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

“Maddening bureaucracy” meant it took seven months for the Cabinet Office to install a hand sanitiser station by the door that links it to No10, Archie Mitchell reports.

Helen MacNamara described it as a “\door with a pin pad that anyone who worked for the Prime Minister was constantly having to touch on their way through”.

And she said there was “no proactive attempt to recognise and create the kind of HR support that a team like this needs”.

The former top civil servant said even she was “surprised” by how long it took and she “hopes” people are now being better looked after.

“As an organisation the Cabinet Office excels in creating the kind of faceless bureaucracy that is maddening even to those who are theoretically in positions of power,” she said.

The hand sanitiser was a “small but demonstrative example” of the “neglect” shown to staff.

Helen MacNamara said there was “no magic cupboard” for dealing with crises such as Boris Johnson’s almost-fatal battle with Covid during the pandemic, Archie Mitchell reports.

“It is fair to say that there is no magic cupboard you can open in the Cabinet Office that has this is what to do in the circumstances,” she said.

She added: "It felt like working or living in a sort of dystopian nightmare, that just when one terrible thing happened then the next terrible thing was about to happen.

"And the prime minister being so gravely ill was obviously awful."

Officials and ministers in Downing Street were “laughing at the Italians” in the early stages of the pandemic, Helen MacNamara has said, Archie Mitchell reports.

The former top civil servant said she wanted to help Britons “do the right thing” to minimise the spread of Covid at the beginning of 2020.

But she blamed a “supreme confidence” in Downing Street which left her feeling “patronised” for raising the point that people wanted to “know the right thing to do”.

She told the Covid inquiry: “If we could just tell people what the right and kind and proper thing to do is, people will do that.

“And sitting there and saying it was great and sort of laughing at the Italians just felt… well it felt how it sounds.”

Helen MacNamara said there was an “absence of humanity” in Downing Street which led to the lack of a decision being made about prisoners during the pandemic, Archie Mitchell reports.

The former top civil servant said there were “systemic problems” which caused “substantial issues” in managing the government’s response to Covid, including:

• “The sucking into No 10 of too much of the decision making by the political machine and this compounding a narrowed perspective.
• “A general lack of knowledge or understanding of how large parts of the state operate
• “An over-ideological (in my view) approach to individual decisions.
• “An absence of the accountable people in departments being involved or sufficiently involving themselves in decision making, ) cabinet government not serving its usual purpose.
• “The unreasonable pressure on the No 10 private office.
• “An absence of humanity.”

The Department of Health wanted to wait until the “latest possible moment” to tell people they had to stay at home, Helen MacNamara has said, Archie Mitchell reports.

She said officials in the Cabinet Office had got "much further" than those in the health department.

She said officials "knew that the planning wasn’t there" to support a stay at home order and "there needed to be more time to get some of this planning actually done".

Helen MacNamara told Dominic Cummings Britain was “absolutely f*****” in the early stages of the pandemic, the Covid inquiry has heard, Archie Mitchell reports.

The former top civil servant confirmed Mr Cummings’s account that, after a meeting with a fellow official, Ms MacNamara realised there was “no plan” to deal with Covid.

She walked into the prime minister’s office and said: “I have come through here to the prime minister’s office to tell you all that I think we are absolutely f*****.

“I think this country is heading for a disaster. I think we are going to kill thousands of people.”

Boris Johnson did not "understand the science" and would "get it wrong" during the pandemic, Helen MacNamara has said, Archie Mitchell reports.

Scientists would have to "repeatedly explain what they regarded as being quite basic points" to him about the pandemic, she added.

Helen MacNamara has said the government’s “following the science” mantra during Covid was a “cop out”, Archie Mitchell reports.

The former deputy cabinet secretary said ministers were “just not making any decisions”, and would instead say “we’re just following the science”.

Ms MacNamara said the phrase was “useful as a comms line”, but “there is so much and so many different scientific questions involved”.

“I thought that was an odd thing to say religiously,” she told the Covid inquiry.

She added that it amounted to “abdicating responsibility to effectively an unelected group of people and putting everything on their shoulders, both because it wasn’t fair and right for them, but probably more importantly, it’s not fair and right in terms of who these choices belong to”.

Matt Hancock told ministers and civil servants “time and time again” that plans to deal with Covid were in place as the pandemic struck, Helen MacNamara has said, Archie Mitchell reports.

But the former top civil servant told the Covid inquiry that “we never got them” and she does not “understand a scenario where these plans did exist”.

The “gap between how people live their lives” and the “theoretical idea” of responding to people’s behaviour during the pandemic was a “big problem”, Helen MacNamara has said, Archie Mitchell reports.

The former top civil servant said there was a discussion about whether attending football games en masse was okay in the early days of Covid, with officials believing it was sage because fans are in large stadiums shouting into the ground.

But “when you are in the pub or on the train beforehand or on the concourse you are incredibly close to other people”, she said.

She added that nobody involved in that discussion had been to a football game in the way that “most people” do.