?

Mr Simon Hart: Correct.

Lead 2B: It’s in that capacity, as Secretary of State for Wales, that you were asked to provide a statement to this module. If I can, I would like to ask some general questions about the role of the Secretary of State for Wales and also the Wales Office, before moving on to explore with you the relationship between the UK Government and the Welsh Government during the pandemic. So during the period with which we are concerned, namely January 2020 to May 2022, you were the Secretary of State for Wales and David TC Davies was the Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for Wales; is that right?

Mr Simon Hart: Correct.

Lead 2B: You tell us at paragraph 8 of your witness statement that the office of the Secretary of State Wales has only a very small number of policy responsibilities, you say most notably as custodians of the Welsh devolution settlement, ensuring its smooth and effective operation. Now, the Inquiry last week heard evidence from Professor Wincott about the devolution settlement. I don’t want to get into a discussion with you about devolution. It is right, though, as Secretary of State for Wales, you were responsible, were you not, for representing Wales’ interests in matters that are reserved to the UK Government?

Mr Simon Hart: Correct.

Lead 2B: You were also responsible for ensuring that the concerns and priorities of Wales are taken into account in the decision-making of the UK Government; is that right?

Mr Simon Hart: That’s also correct.

Lead 2B: In your witness statement, you say:

“[The Wales Office] was not responsible for making key policy or operational decisions in response to the pandemic … in England or Wales …”

But you say you had a:

“… crucial role during the Specified Period in ensuring Wales was fully considered in UK Government decision making relating to the pandemic response, feeding in views and opinions from Wales and, so far as we were able, ensuring co-operative working between the UK Government and the Welsh Government.”

Is that right?

Mr Simon Hart: That’s also right.

Lead 2B: And that’s how you saw your role during the relevant period?

Mr Simon Hart: Correct.

Lead 2B: The Secretary of State for Wales is a member of the UK Cabinet; correct?

Mr Simon Hart: Correct.

Lead 2B: You also attended COBR meetings during the pandemic?

Mr Simon Hart: Correct.

Lead 2B: Was the expectation that you would serve effectively as the voice of Wales at UK Cabinet meetings?

Mr Simon Hart: Not exclusively, because Welsh Government was – not at a lot of the COBR meetings, but at cabinet, yes.

Lead 2B: So at cabinet you are the voice for Wales –

Mr Simon Hart: Correct.

Lead 2B: – but at COBR, because it wasn’t just you representing Wales there, sometimes it would be the First Minister, the minister for health?

Mr Simon Hart: Indeed.

Lead 2B: I want to ask you next some questions about intergovernmental relations, and that’s a topic I’ll come back to a bit later on when I look at certain periods during the pandemic, but just generally I think you were aware that the UK Government and the devolved administrations concluded at an intergovernmental review of intergovernmental relations – it was January 2022 that a report was published.

If we can have INQ000083215, thank you. First page, third paragraph, please.

As it says in this paragraph:

“Following a review of intergovernmental relations this document sets out new structures and ways of working.”

If I can just have a look at, I think it’s page 3, paragraph 11, we see there these new what are called “Engagement Structures”, so in other words the intergovernmental relations framework that is to supersede the Joint Ministerial Committee system, and this provides a three-tier committee structure.

So top tier of engagement we have the Prime Minister and heads of devolved governments council. Then if we can zoom out we can see the middle tiers there consistent of a general inter-ministerial standing committee, and the finance inter-ministerial standing committee. And then if we can zoom out again, the lowest tier is – consists of inter-ministerial groups.

Just help me, where does the Wales Office fit into this new three-tier committee structure?

Mr Simon Hart: It fits into all of it, if that’s not an evasive answer, because the Wales Office has different levels of responsibility, different levels of ministerial rank, as you said, starting with cabinet but also across a lot – a number of cabinet committees and other government committees as well.

It’s also – its relationship with other government departments, OGR – OGTs, I think we call them, is quite relevant in all of this, because we – therefore there is a sort of interlocking role that the Wales Office plays. But actually most of it is all conducted at official level. I think some of it’s – only two ministers, as you know, in the Wales – so most of this is done at official level, and that spreads across all three of those tiers.

Lead 2B: Do you have a view how this new set of arrangements set out and described here, this three-tier system, whether that would be effective at managing intergovernmental relations were there to be a future pandemic?

Mr Simon Hart: It’s – one of the things I think we will come to is whether the process and the outcomes totally overlapped. I’m not sure that this current structure necessarily does – would achieve that, for reasons that we’ll come to. I think it’s a step in the right direction. I think the arrival, actually, of Michael Gove on the scene to oversee these processes did make a profound difference to the way the various governments in the UK worked together. So I think it’s an important piece of work, but I don’t think it’s the magic solution that everybody’s looking for, either in terms of pandemic control or indeed any of the other policy areas which we wrestle with and where devolution ends and where reserved matter begin. And I think one of the things which dawned on us during all of this is nothing is truly devolved and nothing is truly reserved.

Lead 2B: You have touched on the calls with Michael Gove, the so-called CDL calls.

Mr Simon Hart: Yeah.

Lead 2B: You’re aware that the First Minister was a very vocal advocate for what he described as a reliable and regular pattern of contact between all four nations, and the Inquiry’s heard evidence that those CDL calls, the calls between First Ministers of the devolved administrations and Mr Gove, began in around June 2020.

You attended those calls; is that right?

Mr Simon Hart: Yep.

Lead 2B: Now, given that Mr Gove was leading on those calls on behalf of the UK Government, what was the purpose of your attendance on those calls?

Mr Simon Hart: He tried to include as many different, I suppose, political stakeholders, you could call them, as possible, so it made absolute sense to him that any government department which had a – which was active in any of the devolved nations should be part of those calls. For example – I think DWP, for example, would have been a part of that, say, as a major part of the Welsh economy. So he would have had as many people – the cast list was always quite big, but it was deliberately big.

Lead 2B: Would the cast list change depending on the topic that was to be discussed on the call or was the cast list effectively –

Mr Simon Hart: It might do by a – but not by much –

Lead 2B: But you –

Mr Simon Hart: – might be occasions – I think there would have been occasions, actually, when we weren’t included but Welsh Government were. I definitely remember that in COBR, there were occasions when it was considered that the most crucial decision-making body would have been Welsh Government, therefore there wasn’t any point in the Wales Office being there. That was fine, completely accepted that, and that was a decision which was taken just according to the agenda and the way in which the disease control was going at the time.

Mr Poole: Mr Hart, you’re talking quite quickly and I’m told that the stenographer is finding it quite difficult to record your evidence.

Lady Hallett: It’s very difficult to change one’s speech patterns, I know.

Mr Simon Hart: I shall slow down.

Lady Hallett: I think you just have to breathe a lot more.

Mr Poole: Now, the First Minister in his written evidence to the Inquiry has described these meetings, so these meetings and calls with Mr Gove, as working well, because, he says, all participants came together looking to share information, solve problems and work together on agendas of common concern.

Do you share the view of the First Minister?

Mr Simon Hart: Yeah, I think by and large that’s fairly accurate. I think in many respects they worked better than a lot of people were anticipating. Also, given there was a wide range of views on our Covid response, expressed by a lot of people with some very polarised political opinions, it was remarkable that they worked as well as they did.

