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

Members of the Behavioural Insights Team were dismissed as “not understanding the science” at Sage meetings, Dr Halpern tells the Inquiry.

In written evidence, Dr Halpern said it was “some, not all” members of Sage failed to take onboard his views and those of his team.

He adds that “groupthink” affected decision-making at the outset of the pandemic.

“Overconfidence” in the expert medical community at the outset of the pandemic led to a presumption that Covid would be a “flu-like wave”, Dr Halpern tells the inquiry.

This “blinded it to the pursuit of near-supression as a viable option and an expanded tracing system in particula,” he said in written evidence.

He added that as a result, “our decision-making process was vulnerable to systemic error”. Dr Halpern adds this “overconfidence” was the most “fundamental misstep” in the UK’s response to the virus.

Research into the Eat out to Help Out scheme showed people were more likely to be influenced by Covid secure restaurants than money-off vouchers, Dr David Halpern has told the inquiry.

Participants were shown scenarios where different measures were put in place at restaurants, such as waiters wearing face masks and social distancing being observed.

This was compared to them being given £10 off tokens.

“There was a very clear result. People were very strongly influenced by anything what you might call Covid secure,” Dr Halpern said.

The British public were “confused” by the tiered lockdown system, Dr David Halpern has told the Covid inquiry, Archie Mitchell reports.

The behavioural scientist said the rules were “getting more complicated”, people were “struggling to remember what they were” and some did not even know what tier they were in.

And referring to the government’s “stay alert” slogan, Dr Halpern said it was so bad because it “tells you to worry and doesn’t tell you what to do”, which is the “worst combination”.

Dr David Halpern has said Dominic Cummings’s notorious lockdown trip to Barnard Castle was “very unhelpful”, Archie Mitchell reports.

The behavioural science expert giving evidence to the Covid inquiry said it was “extremely less than ideal”.

“People are very influenced by what they see others doing,” Dr Halpern said, claiming people are more likely to litter if they see other people doing so.

“It blows a hole in public confidence if you break the rules and then try to wriggle out of it,” he said.

Asked if the Barnard Castle trip was a “textbook example of what not to do”, Dr Halpern said it was “atrocious”.

Dr David Halpern has told the Covid inquiry how he was in a meeting in No10 when the “penny dropped” about the country’s pandemic preparedness, Archie Mitchell reports.

After writing the country is “not ready” for Covid in his notebook, a colleague, data expert and Dominic Cummings ally Ben Warner crossed it out, writing instead that “we are f*****”.

Dr David Halpern said it was a “mistake” to have used the term “herd immunity” in the early stages of the pandemic, Archie Mitchell reports.

And he said former Downing Street comms director Jack Doyle gave him the “hairdryer treatment” for using the term “cocooning” to refer to shielding older people in the same interview.

The president of the Behavioural Insights Team said the term was used in internal discussions as a “shortcut”, but was not government policy.

Of the phone call with Mr Doyle, Dr Halpern said: “They were very angry about it. But they were particularly angry about the word cocoon.

“My memory of it was because the word hadn’t been used in public, particularly, and they didn’t really want to get into that issue because it hadn’t been talked about publicly.”

Speaking near the end of her evidence, Helen MacNamara said there was not enough thinking in government about children in state schools who make up the “vast majority” of those in the country, Archie Mitchell reports.

The former top civil servant said while her own children are “fortunate in many ways”, they do not have the same privileges as those whose parents are in rooms taking decisions in Whitehall.

Similarly to the government’s oversight of potential victims of domestic abuse, Ms MacNamara said states should be able to “know and understand the whole population in your decision-making”.

“It causes problems if you think that your life is the same as everybody else’s,” she added.

Helen MacNamara has now finished giving evidence.

Professor David Halpern, president and founding director of the Behavioural Insights team, is now giving testimony.

The team, set up in 2010 during the coalition government years, uses behavioural science to help ministers make better policy decisions.

It advised the government during the Covid pandemic.