Simon Case admits Government failed to tell public about alternatives to lockdowns
The head of the Civil Service has admitted to the Covid Inquiry that the Government failed to be open with the public about alternatives to lockdown.
Simon Case, the Cabinet Secretary, said there was a “failure of transparency” over what other options ministers looked at before locking down the nation for a second time.
Giving evidence, which had been delayed owing to illness, Mr Case compared officials making decisions in No 10 to “boiling frogs” who were “trapped into a way of thinking” that stopped them taking “decisive action”.
It also emerged that he privately told Boris Johnson to stop “agreeing all the time” with Rishi Sunak, the then-chancellor, urging him to assess factors other than the economy.
Mr Case replaced Sir Mark Sedwill as Cabinet Secretary in September 2020, becoming the youngest person ever to take the job at the age of 41, having been brought into Downing Street at the height of the pandemic as the prime minister’s permanent secretary.
During nearly five hours of questioning, Mr Case was asked by Hugo Keith KC, lead counsel to the inquiry, if the Government had failed to show it had considered alternatives to lockdown in late 2020.
“I think it’s a very fair criticism,” he said. “There were a number of occasions where this desire to have simple, clear unambiguous messages coming out of government about the strategy meant that there wasn’t enough engagement on the alternatives.
“I think this is a case where there could have been an explanation, there could have been more explanation of what we’d done to explore alternatives and why they wouldn’t work, it was a sort of failure of transparency.”
Mr Case claimed that Boris Johnson had found the decisions to introduce lockdowns difficult, and said he had not initially understood that the prime minister struggled on a “deep ideological level” with the idea of “the mass locking up of the population”.
He said that Mr Johnson was worried about the “damage, as he saw it, that was being done to society through those big decisions on lockdowns”.
Mr Case said that he and others in Downing Street became “prisoners of our own thinking” during the pandemic.
When it came to deciding what needed to be done to tackle surging Covid cases in autumn 2020, Mr Keith asked him if, put “bluntly”, “you just couldn’t see your way out of the sack that you were in”.
Mr Case compared the situation to an “expression that gets used about boiling frogs”.
“This idea that we’d sort of got trapped into a way of thinking and wrestling that meant we couldn’t actually see and take decisive action,” he said. “We were prisoners of our own mentality, which was that we were desperate to avoid another lockdown. There were all these attempts to try and come up with solutions and we were just prisoners of our own thinking.”
Baroness Hallett, the inquiry chair, earlier heard how Mr Case privately told Boris Johnson to stop backing Mr Sunak’s decisions during the pandemic, sending a WhatsApp that Mr Keith said told him to stop “agreeing all the time with his own chancellor”.
The inquiry heard that Mr Case told his boss, “It can’t always be you agreeing with Rishi”. Mr Keith said that Mr Case was “driven to WhatsApp your own prime minister to tell him that the relationship between him and his chancellor was being operated in such a way that you had to advise him, to stop agreeing all the time with his own chancellor”.
Mr Case said this was reasonable because the chancellor’s job was “to put forward the economic case, the economic argument” and “the prime minister’s job is to balance other considerations.”
The Cabinet Secretary said that it was no “secret they were very different personalities” and took decisions in different ways but that they had a good relationship as he was asked if bilateral meetings became places where the prime minister was bounced into a “U-turn”.
WhatsApps revealed that early in the pandemic Mr Case said Nicola Sturgeon was showing the UK Government “how to do it” in a discussion with Helen MacNamara, then the deputy cabinet secretary.
She had said she was “horrified” by secrecy in decision-making and said that there were suggestions of introducing different restrictions in different places which she likened to an “experiment with people’s lives”.
Mr Case replied: “Nicola Sturgeon showing them how to do it. Honestly need to start being transparent about the issues and choices.”
Other WhatsApps showed Mr Case complained that “crisis + pygmies = toxic behaviours” after Ms MacNamara said there was “far too much ego and bitching going on”.
He said it was a “fair conclusion” to draw that the WhatsApp was an observation on the abilities of individuals in the Cabinet Office and No 10.