Lead 2B: So this is possibly one of the more positive examples of intergovernmental relations during the course of the pandemic?

Mr Simon Hart: Yeah, I think I’d agree with that.

Lead 2B: Mr Johnson has said in his written evidence to the Inquiry that he chose not to meet with the First Ministers because, in his view, this would have been optically wrong for fear that this would give a false impression that the UK was a federal state. Now, wearing your Secretary of State hat, what’s your reaction to that statement of Mr Johnson’s?

Mr Simon Hart: I think it made sense. It made sense at the time and when I re-read it now it still makes sense. There had to be some kind of structure. There was probably no structure that everybody would have agreed with, but if the PM was the field marshal, Gove was the general, and there needed to be some kind of pyramid which people understood and could refer to, and it was quite right that, with CDL, Michael Gove being – having the wide responsibility that he did, it was actually much more productive for him to be the person who chaired those meetings and who had those direct relationships with the First Ministers than the Prime Minister himself. I think it made perfect sense.

Lead 2B: Now, as Secretary of State for Wales, you obviously want to ensure that the concerns and priorities of Wales are taken into account in the decision-making of the UK Government, and as we discussed earlier that was one of your roles as Secretary of State for Wales.

Did you consider these calls with Mr Gove an adequate replacement for meetings that would have taken place, for example, under the JBC(sic)?

Mr Simon Hart: Well, the manner in which they took place, which was largely remote, was inevitable because we were subject to Covid restrictions.

I thought the meetings were quite productive. Gove chaired them well. They covered the subjects which we needed to cover and there was significant official activity in the run-up and in the aftermath of those meetings. So even though the meetings themselves might have been relatively brief and reasonably crisp, what they covered and the decisions they reached were, as I say, by and large one of those activities of activity I don’t remember too many people complaining about at the time.

Lead 2B: I think, just for the transcript, I think I said JBC; I obviously mean JMC.

Mr Simon Hart: Yeah.

Lead 2B: Now, we’ll come to look at some of the letters you exchanged with the First Minister during the pandemic a little later in your evidence, but how often would you actually speak with the First Minister of Wales during the pandemic?

Mr Simon Hart: Quite rarely. We would have been on the same calls from time to time. We would have been in the same COBR meetings from time to time. Did we have a regular dialogue of phone calls on a, you know, pre-determined date? No, we didn’t. But actually I don’t think we needed to, and I think sometimes there’s a sort of belief that – in my world – that meetings are the cure for everything, but actually we met when we needed to. People met when they needed to, hopefully no more, and certainly no less. So, yeah, we spoke, but, as I say, there was no regular pattern to that.

Lead 2B: In light of your answer to that question it might be that you agree with the First Minister on this point. The First Minister in his written evidence has described you as being peripheral to his interaction with the UK Government. Now, have you got any comment on that?

Mr Simon Hart: It’s an interesting expression. I don’t necessarily disagree with it because the point of contact was CDL to the First Minister, so that was fine. We were there, ourselves, the Scottish secretary, and one or two of those were there for a slightly different reason, so that – I’m not parochial about that point. I think I might have phrased it differently but I don’t disagree fundamentally.

Lead 2B: I would like to ask you next about the period leading up to the first national lockdown. The impression one gets from reading your witness statement is that it wasn’t until mid-March that, to use your words, the gears of governments changed and the focus shifted to managing the pandemic. Is that a fair reading of your evidence?

Mr Simon Hart: Oh, it was definitely the case that in the early stages of awareness, when the nation, the UK, became aware of the pandemic, and what it was capable of, and what the worst-case scenario could look like, then that process started to speed up –

Lead 2B: Sorry to interrupt you, just stopping you there, when do you say that was, that people became aware, within government, about reasonable worst-case scenario and that there would be a need to speed up the response?

Mr Simon Hart: The moment when the severity of what was heading in our direction became really apparent, I think, was in the first COBR meeting that was called. And I will have to refer to the notes as to when that was. But the first COBR meeting was when all of the – I think, pretty well the whole cabinet plus Welsh Government and many others were in the room, and I think it was at that stage that Patrick Vallance and Chris Whitty explained in pretty stark terms what was – what was likely – what was possible, what might happen. I think at that moment everybody refocused and put a significant amount more priority into whichever element of disease control or avoidance that we were responsible for, and everything else got parked while we were trying to – while we were trying to achieve that.

Lead 2B: Now, obviously that first COBR meeting was well before mid-March and it’s – just going back to your statement, where you say that it wasn’t until mid-March that the gears of governments changed.

Just before I ask the question, just to be clear, when you say the gears of governments, plural, changed are you talking here UK Government, Welsh Government or both?

Mr Simon Hart: I think it’s both. I can’t – I’m not here to speak for Welsh Government but I think it’s both because – you know, governments don’t do 0 to 60 very quickly, they’re big machines, they’re inherently and frustratingly slow, and even with the – even with the urgency with which we knew we had to address this, and the realisation that there was an emergency probably already upon us, let alone heading our way, still the machine takes a bit of time to get up to the, you know, appropriate speed.

Could argue that – you know, when was that? Did it happen at all? And we could talk about that. But the effort started early on, but the machine, the lag time would have been a few weeks, yeah.

Lead 2B: Because obviously mid-March is but a week before the national lockdown on 23 March, so does it not strike you as worrying that it wasn’t until mid-March that the gears of governments changed?

Mr Simon Hart: I – with the benefit of hindsight, could we have done things differently? Could we have done things faster? I think that’s something which clearly this Inquiry will reach a conclusion on. I do remember the numerous meetings at the time, either in COBR or in Cabinet, or in the margins of all of those meetings, meetings – internal meetings with officials in the Wales Office and other departments at the time. I just … I remember everybody coming to terms with what the lockdown actually meant. Nobody in government has ever done anything like that before. Nobody had really been faced with what the economic consequences, what the social consequences were of what we were heading towards, and that sense of inevitability, that we were about to embark on something that nobody in the – nobody in any of the countries affected by Covid had ever done before.

So we were aware of what the sort of medical risk was, we were also becoming increasingly aware of what the economic risk was, and trying to find a balance which protected the economy, protected people’s livelihoods and jobs at the same time as managing disease control. And there was a – I just remember a very – a passage of time when we were – there was an expression at the time, if you remember, which was about “following the science”, and I think that was often misinterpreted as just follow the medical science, that was the only science out there to follow. There was behavioural science too, and we were conscious of and worried of how much public patience that we could demand and expect when we went into lockdown.

So although it wasn’t quite your question, that question about did we go into lockdown too late, too soon, right time, was as much governed by what we thought we could expect of the public, as it was some of the medical advice that Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance were giving at the time. It was a very fine balance, and a lot of difference of opinions on that. And, you know, history will now relate as to whether that balance was right and, if we did it again, would we come to a different timing conclusion.

Lead 2B: Now obviously, Mr Hart, we’re concerned in this aspect of the Inquiry with the Welsh Government’s core decision-making during the pandemic, and you mention in your witness statement that you in fact had to give evidence to a Senedd committee on 9 March, I think you say, and you make a point of saying in your witness statement:

“There was nothing unusual in this event other than to note, in hindsight, the complete lack of any mention of the growing pandemic …”

Then you also go on to say that in this period, January to March, your engagement with Welsh ministers was nothing out of the ordinary and that your feeling at the time was one was getting on with business as usual.

