Plans for reviewing lockdown

¶5.8. When Boris Johnson MP, Prime Minister from July 2019 to September 2022, made his announcement of a UK-wide lockdown on 23 March 2020, he stated:

¶" [ W]e will keep these restrictions under constant review. We will look again in three weeks, and relax them if the evidence shows we are able to."¹⁷¹⁷ 'Prime Minister's statement on coronavirus (COVID-19): 23 March 2020', Prime Minister's Office and Boris Johnson, 23 March 2020 (https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-address-to-the-nation-on-coronavirus-23-march-2020; INQ000086759)

¶5.9. The three-week review period was reflected in subsequent regulations.¹⁸¹⁸ In England, regulations were initially required to be reviewed every 21 days, increasing to every 28 days from June 2020 (The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/350/2020-03-26; INQ000391420_0002 para 3(2)); The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (No. 3) Regulations 2020 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/750/made; INQ000348053_0002 para 2(2)).Show full note However, upon entering lockdown, the UK government and devolved administrations did not have a formal plan, set of criteria or strategy to exit lockdown. They began to devise these properly only once the UK was in lockdown.

¶5.10. The UK Cabinet met on 24 March 2020.¹⁹¹⁹ INQ000056136_0001-0003 It had not had the opportunity to discuss the mandatory lockdown decision until this point. Mr Johnson explained that the implementation of the restrictions announced the previous day had been "timed to last as little time as possible".²⁰²⁰ INQ000056136_0004 A 'Framework for a comprehensive National Strategy' was presented at the meeting.²¹²¹ INQ000146695 This had been commissioned by Sir Mark Sedwill (later Lord Sedwill), Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service from October 2018 to September 2020, on or around 20 March, as an "overarching strategy" for the response to "provide the framework for the operational elements".²²²² INQ000197998; INQ000252914_0008 para 16 Sir Philip Barton (Director General, Consular and Security in the Cabinet Office from 2017 to 2020) was tasked with leading the preparation of a "high level plan" setting out this overarching strategy, under which it was intended that the Department of Health and Social Care's three- month battle plan to tackle Covid-19 would sit.²³²³ INQ000197998 Professor Sir Patrick Vallance (later Lord Vallance of Balham), Government Chief Scientific Adviser from April 2018 to March 2023, and senior officials at the Government Office for Science provided their input.²⁴²⁴ INQ000061722

218

¶5.11. This work resulted in the production of the 'Framework for a comprehensive National Strategy' paper.²⁵²⁵ INQ000056136_0008; INQ000146695 It explained that the current approach to suppress the reproduction number (R) below 1 was "not sustainable indefinitely" and that decision‑makers had three options in terms of an exit strategy:

Vaccination: This meant achieving population immunity through a new vaccine, though this was not guaranteed and, in any event, was unlikely to be available at scale for 18 months.
Eradication ("track-and-treat"): This was unlikely to be effective without global deployment of a new treatment for the virus.
"[C]ontrolled release": This referred to allowing population immunity to build up slowly (while shielding high-risk individuals) by gradually releasing restrictions to keep cases within NHS capacity.²⁶²⁶ INQ000146695_0005

¶The framework explained that a 'controlled release' was "currently the only viable option", but it was based on the assumption that immunity was possible.²⁷²⁷ INQ000146695_0005 This was the first time decision-makers had been presented with a potential strategy for how the pandemic would eventually end, but the minutes record little discussion of the framework and no decisions were made on the preferred approach.²⁸²⁸ INQ000056136

¶5.12. On 26 March 2020, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) agreed "to plan a forward-looking piece of work on how and when to release measures and on future needs".²⁹²⁹ INQ000061527 A few days later, on 29 March 2020, SAGE noted:

¶" [F]urther work is required to understand how best to release measures and the scale of any resultant epidemic peaks."³⁰³⁰ INQ000061528

219

¶5.13. Shortly afterwards, Professor Dame Angela McLean, Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence from 2019 to 2023, emailed Professor Vallance and Professor (later Sir) Christopher Whitty, Chief Medical Officer for England from October 2019. She set out the choice for decision-makers between low and high incidence, ie the number of Covid-19 infections, when deciding the strategy for easing the lockdown.³¹³¹ INQ000212100; INQ000212094 She explained that decision-makers would need to decide whether to:

keep Covid-19 deaths as low as possible by keeping restrictions in place until a vaccine or medical treatments became available (described by Professor McLean as a "low incidence scenario"); or
define a tolerable level of Covid-19 deaths that would enable immunity to be built up in the population through infections, while a vaccine or medical treatments were being developed (described by Professor McLean as a "higher incidence scenario").³²³² INQ000309529_0039-0040 para 131

¶5.14. While a low-incidence scenario would keep deaths from Covid-19 as low as possible, there would likely be high economic and social costs as a result of keeping stringent restrictions in place for a longer period of time. Conversely, easing restrictions sooner – while incidence was still high – would be likely to cause fewer economic and social harms. It would also potentially enable the population to build up some natural immunity to Covid-19 as the infection spread through it, but would result in a greater number of deaths from the virus.

¶5.15. The Department of Health (Northern Ireland) had prepared a Covid-19 Emergency Response Strategy, which set out seven broad, strategic aims:

understand the current outbreak;
understand the likely path of the epidemic curve;
develop measures to flatten the curve;
enhance the capacity of – and build resilience in – health and social care;
influence behaviour and provide assurance to the public;
enhance and evolve treatment options; and
understand the wider health and economic impact of control measures.

¶However, the strategy did not mention any specific plans about exiting lockdown.³³³³ INQ000130409

¶5.16. An early draft of an Executive Strategy and Action Plan was considered by the Northern Ireland Executive on 30 March 2020, when it was agreed that:

220

¶" further work should be undertaken to populate it with information from

departments, and that the key elements of the Department of Health's Emergency Response Strategy should be integrated within it".³⁴³⁴ INQ000065748; INQ000048450_0002 para 5. This was commissioned in mid-March 2020 (INQ000309139).

¶A revised draft was agreed on 3 April 2020.³⁵³⁵ INQ000449440_0066 para 192 However, the Covid-19 Testing Strategy was not embedded into the Northern Ireland Executive Strategy and Action Plan, as had been envisaged. Robin Swann MLA, Minister of Health for Northern Ireland from January 2020 to October 2022 and from February to May 2024, requested that the only actions within the Executive Strategy for the Department of Health (Northern Ireland) should relate to the delivery of the strategy (with all other actions for the department to be removed) to "ensure that there is no confusion or duplication".³⁶³⁶ INQ000259487; INQ000438173_0006 para 21 This was an early example of the compartmentalisation of departments, which is discussed in greater detail in Chapter 11: Government decision-making, in Volume II.

¶5.17. On 31 March 2020, the Scottish Cabinet observed that "recent 'green shoots' messaging" by members of the UK government suggested "a degree of optimism about the rate of spread of the pandemic that did not yet appear justified by the facts".³⁷³⁷ INQ000214646_0003 para 12(b) It considered that this might turn out to be counter-productive because it could reduce public compliance with the lockdown measures.³⁸³⁸ INQ000214646_0003 para 12(b)