Coronavirus: Ministers blaming scientists is ‘red herring’ to distract from their own failings, says expert

Ministerial finger-pointing at scientists is a “red herring” to distract attention from the failings of the government’s approach to the coronavirus crisis, a leading public health expert has said.

Scientists and politicians responded with anger to a suggestion from cabinet minister Therese Coffey on Tuesday that any bad decisions by the government might be the result of getting “the wrong advice” from scientists.

Eminent fertility doctor Robert Winston said “governments… are responsible for what happens, not the scientists”.

And Labour’s shadow science spokesperson Chi Onwurah told The Independent: “Government can’t blame scientists when they are not publishing the scientific evidence on which their decisions are made. Ministers need to stop hiding behind the science and enable an honest conversation which treats the public like adults.”

Ms Onwurah said it was doing “huge damage to scientists’ morale” to see themselves treated as “scapegoats”, and said researchers should counter this by being as open as possible in publishing their findings and advice.

“This is doubly true while the government seemingly does the opposite, seeing science as something to hide behind to avoid accountability for policies – such as a lack of test, track and trace – that have limited the gathering of evidence and the quality of advice,” she wrote in Research Professional News.

But Prof Allyson Pollock, the director of the Newcastle University Centre for Excellence in Regulatory Science, described efforts to point the finger of blame at scientists as a “decoy” to draw attention from the long-term depletion of public health resources and manpower needed to deal with an outbreak of communicable disease.

Work and pensions secretary Ms Coffey sparked controversy in a TV interview when she responded to criticism over the government’s testing programme and the timing of lockdown measures by saying: “If the science was wrong, advice at the time was wrong, I’m not surprised if people will then think we then made a wrong decision.”

Downing Street moved swiftly to distance Boris Johnson from her comments, telling reporters: “Scientists provide advice to the government, ministers ultimately decide. That’s how government works.”

And in a round of broadcast interviews on Wednesday morning, justice secretary Robert Buckland said that “pointing fingers and blaming people is extremely unproductive”.

But it was notable that when he was challenged by Keir Starmer over the discharge of recovering Covid-19 patients to care homes, Mr Johnson told prime minister’s questions in the Commons that no such transfer took place “without the express authorisation of a clinician”.

Lord Winston told the Jeremy Vine show on Channel 5: “The fact is that these things constantly occur, when scientists are blamed. It’s not the first time.”

The Labour peer said the majority of scientific advice received from the PM’s Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies (Sage) was being kept secret by the authorities “probably to their advantage”.

But he added: “There was a huge body of scientific opinion which argued for lockdown very early and that was not done, whether that’s the government’s fault or not.

“Governments have to take decisions not just based on the science but also other things such as the economy and public opinion, but ultimately they are responsible for what happens, not the scientists.”

Prof Pollock, who sits on the Independent Sage group which has been putting out alternative scientific analysis over the course of the crisis, told The Independent: “I don’t think it’s helpful to blame the scientists. The scientists are only doing what they have been asked to do. It’s the government that decides.”

But she added: “It’s a red herring to blame the scientists, a decoy from the fact that governments have destroyed the system that was there for public health and communicable disease control.”

The big question, she said, was why experts in public health and communicable disease control were not included among the government’s advisory team.

“They didn’t ask the full range of scientists,” she said. “They were selective about who they chose. Those scientists gave their opinions but didn’t put it out to peer review.

“It’s very clear from the modelling they have put in the public domain... that there has been no consultation with public health and communicable disease people on the ground who understand how tracing works. But that’s not the modellers’ fault, it’s the government’s fault for not asking the right people.”

Prof Pollock said that resources and manpower for public health and communicable disease control had been “depleted” over the past decade and ministers now seemed to be trying to build a “centralised parallel system” of tests and apps that bypasses local health structures in favour of private companies like Amazon or Serco.

“It’s clear they don’t have public health and communicable disease control advice, because if they did they would be building the system locally through the established network of GPs and occupational health and health visitors,” she said. “If you have a symptomatic patient, why would you by-pass their GP?”

Two former Conservative cabinet ministers have called for greater transparency with scientific advice.

The chair of the Commons Health Committee Jeremy Hunt said Sage advice should be made public like the minutes of Bank of England discussions on interest rates, arguing: “We can’t possibly know whether government was following the science if we don’t know the advice they were given.” And science and technology committee chair Greg Clark said: “The key thing is that sometimes you can learn things along the way. You’ve got to have the intellectual and political confidence to acknowledge that, be clear on what lessons you are learning, and be able to amend what you do for decisions that are going to be taken in coming weeks.”

Chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance has argued for “maximum transparency” and says he wants Sage’s advice on schools to be published before the planned reopening on 1 June. But he has yet to set a deadline for the publication of all Sage papers.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson, said: “As we tackle this global pandemic, the government will continue to be guided by the latest evidence and world-leading expert advice from a range of scientists and epidemiologists.”