So the sense one gets from your witness statement is that your understanding was the Welsh Government were not engaging with the pandemic at this stage up until, as you say, mid-March, when the gears of governments changed. Is that right?

Mr Simon Hart: I think it would be wrong to deduce from that that there was any complacency on the part of Welsh Government in their defence. I think there was – I can’t underestimate how much, at the time, people were learning as we went along. I just cannot underestimate the fact that this was territory nobody, literally nobody, had ever been in before. And my recollection of it was that, as people became aware of the risks and understood more about the disease and what it was capable of, everybody I came across, whether they were politicians or whether they were officials, whether they were volunteers, members of the public or anything else, more and more people literally devoted every hour of the day and every ounce of their energy to trying to do their bit to do the right thing at the right time.

And sometimes in the recollection of this it almost seems like people, sort of, didn’t care or they made callous decisions for thoughtless reasons, whether it’s – whether it was Welsh Government, who I know you take evidence from, or anybody else I saw, but particularly the civil service and officials, I – we might have made some profound mistakes but the desire to try to get this right was very evident very early on, as soon as people became aware of what was – as I say, the expression I use – what was heading our way.

Lead 2B: In your statement talking about your role you say:

“[It] evolved, increasingly, to that of a critical friend of the Welsh Government …”

So perhaps acting as a critical friend of the Welsh Government, do you think that the Welsh Government was slow to recognise the seriousness of Covid in the period January to March 2020?

Mr Simon Hart: I think, by the way, we were a critical friend of UK Government too, it was our job to be able to report into other departments, and indeed Number 10, of our experiences and observations from what was going on in Wales, so it wasn’t exclusively for the benefit of Welsh Government.

Given where we were and given the manner with which we were – the way in which we were addressing the disease, which was through public health legislation rather than through civil contingencies legislation, I don’t think I could sit here in all honesty and say that Welsh Government were deliberately slow on the uptake. I think Welsh Government reacted, given the resources and knowledge that it had at the time, probably much the same as other governments. That may one day be concluded as being too little, too late. That’s not for me to conclude. But I didn’t witness anything which would enable me to say – to give you an affirmative answer on that.

Lead 2B: You’ve mentioned the legislative choice that was made in your previous answer, so the fact that the Civil Contingencies Act was not used but public health powers were used to respond to the pandemic, and you say in your witness statement that, whilst this had the advantage of bespoke approaches being adopted to respond to the particular circumstances of the pandemic in each nation, you say it had the disadvantage of a confusing plethora of different requirements and restrictions establishing internal borders in the UK which had not existed to the same extent previously.

Now, the Inquiry has heard evidence in Module 2, in particular from Mr Johnson, who in his view said that the UK, in the event of a future pandemic, should be treated as a single epidemiological unit, and the best approach is a UK-wide one with no differences between the four nations.

Do you share that view?

Mr Simon Hart: I shared it at the time and, looking back now, I’m even more emphatically of that belief.

And it looks from the First Minister’s written evidence that he’s not a million miles away from that position either. He, I think, expresses surprise that the crisis wasn’t dealt with by way of civil contingencies legislation. I think that’s quite early on in his own evidence. And if there was a single thing – if there was a single sentence which I could conclude my evidence to you, it would be that. It is that area, it is that decision, which, if we were to do it again, I would do differently, more so than pretty well everything else.

Lead 2B: When you say “do it differently”, so not use public health powers, and the quid pro quo would be, what, to use the Civil Contingencies Act?

Mr Simon Hart: I remember a minister in COBR when the debate took place very early on and the question was raised about: do we proceed on the basis of public health legislation or civil contingencies? And the conclusion was reached that it was more appropriate via public health legislation.

I think, if my memory serves me right, because that would only need to go to Parliament for renewal less frequently than civil contingencies legislation would. I think we would have had to update civil contingencies legislation more frequently than we would public health, so the decision was reached. And I remember a minister just saying in the meeting “If this isn’t a civil contingencies emergency I don’t know what is”. And so there was some question right at the start about whether – about which road we should go down. And it may not have changed – if we had done that, by the way, it may not have changed the outcome, there might have still been decisions which were taken which might not have been, with the benefit of hindsight, the right ones, but what we would have been able to do is present, I think, a much more consistent and much simpler, much plainer set of proposals, restrictions, principles than we were able to do subsequently.

And I’m not obviously pointing a finger of blame. It was inevitable, once we had three, four different administrations, all with sort of slightly different ideas about how to deal with this, but a population which was very fluid, this was going to lead to problems. And I found it increasingly disturbing that we were looking at the problem through the lens of a political boundary, geographical boundary, between England and Wales, in my case, rather than looking at the population and the way the population and the economy crosses the border, without – without a second thought for that kind of thing.

And, you know, as I say, I’ve concluded on many occasions if I had the power to change it that’s what I would have done.

Lead 2B: Now, one of the obvious implications of using public health powers, as you allude to, is divergence, and you make the point in your witness statement, you say in the early phase of the national lockdown all four nations worked closely together, but by May 2020 you say you had become “concerned about the risk of this unity of purpose starting to fray”, and you specifically identify the Prime Minister’s announcement of 10 May. So that’s the announcement where the UK Government changed its overarching public health message from Stay Home, Save Lives to Stay Alert, Save Lives but the decision was taken in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland to keep the message of Stay Home, Save Lives.

Now, it would be right, would it not, that 10 May was a real turning point in terms of four nation co-ordination?

Mr Simon Hart: I’m not sure who is making that assertion.

I go back to what I said earlier on. This was a period of intense and unpredictable activity, and I think there were moments when the relationship between four nations worked well and there were moments when it didn’t. I think that was entirely to be expected. It might well have been the case if we’d been under civil contingencies legislation as well, who knows. And if there was another, God forbid, pandemic, I have absolutely no doubt that there would be similar tensions.

We were – we were – we were fighting something nobody had ever had any experience of doing before, and the idea that that could be kind of seamlessly resolved by just a series of more regular meetings is for the birds. This was always going to be very, very complex, very, very contentious, it was going to trigger all sorts of political and practical rows.

So, turning point, there were high points, there were low points, but I don’t think there was a turning point.

Lead 2B: You say in your witness statement that increasingly over time you were left with the feeling that Welsh ministers actively sought differentiation in their approach, compared to the UK Government’s in England, and you say “for no other reason than to be different and to set Wales apart from other nations in the UK”, so in other words you thought Wales were being different for the sake of being different?

Mr Simon Hart: It was – I – I’m afraid with – more in sadness than anger, I do believe that to be the case, because if you approached the whole thing from the point of view of outcomes rather than processes, it was difficult to see any evidence which suggested that the outcomes were going to be or were any different as a result of some of the divergent policies which were emerging.

The rates of spread, all of the things which we read about with increasing horror every day were largely the same over the whole of the UK. You could make some perfectly reasonable differentiations based on population dynamics and that sort of thing, but the idea that there was any significant geographical difference between Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, England wasn’t supported by evidence, in my view.