“Good people were working incredibly hard in impossible circumstances with choices where it seems there was never a right answer,” he said.
“But that lack of sort of a team spirit, the difficult atmosphere, we were trying to run everything from the centre of government, trying to run the response to a global pandemic.”
There was a duplication of effort, overlapping of meetings and “good people were just being smashed to pieces”, he said.
In another WhatsApp Mr Case sent to Ms MacNamara in August 2020 he described the U-turn on exam results as “the most awful governing I think I’ve ever seen”.
He added that “lots of people should lose their head” over the controversy, which saw the Government announce that A-level and GCSE results would no longer be determined by an algorithm and that pupils would instead receive grades their teachers predicted for them.
Asked what the “root cause of the dysfunctionality” was during the pandemic, Mr Case said they “couldn’t get the right balance of personalities and people” and “it took us too long to get those things right”.
Mr Keith then asked why he had agreed that the Government “failed at a number of fundamental levels”.
Becoming emotional, Mr Case said: “The language in those WhatsApps that we’ve discussed, they come out of a raw human in the moment, it’s not a roundly considered view in those moments. There were some dark days when it felt we just couldn’t get it right.”
Mr Case’s testimony concludes the oral evidence of the Covid Inquiry’s second module, scrutinising government decision-making during the pandemic.
The inquiry will not hear evidence again until September when it examines healthcare systems, but will report back on its first investigation into pandemic preparedness over the summer.
Lady Hallett said she wanted to “assure the public” that the inquiry teams for each module had begun work on “producing our analysis of the evidence”.
She added that the inquiry was close to publishing its report for module one, which examined pandemic preparedness.
04:38 PM BST
The live blog on the Covid Inquiry has now ended. Here are the key moments:
Case told inquiry that there were a number of ‘dark days’ at No10 ‘when it felt we just couldn’t get it right’
‘Stop always agreeing with Sunak’, Case told Johnson,adding that the two politicians ‘are very different personalities’
Case asked why he said it was ‘genius’ to exclude Sir Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance from a vital lockdown meeting
Case told deputy cabinet secretary No10 was ‘chaos’ and ‘dysfunctional’
Case acknowledged the delay in giving evidence owing to his medical leave. He also paid tribute to those affected by Covid.
03:17 PM BST
‘Dark days’ at No10 ‘when it felt we just couldn’t get it right’
Simon Case said there were some “dark days” in Downing Street where he felt like the government “just couldn’t get it right”.
Asked by Hugo Keith KC what the “root cause of the dysfunctionality” was during the pandemic, he replied: “Between us, we couldn’t get the right balance of personalities and people. It took us too long to get those things right.”
Mr Keith then asked is that why he had agreed that the Government “failed at a number of fundamental levels” and, in Mr Case’s words, “contributed to the worst governing ever seen”.
Becoming noticeably emotional, Mr Case said: “The language in those WhatsApps that we’ve discussed they come out of a raw human in the moment, it’s not a roundly considered view in those moments.
“But yeah, there were some dark days when it felt we just couldn’t get it right.”
02:54 PM BST
No10 decision-makers became ‘prisoners of our own thinking’, says Case
Simon Case told the inquiry that he and the other decision-makers in No10 in 2020 became “prisoners of our own thinking”.
Hugo Keith asked him if, put “bluntly”, “you just couldn’t see your way out of the sack that you were in” when it came to deciding what needed to be done to tackle surging Covid cases in Autumn 2020.
Mr Case responded: “The consciousness around the harms was much more part of the conversation of the internal decision-making. There’s a sort of expression that gets used about boiling frogs, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it? I won’t bother with it.
“But this idea that we’d sort of got trapped into a way of thinking and wrestling that meant we couldn’t actually see and take decisive action. We were prisoners of our own mentality, which was that we were desperate to avoid another lockdown, there were all these attempts to try and come up with solutions and we were just prisoners of our own thinking.”
02:42 PM BST
‘Failure of transparency,’ says Case
Mr Case was asked if the government had failed to make clear it had considered alternatives to lockdown.
