Covid inquiry live: Priti Patel admits policing of Sarah Everard vigil was ‘totally inappropriate’

A series of emails shown to the Covid inquiry laid bare the chaos around the government’s drive to discharge NHS patients into care homes, many of whom had asymptomatic cases of Covid.

Dr Ben Warner, who appeared before the inquiry on Monday, sent an email on April 13 to top officials in No10 saying he was “increasingly concerned” about cases picked up in hospital being spread into care homes.

A Cabinet Office official then said he had spoken with the Department of Health’s lead on the issue, who said it was “not an issue of concern”.

Dr Warner urged the official to “push quite hard” on why it was not of concern.

The inquiry’s lead counsel Hugo Keith KC asked if the issue “rumbled on” as to how concerning an issue it was and what was the extent of it. Giving evidence, Simon Ridley, the former head of the Cabinet Office’s Covid-19 taskforce, said “yes”.

The Covid inquiry has heard that multiple officials raised “quite serious concerns” about NHS patients being discharged into care homes.

At the end of March and beginning of April 2020, Simon Ridley told the inquiry there was an aim to get 15,000 people discharged from hospitals into social care settings to free up capacity in the health service.

But the inquiry’s lead counsel Hugo Keith KC has shown evidence that a number of officials raised concerns about asymptomatic patients spreading the disease into care homes.

The inquiry was then shown an email from a No10 official on April 3, who said the government should consider “more extreme measures or guidance”.

“Given that once someone gets it in one of these places, many die,” the email said.

“We were concerned that there were problems in the care sector that needed to be addressed extremely quickly,” said Mr Ridley, who was head of the Cabinet Office’s Covid-19 taskforce.

The former head of the Cabinet Office Covid-19 taskforce has said the government “did not know with any great certainty” how many people would need to “shield” during the pandemic.

Simon Ridley told the Covid inquiry it would be in the “low millions”, but there was a “constant debate” about whether shielding support should have been offered solely to those who were clinically extremely vulnerable, or those who were also socially vulnerable or generally needed support.

Mr Ridley ran the Cabinet Office’s Covid-19 taskforce during the pandemic.

Archie Mitchell and Adam Forrest reported on Monday’s revelations from the inquiry

Boris Johnson joked about the Treasury being “the pro-death squad” during the pandemic because it wanted to ease lockdown restrictions quickly, Sir Patrick Vallance’s diaries have revealed.

The former chief scientific adviser recorded a meeting in which the former PM said he wanted to lift all Covid restrictions by September 2020.

In an extracts from his diary, shown to the Covid inquiry, Sir Patrick said Mr Johnson “ended up by saying the team must bring in the pro-death squad from HMT [Her Majesty’s Treasury]”.

Good morning and welcome to the Covid-19 live blog covering the inquiry. Boris Johnson’s former top aide Lord Edward Udny-Lister and Simon Ridley, the former head of Cabinet Office for the Covid-19 taskforce, will appear to give evidence.

We are now pausing the live blog but will be back tomorrow with all the latest from the Covid inquiry.

SNP leader Humza Yousaf has defended his predecessor Nicola Sturgeon amid the ongoing row over WhatsApp messages during the Covid pandemic – as the Scottish Tories insisted she would have broken the law if she had deleted key correspondence.

Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross said the “secretive approach” from the SNP government is treating families left bereaved by the virus “with contempt”.

Ms Sturgeon insisted this week that she has “nothing to hide”, but reports have claimed she destroyed messages.

Mr Ross hit out at an “auto-delete” policy he said had been introduced by the Scottish government. “This is the digital equivalent of building a bonfire to torch the evidence,” he said.

Boris Johnson oversaw a “toxic” culture of sexism and complacency at No 10 during the Covid crisis, according to scathing evidence given by a former top civil servant to the public inquiry.

Helen MacNamara, the former deputy cabinet secretary, said she could not recall “one day” on which Covid rules were followed in No 10 or the Cabinet Office – claiming that “hundreds” of officials and ministers broke the guidelines.

She also criticised an “absence of humanity” in No 10 and revealed that officials there were “laughing at the Italians” who were overwhelmed in the early stages of the crisis – with Mr Johnson expressing a breezy confidence that the UK would sail through the pandemic.

The former top civil servant also said Mr Johnson did nothing to stop ex-No 10 adviser Dominic Cummings’s misogynistic behaviour after it emerged that Mr Cummings had labelled her “that c***” and said he would “handcuff her and escort her” from Downing Street.

The Covid inquiry has already exposed how unfit Boris Johnson was to lead national efforts to combat a pandemic.

But, says Mary Dejevsky, it could yet reveal equally crucial failings in the wider government machinery – as well as some small saving graces

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