And so – and where you have a population, and we frequently used to publicly have this debate at the time, where there’s 100,000 people every day of every week who are going over the border from England to Wales for work purposes or medical purposes or whatever it might be, we were picking up, and we were simply representing the views of quite a lot of stakeholders, quite a lot of stakeholders in the Welsh economy at the time, we were picking up increasing frustration from people saying “I don’t understand the difference, I don’t know whether” – I mean, when I used to go to London, I mean, I remember Great Western used to send out a tannoy message halfway under the Severn Tunnel saying “Put on your mask”, or “Take off your mask”.

Anything which led to confusion, anything that led to contempt, anything that led to sort of lack of confidence in the process that was in place were potentially dangerous, in my view, and that’s why we were articulating the views, to UK Government as well as Welsh Government, that we should stick as closely as we possibly could to similar measures across the whole of the UK as was possible, and every time we diverged from that, I – rather than save lives, I think what it did is cause confusion.

Lead 2B: Now, confusing public messaging is one thing, but here aren’t you going further than that, you’re saying that the Welsh Government’s motivation for making decisions was simply to be different for the sake of being different; is that really what you’re suggesting?

Mr Simon Hart: It was unquestionably a reflection of what people within Wales were telling us and Welsh stakeholders were telling us, the Welsh economy was telling us. And in the absence of any evidence to suggest that the divergence was going to have the effect that it was argued, then it was difficult to reach any other conclusion from time to time.

So I don’t say this with any sense of glee. I think in a moment of national, international emergency like this was, I think the risk of that being the only conclusion that people could reach was heightened and what genuinely worried me was if that’s where people – what people were thinking, then their enthusiasm, if there was such a thing, for complying with the regulations was going to be compromised. And that ultimately was bad for everybody. And that’s why we said what we did.

Lead 2B: If we can please have a look at a document, it’s an email read-out of a meeting that you had with Ken Skates on 26 March 2020.

It’s INQ000128940.

If we can have a look, please, at the second bullet point:

“[Secretary of State] …”

So this is you, Mr Hart:

“… thanks [Ken Skates] for this, but says there have been some occasions where [Welsh Government] has decided to do things differently without immediate clarity as to what differences have been pursued. [Secretary of State] raises diversion on business rates and definitions of key workers, particularly in cross-border areas. These can look like political opportunism, even though, there are likely valid reasons for divergence.”

So you appear there to concede that whilst it might look like the Welsh Government are simply making decisions for the sake of being different, there are likely to be valid reasons for divergence. Do you stand by that?

Mr Simon Hart: I was – I thought Ken Skates, by the way, was one of the standout performers in Welsh Government during this process, and he was somebody who was able to leave any party political differences well behind him in our shared desire to reach the right place.

I think this was me being as tactful as I possibly could in the circumstances, but I think if Ken was here he would – we talked about this a lot. If there were valid reasons for divergence, I’m not completely sure what they were, and more importantly I’m not completely sure what effect they had.

Lead 2B: We’ve talked about the Prime Minister’s announcements, so the change of UK Government policy to – from Stay Home to Stay Alert.

The public statement the Prime Minister made – we can see it, it’s INQ000065338 – we don’t need to read it but just to make the point that this change of policy obviously applied to England only, yet if we were to read that statement, you can take it from me that there is very little in there to suggest that these were England-only measures, and that was a concern we heard from Toby Mason a moment ago.

My question is simply this, Mr Hart, that was a concern raised by the Welsh Government; did you take any steps as Secretary of State for Wales the voice of Wales in the UK Cabinet to ensure that UK Government public health communications were clearer when they were only meant to apply to England?

Mr Simon Hart: Frequently I remember our sort of comms people talking to the media about making clear what was Wales only, what was UK-wide, what was England-only. It was an ongoing problem, it would often occur every day.

And it absolutely illustrates the point I was trying to make about the civil contingencies route, because we were frequently in situations where BBC Wales for example would be reporting the First Minister’s position minutes before there was a press conference in London with the Prime Minister making his comments, and any gap in between those two things was immediately seized on by people who were either angry or confused. Neither of those sentiments was helpful as far as disease control was concerned.

And it absolutely illustrates why I think if we were to relive this pretty dreadful time we’d need to do it on a UK-wide basis, because the idea that there was an England-only problem or a Wales-only problem is nonsense, it was a UK – it was a global problem but it was definitely a UK problem, and the idea that we could subdivide it into even smaller responses I think just made the situation more complicated than it needed to be.

Lead 2B: On 2 April 2020 you spoke to Vaughan Gething, and we’ve got a note of that call.

It’s INQ000256824.

And it’s I think eight lines up from the bottom of that email on that first page:

“SH said he felt he had a role to scrutinise/interrogate decisions whilst not wanting to get in the way.”

Then if we can go further up that email chain, I think it’s seven lines down in the second email, Vaughan Gething says that he:

“… did not pick an argument over [your] self-appointed scrutiny role.”

Now, we discussed obviously the role of the Secretary of State for Wales earlier on; was scrutinising and interrogating decisions of the Welsh Government really part of your role?

Mr Simon Hart: Yeah. I think it was. Absolutely I think it was. We were having representations from individuals, professionals, public servants, businesses, all the time, every day of every week, asking us –

Lead 2B: Within – sorry to interrupt you. Within Wales?

Mr Simon Hart: To the Wales Office. In Wales, yes. Welsh businesses, Welsh public servants coming to us saying “Please represent our views to Welsh Government”. So that’s exactly what we did. And I think it’s – in precisely the same way, by the way, as I think Welsh Government were not shy in doing when it came to UK Government decisions, and there’s quite a lot of references in the media to an ongoing critique being provided by the First Minister of Boris Johnson during this time.

And I actually – I don’t object to that. I mean, I think it caused a bit of confusion, which I do object to, but I think the idea that any of us should be above or beyond some degree of scrutiny is – is – I don’t feel comfortable with that at all, and frankly we should all, you know, in our – in our roles we should be prepared for a bit of that, and I think in a moment like this it’s absolutely right that we should say “Hang on a minute, are you sure you’ve got this right?” That’s all that was.

Lead 2B: Moving into April, we know that on 24 April the Welsh Government published “Leading Wales out of the coronavirus pandemic: a framework to recovery”. Don’t need that to be displayed, but on the same day you wrote to the First Minister, and if we could have your letter – it’s INQ000256843 – like to look at the third paragraph, please.

This is talking about that framework, a framework for recovery, and you say:

“As written, the framework alludes to the possibility of a separate path for Wales out of the lockdown.”

Then the next paragraph, please, if we zoom out and zoom back in, bottom of that page:

“I also note that the framework does not mention the UK Government once, despite us being a key partner of the Welsh Government as we respond to the outbreak. This will not go unnoticed. Our Governments are working well together and I believe we need to demonstrate our continuing commitment to do so.”

What do you mean when you say “This will not go unnoticed”? By whom will it not go unnoticed?

Mr Simon Hart: People who were increasingly concerned that there was a disconnect between UK Gov and Welsh Government, and it wanted to at least have the confidence that there was a joined up collegiate approach, not only to the economic package but also to disease control, as indicated in reference to military support in there.