“I think it’s a very fair criticism,” he said.
“There were a number of occasions where this desire to have simple, clear unambiguous messages coming out of government about the strategy meant that there wasn’t enough engagement on the alternatives, and as you say I think this is a case where there could have been explanation, there could have been more explanation of what we’d done to explore alternatives and why they wouldn’t work, it was a sort of failure of transparency.”
01:38 PM BST
‘Stop always agreeing with Sunak’, Case told Johnson
Simon Case privately told Boris Johnson to stop agreeing with Rishi Sunak on decisions during the pandemic.
The Cabinet Secretary sent the then-prime minister a WhatsApp telling him to stop “agreeing all the time with his own chancellor”, according to the inquiry’s lawyers.
Mr Case was asked by Hugo Keith KC, lead counsel to the inquiry, whether bilateral meetings became places where the Prime Minister was bounced into a u-turn” or as he “described it, these are your own words, it can’t always be you agreeing with Rishi”.
In response Mr Case said that it was no “secret they were very different personalities” and took decisions in different ways but it was a good relationship.
Mr Keith then said that the relationship was “so important” that Mr Case was “driven to WhatsApp your own prime minister to tell him that the relationship between him and his chancellor was being operated in such a way that you had to advise him, to stop agreeing all the time with his own chancellor”.
Mr Case replied: “That would be reasonable because the chancellor is, the chancellor’s job, quite properly, is to put forward the economic case, the economic argument. The prime minister’s job is to balance other considerations.”
12:58 PM BST
Case asked why he said it was ‘genius’ to exclude Sir Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance from vital lockdown meeting
Simon Case was asked about a message where he said it was “genius” to exclude Sir Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance from a meeting with the prime minister about a roadmap out of lockdown.
Explaining why he saw this decision by then cabinet secretary Sir Mark Sedwill as “genius”, he said: “The prime minister had already had many, many discussions with Chris and Patrick about it, and sometimes, to go back to trying to get decisions that sort of worked and stuck with the prime minister.
“If there were too many people in the room putting forward competing views, it would be difficult to get to a decision that would stick.
“Actually what happened in that instance was the prime minister had already agreed, I believe, an approach with Chris and Patrick to the next steps, and quite straightforwardly then agreed with the chancellor.”
12:10 PM BST
Case: ‘Sunak and Johnson are very different personalities’
Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson were “very different personalities”, Mr Case told the inquiry.
The Cabinet Secretary was asked whether bilateral meetings became places where the prime minister was bounced into a U-turn” or as he “described it, these are your own words, it can’t always be you agreeing with Rishi”.
Mr Case replied: “One’s the prime minister and one’s the chancellor. In the end, the prime minister is the boss and certainly in my experience Rishi Sunak was always very clear that that was the nature of their relationship.
“It’s not secret they were very different personalities, they took decisions in different ways, but they were – they were good meetings, and it was good, was a good relationship.”
Mr Keith said the relationship was “so important” that he was “driven to WhatsApp your own prime minister to tell him that the relationship between him and his chancellor was being operated in such a way that you had to advise him, to stop agreeing all the time with his own chancellor.
Mr Case replied: “That would be reasonable because the chancellor is, the chancellor’s job, quite properly, is to put forward the economic case, the economic argument. The prime minister’s job is to balance other considerations.”
12:04 PM BST
Cummings rejected Economic Recovery Council proposal in May 2020
A proposal to discuss with Rishi Sunak, the chancellor at the time, to establish an Economic Recovery Council was personally rejected by Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s then-chief advisor.
The inquiry was shown a document from May 2020 where Simon Case and Helen MacNamara, deputy cabinet secretary at the time, had made a series of proposals to the prime minister and Dominic Cummings had scribbled his comments.
“Essentially the question is whether you and the chancellor think this sort of formal structure would be useful,” the document read.
“In particular it might be helpful to lock in external voices like the Governor of the Bank of England. Do you want to see further advice and discuss with the chancellor.”
“NO! Dom,” a handwritten answer said.
