‘Let’s move on’ says PM as he rejects inquiry into Cummings

Johnson says he has ‘seen evidence’ that proves aide was telling the truth, as he refuses suggestion of Cabinet Office investigation into lockdown trip

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of The MPS Prime he had Minister “seen told evidence” a committee that proved Mr Cummings was telling the truth about his two-week stay in Co Durham during lockdown.

He refused to apologise for the actions of Mr Cummings, despite 43 Tory MPS calling for him to be sacked – enugh to overturn his parliamentary majority of 80.

Mr Johnson said he “totally understood” the public’s “indignation” at Mr Cummings’s behaviour but insisted that some of what had been reported was “totally false”.

Mr Johnson was questioned for 98 minutes by MPS on the liaison committee, which is made up of chairmen of other parliamentary committees. It was his first appearance before the committee since becoming Prime Minister, as its chairman Sir Bernard Jenkin repeatedly reminded him.

No Cummings inquiry, yet

Sir Bernard told Mr Johnson the committee was “extremely concerned” by the controversy surrounding Mr Cummings, and asked him why he did not set up an independent inquiry into the matter.

Mr Johnson replied: “Quite frankly, I’m not certain – right now – that an inquiry into that matter is a very good use of official time. We are working flat out on coronavirus.”

Asked whether the Government’s “moral authority” had been undermined by Mr Cummings’s actions and his own defence of them, Mr Johnson said: “I, of course, am deeply sorry for all the hurt and pain and anxiety that people have been going through throughout this period – this country has been going through a frankly most difficult time.”

Mr Johnson said he had seen evidence to prove that some of the allegations made against Mr Cummings were false. But asked by Labour MP Meg Hillier whether the Cabinet Secretary should also see that evidence, the PM said: “I think actually that it would not be doing my job if I were now to shuffle this problem into the hands of officials who, believe me, Meg, are – as I think the public would want – working flat out to deal with coronavirus …

“I totally understand public indignation, I totally understand that, but I do think that, as I understand things, and I’ve said what I’ve said about the whole business, I think it would be much better if we could now move on and focus on the next steps.”

He said many of the allegations about Mr Cummings’s movements during his stay in Durham on his parents’ farm were “totally false”.

He was subjected to tough questioning from Tory MP Simon Hoare, who suggested that the public would now say: “You can keep your lockdown. If other people don’t abide by it – why on earth should we?”

Mr Hoare also said: “I don’t think anybody can understand why Mr Cummings is so pivotal to moving this country forward during dealing with coronavirus. This is now a distraction. Is that on your radar?”

Mr Johnson said: “I do understand why people feel such indignation about the whole business and the pain of the whole business, this lockdown, but I really also think that what they want now is for us to focus on them and their needs rather than on a political ding-dong about what one adviser may or may not have done.”

The Labour MP Yvette Cooper suggested Mr Johnson was allowing the message about lockdown to become confused because: “You are trying not to incriminate Dominic Cummings and you don’t want to apologise for him. The problem is, that means you are putting your political concerns ahead of clear, public health messages to parents who have coronavirus.”

24-hour target for tests

Mr Johnson set a target of getting coronavirus tests back within 24 hours but declined to say when it would be met, saying he had been “forbidden from announcing any more targets and deadlines”.

Asked to introduce the target by Jeremy Hunt, the former health secretary, the Prime Minister said: “We have done that … yes, absolutely.” Mr Johnson announced that the NHS Test and Trace programme, which will track down the contacts of every person who tests positive for coronavirus and tell them to isolate themselves for 14 days, will launch today. He described the programme as “our way out” of the lockdown and said it was “the tool that other countries have used to unlock the prison”. Clinicians have said that for the test and trace programme to be at its most effective, test results need to be turned around in 24 hours so that contacts can be traced as quickly as possible. Pressed on when the 24hour deadline would be met, he said: “I’m not going to give you a deadline right now, Jeremy, because I’m forbidden from announcing any more targets and deadlines.

“It’s going to be as soon as possible.”

Regional lockdowns

Mr Johnson said he hoped he would be able to confirm today that Britain had moved from level four to level three on the Government’s Covid-19 alert system, which would allow a further relaxing of restrictions and social distancing measures.

He said: “We’re coming down from level four to level three. We hope we can take a decision tomorrow.”

Once the national lockdown measures had been eased, the Government would take a localised approach to reimposing lockdowns in coronavirus hotspots wherever they cropped up.

He said: “The other day you saw there was an outbreak in Westonsuper-mare.

“That is the kind of whack-a-mole tactics that we’re going to use as we keep driving the virus down and keep reducing the incidence.