And I just thought it would have been helpful, rather than sort of feeling indignant for being left out, I just thought it’d be helpful for the public to know that the full joined up might of the UK and Welsh Government was acting in lockstep in order to achieve these aims. I thought that would have been a helpful observation to make. And it would have – it would have minimised the opportunity for the media to suggest that there was more – more of a division than was the case. So I thought it was a helpful suggestion that – in a comms sense, which we should have signed up to.

Lead 2B: Would it be fair to describe this as a bit of a shot across the Welsh Government bows to fall into line?

Mr Simon Hart: No, not really. No, no, no, no. I think that – I don’t think people should see demons where demons don’t exist. We were, as I’ve said before, in a period of very intense activity, and I think it is perfectly reasonable for UK Government and devolved government during that time to challenge each other, to try to better understand the reasons behind and the evidence behind divergence, if divergence is necessary. Perfectly happy to do that in relative privacy of an exchange of letters, but I don’t think – I don’t think that it was necessarily unsurprising that from time to time that could be contrived as being inflammatory. It wasn’t intended to be inflammatory but I think the idea that we should, you know, shine a light at each other’s policy areas and activities from time to time is – is part and parcel of a response to a crisis of this magnitude.

Lead 2B: Now, this letter, and we don’t need to go to the relevant part of it, but it refers to the “Military Aid to Civil Authorities process”. Can you just very briefly explain what that process is for us.

Mr Simon Hart: It’s basically where Welsh Government come to us requesting assistance from the Ministry of Defence, normally in the form of personnel, more often than not for ambulance support with the Welsh ambulance service and also through the vaccination programme.

And each time that a request was made for X number of service personnel to assist with the vaccine roll-out or the medical response, that required a sign-off from the MoD and from the Wales Office. That was the same in Scotland as well as in Wales, and I don’t think there was a single occasion where we declined a MACA request.

Lead 2B: So all requests were approved?

Mr Simon Hart: I’m pretty certain. Right at the end, I think there might have been a MACA request or two where the number bid for wasn’t met but – for example, there might have been 100 personnel bid for, the MoD was able to release 50 or 75. Those are my – I’ve just made up those numbers, but there was sometimes a bit of a deal to be done, simply because of the availability of personnel at the time.

Lead 2B: Do you consider that the MACA process worked well during the pandemic?

Mr Simon Hart: I think it worked fantastically well. I think it was one of those examples of where everybody sort of got over themselves and were able to join in a common endeavour. And the MoD – I remember being vaccinated myself from a guy from – seconded to Tenby from Cambridge and was incredibly proud of the work they did, really felt he was contributing to the “war effort”, as he described it. And those kind of examples were – I think, you know, raised the morale of everybody in the area and who was affected by them.

Lead 2B: Just staying on the topic of intergovernmental relations, part of your – I think it’s paragraph 39 of your witness statement.

Perhaps we could have this displayed, so it’s INQ000270271.

And it’s page 9 of your witness statement, paragraph 39. You refer to some correspondence between yourself and the First Minister during this period, so we’re now in May 2020, and you say:

“It also became increasingly clear to me that the open and unified ‘big tent’ approach of the UK Government since the start of the first national lockdown, whereby Ministers from the devolved administrations had been invited to attend a wide range of UK Cabinet meetings including COBR-M and various Ministerial Implementation Groups (MIGs), was not being reciprocated by the Welsh Government.”

Was it your view that co-operation between the two governments was essentially a bit of a one-way street?

Mr Simon Hart: It felt a bit like that at times, and – it didn’t cause us sleepless nights, I might add, and we weren’t exactly looking for extra meetings to go to, there were plenty to choose from. What we thought it would – what we were trying to achieve here was the ability to turn to the press, turn to the public in Wales to say, you know, we are arm in arm. UK Government Welsh Government arm in arm.

And we thought the best way or one way of doing that was to be in the same room, not necessarily with a speaking part or a vote or a power of veto or anything like that, just to be there. In the same way that the First Minister and others attended COBR meetings, we thought it would be helpful if David TC Davies, who we mentioned earlier on, was able to attend a weekly meeting in Cardiff or something like that. We thought optically that would be quite beneficial.

It turned out that view wasn’t shared, but we gave it a go.

Lead 2B: I think it’s right, isn’t it, that the First Minister wrote to you and effectively said “You’re welcome to come along to meetings but only when reserved matters are on the agenda”?

Mr Simon Hart: And, with great respect, I think it sort of slightly shines a light on the problem. In Covid there was no such thing as devolved or reserved. You know, every penny of Covid support, every soldier who turned up to help the vaccination programme, every measure that was put in place was actually funded by UK Government. And that’s not a boast, it’s just the way that it is. And so none of this – nothing would have happened without the – without the whole of the UK Government operation behind.

Even if I accept that there were some areas of devolved activity with which we have no immediate responsibility – which I’m, you know, in many respects happy to accept – that didn’t mean that there wasn’t some value from having the same people in the same room so that we could turn to the public and turn to the professional services in Wales and say “Don’t worry we’re not allowing some political differences to get in the way of decision-making here”. And I thought that would be helpful and I believe that to be the case still today.

Lead 2B: The ministerial implementation groups which we heard a bit about were wound down middle of 2020, and that was done without any consultation with the devolved administrations, and the First Minister had reason to write to you setting out his concerns about that.

We don’t need to bring the letter up, it was a letter on 22 June 2020 where he said:

“… I am concerned about the way that machinery is being wound down and the intermittent contact in recent weeks.”

That concern having been raised with you, what did you do to ensure that those concerns were factored into UK Government decision-making?

Mr Simon Hart: From memory – I have to rely on memory here – we at that stage were reverting to the model that existed before the pandemic, and I don’t think there was – I don’t think as far as Michael Gove was concerned, as the Minister for the Union, there was any particular decision taken that liaison with, the relationship with Welsh Government or Scottish Government was in any way going to be reduced, it was just taking on a – it was just, in a sense, taking on a new format.

And this is going to sound a bit chippy, it’s not meant to be, you know, I think there’s a huge difference between sort of outcomes and process here and, if I was to be respectfully critical of the First Minister, there was an awful lot of focus on process, and I think that was – you know, as if every problem in the world could be resolved by a meeting. And I think, you know, Michael Gove’s view was: no, we need to – you know, implementation and outcomes are what really matters and we will therefore – you know, we will evolve this relationship. But the idea, if indeed it is implied, that somehow there was a sort of sidelining exercise going on, is, you know, nothing – I don’t recognise that.

Lead 2B: The Inquiry’s received evidence from a number of Welsh ministers and Welsh officials to the effect that meetings with their UK Government counterparts were often at short notice, sometimes without an agenda or papers, and that the general feeling was that meetings were held with the devolved administrations effectively to inform them of decisions already made rather than as a forum for joint decision-making. Is that something that you recognise?

Mr Simon Hart: Is that in the context of Covid or just more widely?

Lead 2B: During the pandemic, particularly in the context of MIGs and then MIGs being replaced by Covid-O and Covid-S, and intergovernmental relations generally.

Mr Simon Hart: I thought – I thought the complaint was that meetings didn’t exist, but apparently the meetings did exist.