12:00 PM BST
Johnson had ‘real aversion’ to dealing with devolved governments, says Case
Boris Johnson had a “real aversion” to dealing with devolved governments, Mr Case said.
“He delegated it very much to Michael Gove as the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.”
“At the first minister level, the prime minister and first ministers only got together in those COBRs that were called before the big new crisis moment, so the second lockdown, for example.
“So I think it’s a combination, I think it’s politics and personality.”
11:32 AM BST
Case: ‘Sturgeon is showing UK how to deal with pandemic’
Simon Case said Nicola Sturgeon was showing the UK Government “how to do it” early in the pandemic, messages have revealed.
WhatsApps between Mr Case and Ms MacNamara, the deputy cabinet secretary at the time, revealed their concerns with how decisions were being made.
In April 2020, Ms MacNamara says: “I am so horrified by it. The arrogance and the waste. And the contempt for cabinet. I’ve started putting some witches warnings on the record in a way I don’t really like doing: e.g. that the Cabinet Office have to be properly briefed on ‘the science’.”
Mr Case went on to say that “real lives being played with here” before Ms MacNamara said that there was a “genuine suggestion that we secretly do different things with schools in places to see the impact that has.” Which was last straw for me”.
“The secretly bit,” she added. “Not that we shouldn’t do some things and carefully monitor impact.”
“But that we should experiment with people’s lives.”
Mr Case replied: “Nicola Sturgeon showing them how to do it. Honestly need to start being transparent about the issues and choices.”
11:25 AM BST
Case told deputy cabinet secretary No10 was ‘chaos’
Simon Case described No10 as “chaos” in an emotional rant with Helen MacNamara in April 2020.
“On the reality, it is chaos,” he wrote in a WhatsApp to the deputy cabinet secretary at the time. “Too many programmes - overlapping, in tension, no way to resolve issues because the MIGs are being run as comms fora not decision-taking things,” he added.
“But overall, in the space I am in, there is no direction. The No 10 problem is that that depts won’t do what they say”
In a later message, he said that “decisions in Whitehall doesn’t equal facts on the ground”, adding: “Not enough people at the centre know this - nor do they have the vision and patience to realise how we have to work.”
11:01 AM BST
Case: Good people were being smashed to pieces in Johnson’s government
Simon Case said “good people were just being smashed to pieces” during Boris Johnson’s pandemic-era government.
He said it was a “fair conclusion” to draw that a WhatsApp message he sent saying “Crisis + pygmies toxic behaviour” was an observation on the abilities of individuals in the Cabinet Office and No10.
He also said: “Good people were working incredibly hard in impossible circumstances with choices where it seems there was never a right answer.
“But that lack of sort of a team spirit, the difficult atmosphere, we were trying to run everything from the centre of government, trying to run the response to a global pandemic.”
There was a duplication of effort, overlapping of meetings and “good people were just being smashed to pieces”.
10:57 AM BST
Case: ‘It was frustrating having to act as Johnson’s gearbox’
Simon Case said it was “incredibly frustrating” having to act as the “gearbox” trying to connect Boris Johnson’s system when the prime minister kept changing his mind on decisions.
Mr Case was asked by Hugo Keith KC if he would agree the “incredibly difficult decisions” that Mr Johnson personally had to make “affected him so viscerally and gave rise to such internal agonising debate that it had an impact upon the proper management of the system of which he was of course the head”.
Mr Case replied: “I was the sort of technocrat employed to connect political will to administrative action across the system, so you know it was real frustration … I was the one that had to take what he and his ministerial team were deciding and go and tell other members of the Covid taskforce, tell the rest of Whitehall, talk to Simon Stevens at the NHS and say this is the discretion we are going and this is what we’ve got to do.
“So I found it incredibly frustrating that one day I thought, ok we’ve got this, I can now safely talk to my colleagues and say this is the direction we’re going in and we’ve taken this decision.
“And then ... the following day it was like ok well we’re now somewhere else.
“That was really difficult as a sort of technocrat, as the gearbox trying to connect the prime minister’s system.”