“It’s very, very important that we have a very sensitive test, track and trace operation in order to cope with local outbreaks.”

We didn’t learn from Sars

was that the UK did not learn from past pandemics in developing sufficient testing and tracing capacity.

Jeremy Hunt asked him why it had taken until now to get the test and trace system up and running when the first cases had happened in January.

Countries such as South Korea have suffered fewer than 1 per cent of the deaths that have occurred in Britain because they rigorously tracked down and isolated the contacts of everyone who tested positive for coronavirus from the beginning of the pandemic.

Mr Johnson said: “We did have a test, track and trace operation but unfortunately we did not have the capacity in Public Health England.

“To be absolutely blunt, we didn’t have the enzymes, we didn’t have the test kits, we just didn’t have the volume, nor did we have enough experienced trackers ready to mount the kind of operation they did in some other East Asian countries, for instance.

“And I think the brutal reality is this country didn’t learn the lessons of Sars [Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome] or Mers [Middle East Respiratory Syndrome] and we didn’t have a test operation ready to go on the scale that we needed.”

No guarantees on taxes

Mr Johnson said his Government would “meet all our manifesto commitments” when asked whether he was considering “significant increases in the tax burden” to fund the gap created by the crisis. The Conservative manifesto promised not to raise the rates of income tax, National Insurance or VAT, and to maintain the “triple lock” on pensions, designed to protect the state pension against inflation.

Mr Johnson said: “We won’t be blown off course.”

Asked to give an assurance that “broadly speaking taxes remain at the same kind of level”, Mr Johnson said his instinct was to “keep taxes as low as we conceivably can”.

However, he added: “I don’t want to anticipate now what we’re going to do on our economic package.”

Responding to questions by Mel Stride, chair of the Treasury committee, Mr Johnson said: “We are going to meet all of our manifesto commitments Unless I specifically tell you otherwise.”

However, he would not be drawn on questions about the specific tax commitments and said he would not make

‘I do understand why people feel such indignation ... but I also think what they want now is for us to focus on them and their needs’

‘I am, of course, deeply sorry for all the hurt and pain and anxiety that people have been going through during this period’

“fiscal commitments” in the committee but “you know where my instincts lie”.

The Prime Minister added: “I think you’re just going to have to wait until … the Chancellor brings forward his various proposals.”

Female policymakers

Mr Johnson was asked why women had not been more “visible” in the Government and replied saying he would like to have had “more female representation in the press conferences so far”.

He added: “We will do our best” but said the Government had “sufficiently female representation at the top of Government helping to inform these decisions” before referencing Munira Mirza, the head of policy in No10.

Caroline Nokes, the chair of the women and equalities committee, pointed out that in his answers to the committee Mr Johnson “made the distinction between there being a lot of women and enough women” and asked: “How many is enough?”

The Prime Minister said: “It’s incredibly important to us as Conservatives … 50 per cent would be great.”

He pointed out that “only the Conservative

party” has had two female prime ministers, before telling Ms Nokes: “Maybe you’ll be the third.”

Asked how much he thinks “having women in the room when decisions are being made changes the nature of those decisions”, Mr Johnson said: “I think it can make a huge difference.”

Back to school

Mr Johnson said not everybody would go back to school straight away as the Government prepares for its phased reopening next week.

From June 1 primary schools will begin gradually to go back, with children in reception, Year 1 and Year 6.

Asked for an assurance that this would be “absolutely safe” for children and teachers to return, Mr Johnson insisted it would be “safe, provided everybody remembers the guidelines we’ve set out”, including social distancing and washing hands.

On the subject of a wider return for pupils, Mr Johnson said: “We will keep that under review. We’d like to do it if we can, it depends on our national success in keeping the disease under control.” He added: “There’s no doubt a huge social injustice is taking place at the moment because some kids are going to have better access to tutoring and schooling at home, and other kids aren’t going to get nearly as much, and that’s not fair. That’s one of the reasons we need to get schools back.”

Mr Johnson described a catch-up fund for children, proposed by MPS, as a “good idea”.

Discharging to care homes

Mr Hunt said one of the effects of the delay in ramping up testing was that people being discharged from NHS hospitals into care homes had not been tested. Mr Johnson said “a huge effort was made to try to protect care homes” and said discharges of patients into care homes were handled carefully.

The Prime Minister said: “Every discharge from the NHS into care homes [was] made by clinicians. “In no case was this done when people were suspected of being coronavirus victims” and he said discharge numbers from the NHS into care homes went down by 40 per cent from January to March.

Mr Johnson added: “It is just not true that there was some concerted effort to move people out of NHS beds into care homes; that’s just not right.”