Lead 2B: Well, we know – we know – we have CDL, we had MIGs, they were replaced by Covid-O, Covid-S, some Welsh officials were only invited to aspects of those meetings, you had CDL calls, so there’s no issue that there were meetings.

Mr Simon Hart: But this is what, you know – this is why I feel strongly about civil contingencies thing because, you know, there are areas which are devolved and there are areas which are reserved and that’s fine, you know, for example defence, foreign affairs are reserved matters, health is devolved, but where you have – where you have military assistance in the delivery of health, then the lines get blurred. And I’m not aware and I don’t remember during the pandemic any Welsh ministers ever saying to me – I stand to be corrected by the way – that they had had an unsatisfactory meeting with a particular colleague and could I do something about it. Most of the time I think people recognised, as I’ve said before, that a large number of people were working as hard as they could in dealing with a very unknown enemy and that if there were slip-ups or if there were meetings which should have gone on longer or should have been curtailed sooner and if there were – if there was something wrong with the process, nine times out of ten it wasn’t as a result of some kind of contempt for devolved government, it was probably just the fog of war.

Lead 2B: Change topic and ask you some questions about travel restrictions next. So we know that in September 2020 rates of infection were rapidly rising in Wales. Local health protection areas, essentially local lockdowns were put in place in a number of areas, and the Inquiry’s received evidence that those local lockdowns were not as effective at slowing the rate of infection as they had hoped and more stringent measures needed to be brought in. You then have the Welsh firebreak which came into effect Friday 23 October for two weeks.

And the First Minister wrote to the Prime Minister on 28 September – I don’t propose to have the letter displayed – but he then had to write again on 13 October, and in that second letter the First Minister noted that … hasn’t had a response to the 28 September letter but he goes on to urge the Prime Minister to introduce regulations in England to restrict travel from high prevalence areas because guidance had not proved effective. And then the day after that you get a similar letter, or the Prime Minister received a similar letter from Nicola Sturgeon on behalf of the Scottish Government.

If we can just have a look at your letter of 15 October, it’s INQ000256870, and the first line says you are seeking “urgent clarification of issues arising from your recent announcement”, about travel from England into Wales.

I suppose, just pausing there, when you wrote this letter on 15 October were you aware of this – these two unanswered letters written by the First Minister to the Prime Minister about this very issue?

Mr Simon Hart: Can’t remember. Sorry.

Lead 2B: Third paragraph, second sentence, you say:

“As far as the evidence you rely on is concerned: this, too, needs to pass scrutiny.”

When you say “pass scrutiny”, do you mean by the UK Government, by the Senedd, by who?

Mr Simon Hart: I think the … I think by the public, actually, who were increasingly anxious to understand upon what evidence any of these decisions were taken, not necessarily members of the public who were fundamentally against lockdown, by the way, but people who had strong views in both directions. And again, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, this – it is these kind of difficulties that arise as a result of different policies in different parts of a small island.

Lead 2B: If we just have a look at the First Minister’s response to your letter.

It’s INQ000226115, please.

It’s 19 October, so the First Minister explains that the regulations mirror restrictions already in place in local health protection areas but he goes on to explain that the decision has been made on the advice of the CMO for Wales, that’s Dr Atherton, and we see he quotes – it’s the fourth paragraph there – Dr Atherton’s advice:

“‘I fully support the proposal to restrict travel from high-Covid transmission areas to protect the public health of people living in areas which have lower rates of virus in circulation; often areas which are remote or less densely populated. This is a sensible and necessary approach in line with the existing restrictions for travel that are in place for the 17 health protection areas across the country’.”

I mean, do you accept that the Welsh Government was effectively following scientific advice in the decision it made regarding the travel restrictions?

Mr Simon Hart: It was following – it was following Dr Atherton’s comments, that’s not really – but I don’t think that was really our point at the time. Our point at the time is that there were different bits of advice that UK Government was relying on and we were – and people who were travelling around the UK rather than just around England or just around Wales were confused about the fact that there were two conflicting bits of advice and no supporting, necessarily – so visible and compelling – supporting evidence of one over the other or vice versa. Therein lies the problem.

And the moment – we were concerned the moment there is any confusion about these things is when the – you lose public confidence and people start thinking “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do or where I’m supposed to do it or where the rules kick in or where they don’t”.

And I thought it was quite revealing, but not in a sinister way, the lengthy exchange in WhatsApp messages amongst – which is part of the evidence pack – between Welsh ministers, members of Mark Drakeford’s own Cabinet were expressing a surprisingly large amount of confusion themselves as to what they were able to do.

So this is not sort of some, you know, a high-handed sort of UK Gov critique. Mark’s own team were WhatsApping each other saying, “I don’t actually fully understand the rules”, “Can anybody tell me if I can go from here to there?”, “Not sure if it’s a work event or not”, “Not sure if I’m covered by …”, “Do I have to wear a mask?” All of that is laid out in some detail in their WhatsApp exchanges. And that’s not a criticism, it’s an observation in fact that there was significant confusion. And then if you had – if your travel or your work happened to take you across the border, let’s say you live in Montgomeryshire but your medical care is provided by the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital in England, those were dilemmas people were having every single day, “I’m not quite sure when I move into another jurisdiction what rules …” As a result of all of that, people just reverse out of the whole thing, and that’s where the confusion arises.

Lady Hallett: I’m afraid the stenographer’s struggling, Mr Hart.

Mr Simon Hart: I’m so sorry.

Lady Hallett: We’ve got several – multitudinous “unclears” on the [draft] transcript, so for those who are following the transcript, if you could slow down, we’d be really grateful.

Mr Simon Hart: Of course.

Mr Poole: Mr Hart, just moving topic, I want to ask you a few questions about PPE.

Now, PPE is going to be dealt with in a later module, so, again, these are just some high-level questions anchored in a couple of documents.

If we can have a look at the 31 March letter that you wrote to the First Minister.

It’s INQ000113643.

And you – it’s the last paragraph on that page, you asked:

“Second, we are, as you know, making excellent progress in ordering more ventilators and PPE and in sourcing new opportunities to manufacture them. It would be helpful to know the Welsh Government’s outstanding needs in this regard. I would be grateful for this information even if you have already fed it in via other routes.”

Then you wrote again about PPE, it’s 14 April, that is INQ000113621. And I think I’m looking at the – yes, so it’s the fourth – it’s the last paragraph of the first page and over the page, you say:

“It is because we need to meet this challenge as four united nations that I am writing to highlight the breadth of UK Government support that is at your disposal should you wish to use it. Not only do we need plan effectively and distribute supplies equitably but we also need to do so at speed. Whilst it is your Government’s responsibility to quantify and distribute the PPE equipment that is needed across Wales, I wanted to reassure you that we in UK Government will continue to do whatever we can to assist you in that operation.”

My question is simply this: did you have concerns about the provision of PPE in Wales at any stage during the pandemic?

Mr Simon Hart: I think we all did, we had concerns over PPE across the whole of the UK, and part of that was because there were concerns about PPE across the whole of the planet where Covid was an issue. Normally you can tap into an undisturbed market. In this instance, because everybody’s market was disturbed in terms of the provision of these items, that became a whole lot more difficult.