10:48 AM BST
‘No10 was dysfunctional’, says Case
Downing Street was “definitely dysfunctional”, Simon Case has admitted after being asked if it was a sclerotic administration by Hugo Keith, lead counsel to the inquiry.
“It was definitely dysfunctional and too dynamic, you know, it was difficult to settle on a course of action and be sure that the course of action would be consistent. I think that’s, it’s sort of the almost opposite of sclerosis.”
He said there were “examples that I obviously now deeply regret expressing my in-the-moment frustrations with the former prime minister”.
He said he had not initially understood how difficult Boris Johnson had found the decisions to introduce lockdowns.
“I don’t think I really understood how at quite a deep ideological level the prime minister found the mass locking up of the population, the charms, he was always really thinking, particularly focusing about children and education, the sort of, the damage as he saw it that was being done to society through those big decisions on lockdowns.”
10:46 AM BST
Case complained of ‘toxic behaviours’ in Cabinet
Simon Case was shown a series of WhatsApps between him and Helen MacNamara, deputy cabinet secretary at the time, from April 2020.
He complains that “crisis + pygmies = toxic behaviours” after she said there was “far too much ego and bitching going on”.
Mr Case appeared emotional when asked about the messages. “I found reading Helen MacNamara’s both written evidence and oral evidence quite difficult, just as I found preparation for this, re-reading this material, quite emotionally difficult, because it reminded me of quite how difficult it was,” he tells the inquiry.
10:40 AM BST
Case WhatsApp message: ‘Am flipping p----d off’ at being attacked for partygate
The inquiry is shown a message from December 2021 between Mr Case and Martin Reynolds, then prime minister Boris Johnson’s principal private secretary, where the Cabinet Secretary appeared angry after having to recuse himself from the Partygate investigation
He told Reynolds he had been “dragged through the mud by association. Am flipping p----d off deep down (like the PM) that I am being attacked for something which I wasn’t even involved in … I have to carry the can as the boss.”
In the same conversation, he later suggested Boris Johnson did not think his WhatsApps would be made public by an inquiry.
“PM is mad if he doesn’t think his WhatsApps will become public via Covid Inquiry – but he was clearly not in the mood for that discussion tonight!. We’ll have that battle in the new year,” he wrote.
10:37 AM BST
A timeline of Simon Case’s involvement in the pandemic
10:30 AM BST
Case: ‘WhatsApps were raw and in the moment’
Simon Case said his WhatsApp messages were “raw, in-the-moment” expressions but acknowledged that they form part of the historical record for the Covid-19 inquiry.
Mr Case is giving evidence to the Covid-19 inquiry about his scathing views of Boris Johnson’s pandemic-era government.
“They are very raw, in-the-moment human expressions - they’re not the whole story but I recognise they’re part of the story. Many of them now require apologies for things that I said and the way I expressed myself,” Mr Case said.
10:23 AM BST
Case: ‘I tried to get serious discussions off WhatsApp’
Simon Case has said there were a “number of times” where he “intervened to try and get serious discussions off WhatsApp”.
The Inquiry is shown a message in April 2021 between Mr Case and Jack Doyle, then Downing Street’s director of communications.
The Cabinet Secretary wrote: “Who the hell has briefed The Times and Tel that I advised PM to change his phone number?
“I don’t think this is true, by the way – I certainly don’t remember ever having told him this! We’ve all told him to get off WhatsApp, but I don’t remember ever telling him to change his number!”
10:11 AM BST
Case apologises for delay in evidence
Simon Case has begun with a short statement where he acknowledged that the delay in giving evidence must have been “particularly frustrating” to bereaved families and paid tribute to those affected by Covid.
“I’d like to pay tribute to those who’ve died and for those who lost loved ones during the pandemic,” he said.
“It’s so important that through this inquiry we learn the lessons from this period so that we are as prepared as possible for next time.”
He also said he wished to recognise the contribution of thousands of civil servants and NHS staff during the pandemic.
10:01 AM BST
Simon Case arrives at inquiry
Simon Case has arrived at the Covid Inquiry in central London to give evidence for the first time.