What I do recall very clearly, particularly on the point about ventilators, was at one stage – I was in a meeting with Matt Hancock and Vaughan Gething when this was raised – at one stage there was a belief that ventilators were probably the most important item that we could acquire in volume in order to help people who were the worst affected by the disease. It was literally within about a fortnight of that that the medical advice had moved on and had begun to focus much more on earlier intervention with patients, and so the urgency around ventilators had subsided a bit, but we also knew that we were buying PPE in vast quantities as a UK Government and I just thought it was a helpful thing to be able to make the offer to Welsh Government, and if they were deficient in any of these items it was worth talking to us because we were – had people all over the world trying to buy stuff in in volume. That said, not necessarily knowing that it would be used, as in the ventilator case, but we – so we thought that would be a helpful – a helpful offer to make.

Lead 2B: Mr Hart, finally just some questions about your engagement with local authorities in Wales.

You say in your witness statement that throughout the pandemic you met with a range of stakeholders in Wales without Ken Skates or any other Welsh ministers being present and those were meetings, I think I’m right in saying, with Welsh local authorities, police forces and business sector. How did those meetings feed into your engagement with the Welsh Government?

Mr Simon Hart: I think, from memory, certainly the businesses and I think there’s an annex in one of the evidence packs about the businesses that I’d met – normally at their invitation, I should add – who had changed their business model often to make PPE or to do, manufacture things like hand sanitiser, and wanted to be able to market their – market their achievement as much as their product actually. A lot of these people do something that they consider to be of huge public service, which it was. These were not people who were, you know, onto a good thing and making money, but they were doing what they thought was right, which was responding to the call for help. And so it was always extraordinarily uplifting to go to some of these factories, a sort of gin distillery making a hand sanitiser. But the pride with which the owners and workforce displayed for what they were doing was, you know, one of the sort of few good bits about all of this.

In terms of police, I don’t remember quite – we used to have frequent – frequent – bi-monthly meetings with the chief constables as a matter of course. I suspect during this particular period they were more focused on the enforcement of regulation obviously than they would normally.

And local authorities, similar but not particularly specific. But where there were concerns, I think for example my own local authority had a particularly difficult time with some of the travel restrictions, being a coastal constituency, a lot of people coming in and out, there was quite a lot of pressure on the local authority around enforcement, and indeed the police for that matter. But where necessary we would feed that back into UK Government departments and where necessary back into Welsh Government departments. But I don’t remember any particular sort of rub on that, I think it was all conducted at a – in a reasonably civilised way.

Mr Poole: Mr Hart, they’re all my questions for you, but there are some questions from core participants.

Questions From the Chair

Lady Hallett: Just before Ms Heaven asks any questions that I’ve given permission for, could I ask you this, Mr Hart: going back to one of the earliest questions that Mr Poole asked you, talking about a new system, obviously attempt’s been made to come up with a new system. It looks a pretty complicated system to me, but –

Mr Simon Hart: The IGR, the intergovernmental –

Lady Hallett: The one about several tiers and –

Mr Simon Hart: Yes.

Lady Hallett: Right, and titles that weren’t exactly easy to remember. But can we just put to aside normal circumstances, what structure do you think would be best placed to serve the people of Wales, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland in an emergency if you’re going to get the right involvement of the devolved nations with the UK Government? Have you thought about what would be the best structure, or do you think the Gove type structure was the –

Mr Simon Hart: I have. I think there’s structure and there’s process. The process, which I mentioned, is civil contingencies legislation. And I think, but stand to be corrected, that under civil contingency planning – regimes already in place, for example there are – there’s a structure for what happens in the event of – fill in the relevant gap, that I think already exists. I think the Cabinet Office will, if there was a major terrorist event, for example, in Wales or some kind of climatic catastrophe or some kind of – or some kind of pandemic, civil contingency regime already exists. I couldn’t tell you necessarily what it is but it’s undoubtedly simpler than the one we were looking at earlier.

And I do believe it needs to be simple. I don’t think it is particularly simple. I think it’s, as I say, too much orientated around process and not orientated enough around outcomes.

And I could – you know, if you gave me ten minutes and a piece of paper I could draw you one which would be simple and effective. I haven’t been asked to do that, by the way, but I would because I think it is – I think it is possible, and I suspect the Cabinet Office have said “Here’s one we made earlier”.

Lady Hallett: I receive written evidence all the time and take into account both written and oral evidence, Mr Hart, so if you want to consider yourself commissioned to come up with a possible –

The Witness: Okay.

Lady Hallett: – it would be interesting.

Thank you, Ms Heaven.

Questions From Ms Heaven

Ms Heaven: Thank you, my Lady.

Good afternoon, Mr Hart, I ask questions on behalf of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru.

Can I start by asking you about a document, please, so I’m going to bring something up on the screen.

It’s INQ000414516.

If you can just indicate when that’s come up.

This is a tweet that you published on 1 November 2020 from X, Twitter formerly known, where you state as follows:

“The furlough scheme has protected 400,000 jobs across Wales & will now continue until Dec. Welsh Gov didn’t ask for a furlough extension, they asked for a different scheme to be brought forward having already been told that it was impossible.”

Then you do a little hand emoji down to the letter that Mark Drakeford, First Minister for Wales, had written to the Prime Minister, and then you say:

“It’s disingenuous. Work with us Mark?”

If we just scroll down, for completeness, we see that’s 1 November, and the letter itself which is 16 October 2020. It’s the request that we know went to the Prime Minister is then below.

So my first question is this: would you agree with me that as Secretary of State for Wales to publish a tweet firstly calling the First Minister for Wales disingenuous and, secondly, publishing what seems to be private correspondence between the First Minister for Wales and the then Prime Minister of the UK Government was deeply inappropriate and obviously liable to damage the UK Government’s relationships with the Welsh Government at a time when the country was facing an unprecedented national emergency?

So do you agree with that?

Mr Simon Hart: I don’t, I don’t think you would expect me to and I don’t, and I think part of the reason I say that, and these things are always borderline calls and it’s – and Twitter is never probably the ideal platform on which to have these disagreements, I recognise that, but this particular situation about financial support was especially frustrating given –

Ms Heaven: I don’t want to cut you off. I’m absolutely going to come to the substance.

Mr Simon Hart: Sure.

Ms Heaven: I will be asking you about the substance of the concern. But just focusing on the way you did it, just so I’m clear, you’re not accepting that it was inappropriate and indeed damaging to the relations for it to be put on X in the way you did; you’re not accepting that, are you?

Mr Simon Hart: No, because we – and I could point you to numerous moments when Mark Drakeford made some very derogatory comments about Boris Johnson. I think to some extent – it may be regrettable but it’s an impossible situation to –

Ms Heaven: You’re the Secretary of State for Wales.

Mr Simon Hart: Yes, and he’s the First Minister of Wales dealing with the Prime Minister, and – and saying that he had abandoned science and was interested only in protecting England rather than Wales. Quite inflammatory comments, but we accept that. But in the heat of these situations I think these things get said. What’s important is what happens as a result of these lively and occasionally quite combative – what happens is the outcomes that matter. I’m not offended by the numerous occasions that I’ve been critiqued by Welsh Government, and by Mark in particular, and I don’t think he should be too sensitive to a bit of challenge from now and again in public.

Ms Heaven: Were you asked by those in Downing Street to publish this tweet or did you do it of your own volition?

Mr Simon Hart: Oh, definitely –

Lady Hallett: Just before you go on, you said it was the then Prime Minister; it was the then Chancellor of the Exchequer. It’s when Mr Sunak –

Ms Heaven: Yes.

Lady Hallett: – was Chancellor.

Ms Heaven: Thank you, my Lady.

Lady Hallett: So –

Ms Heaven: The then Chancellor of the Exchequer, so that we’re absolutely clear. I think you are.

Mr Simon Hart: Yeah. No, I understand.

Ms Heaven: It’s a letter to Rishi –

Mr Simon Hart: No, I understand.

Ms Heaven: – Sunak, the then Chancellor.

Mr Simon Hart: I was given a free hand in much of my comms. I didn’t – I didn’t operate to Downing Street orders.

Ms Heaven: But was this tweet – were you asked to put this tweet out, or did you do it of your own volition?

Mr Simon Hart: I don’t think so, no.

Ms Heaven: Was this a one-off, then, or was this reflective of how you conducted relations, as Secretary of State for Wales, with the Welsh Government?

Mr Simon Hart: No, we – as I say, most of the time we had a relationship which varied from very good to tolerable, depending on the subject of the day, we’ve had some very good – we’ve had, as I say, some very good relationships over a number of things. From time to time, there’s a sort of red line that they think I’ve crossed and I think they’ve crossed and it’s, I don’t think, entirely unhealthy that we shouldn’t be able to have those arguments in public.

Ms Heaven: All right.

Can we move on to the substance, then, because it is important.

Mr Simon Hart: Yeah.

Ms Heaven: Can you explain, then, what had caused this tweet? Because obviously something’s caused it. I mean, what had the Welsh Government and/or Mark Drakeford been saying, can you remember? I know we’ve got the letter here.

Mr Simon Hart: Yeah.

Ms Heaven: But had something been said in public, then, that you thought was misleading? And what did you mean by “Work with us Mark?”

Mr Simon Hart: It was the suggestion that UK Government had made a political choice by not providing the funding that Mark Drakeford had asked for in the manner that he had asked for it in October of 2020.

Ms Heaven: Well –

Mr Simon Hart: Nothing could be further from the truth. The problem – and this was a source of much frustration at the time – the problem was the process. I keep going back to that. The Treasury were more than – would have been more than happy to have done their level best to comply with the request, they had already told Welsh Government they couldn’t operate to the timescale that they were asking for, and yet still the announcement was made; and then, on the back of that, on the back of the letter from the Chancellor saying “Look, I’m sorry I can’t meet that”, as it says here …

Ms Heaven: The response –

Mr Simon Hart: – “… secretary and I reference in our briefing with the devolved administrations … advance of the announcement, we are unable to bring the claims date for the expansion of the job support scheme forward from 1 November to 23 October due to the limitation of HMRC delivery timetables.”

However, it was portrayed as a political decision of us, if you like, just short-changing Wales. Nothing could be further from the truth, and that was – when I used the word “disingenuous”, it was not entirely in a fit of pique, it was because Welsh Government knew that we had already said, “We can’t manage these timetables”, and –

Ms Heaven: So –

Mr Simon Hart: – that was the problem.

Ms Heaven: Sorry to interrupt you. So presumably the concern was that the request came just too late to the date when the firebreak was going to be potentially implemented; if it had come earlier, there would have been more scope to help?

Mr Simon Hart: Absolutely, I think if – literally by a matter of – almost by a matter of days –

Ms Heaven: Okay.

Mr Simon Hart: – if there’d been earlier warning, if we could’ve turned the Treasury machine round, the Treasury was pushing vast sums of money out of the door, wouldn’t have been remotely concerned about it, just couldn’t do it in the timescale.

Ms Heaven: 12 October was the SAGE meeting where firebreak was raised by Mr Drakeford with the Prime Minister and the Chancellor. We know on that date there was no request for extra funding. Would that have been – if it had been requested on that date, would that have been –

Mr Simon Hart: The request –

Ms Heaven: Sorry, COBR on –

Mr Simon Hart: The request for funding was on 16 October –

Ms Heaven: That’s right.

Mr Simon Hart: – I think and the reply from the Chancellor –

Ms Heaven: Just to be clear –

Mr Simon Hart: – was on the 19th.

Ms Heaven: – there had been a COBR on 12 October where Mr Drakeford had attended and firebreak had been discussed, but there was no request for funding.

Mr Simon Hart: But not as far as I’m aware.

Ms Heaven: So if it had been requested on the 12th, would that have been enough time or is that something you can’t answer?

Mr Simon Hart: It would have been much more likely to have succeeded. It was – the only matter is I remember the Chancellor being quite sort of frustrated because he wanted to help, and would have done. There was no political or ideological reason why we wouldn’t have wanted to help. We wanted to be able to do that, it was simply the timescale. And so it was then frustrating to –

Ms Heaven: Okay.

Mr Simon Hart: – watch all of this unfold on the media and, I’m afraid, people in or close to Welsh Government portraying this as UK Government making a conscious decision to deprive Wales of the funding – and it’s not true.

Ms Heaven: Can I just very quickly ask you for clarity on one more thing, because you’re the only person we can ask, and it’s in the opening statement of the Welsh Government that this Inquiry’s received, just to see if you can assist with what they reference, because it’s the first time we’ve seen it. I’ll just read it out:

“Mr Sunak in his evidence on 11 December 2023 suggested that the Welsh Government could have used the upfront guarantee of additional funding … [Document read] … never a practical possibility.”

Then they say this:

“The problem was not solely about the amount of money provided by the UK Government … [Document read] … and the availability of operational support from HMRC.”

Now, are you able to assist on what the Welsh Government mean there by “the availability of operational support from HMRC”? What’s the relevance of that to –

Mr Simon Hart: I’m neither Welsh Government nor HMRC, so I think you’ll have to –

Ms Heaven: Fair enough.

Mr Simon Hart: – ask them that. All I do know is one of the few institutions not to be criticised during Covid is HMRC and the Treasury, because they achieved remarkable things in getting a large amount of money out, including to Welsh Government, and unlike Barnett, which is normally done in sort of a retrospective manner, all of the Barnett consequential money for Wales was upfronted exactly to deal with some of the problems that Welsh Government encountered, but the particular thing I just want to emphasise particularly, the suggestion that a political decision was made to deprive Wales of money, that is what triggered my – my – my slightly barbed comments on Twitter.

Ms Heaven: Well, thank you very much, those are my questions.

Thank you, my Lady.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much, Ms Heaven.

I think that completes the questions, Mr Poole?

Mr Poole: My Lady, it does.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much, Mr Hart. I know it’s a very busy time for all politicians, so I’m grateful for your help.

The Witness: Thank you very much.

(The witness withdrew)

Lady Hallett: Very well, I think that’s as far as we can go today.

Mr Poole: It is.

Lady Hallett: 10 o’clock on Monday, please. Thank you.

(3.08 pm)

(The hearing adjourned until 10 am on Monday, 11 March 2024)