Rees-mogg ‘not told that it was possible quarantine could be cut’

JACOB REES-MOGG has said that he was never told that the Chief Medical Officer believed it would be possible to reduce the number of days people had to self-isolate after contact with a positive Covid case.

Whatsapp messages revealed by The

Telegraph as part of The Lockdown Files show that in November 2020, Matt Hancock rejected advice from Prof Sir Chris Whitty to replace the 14-day Covid quarantine for close contacts with five days of testing as it would “imply we’ve been getting it wrong”.

Sir Chris told him that it would be “pretty well as good” for people who had been in contact with a positive case to test for five days “in lieu” of a fortnight’s isolation.

Reacting on GB News, Mr Rees-mogg said that had he known, he would have argued in favour of a reduction.

The former leader of the House of Commons said four senior ministers made all key Covid decisions and that other Cabinet colleagues were not shown the evidence they needed to make an anti-lockdown case.

Mr Rees-mogg said: “I was in the Cabinet at the time and I didn’t know that Chris Whitty was saying that we could perfectly safely reduce the quarantining period.

“Otherwise I would have been saying, “why aren’t we doing this?”.

“That wasn’t what was being briefed to the Cabinet. We were getting briefed that the decision had been made, that it was going to remain; and then it was finally reduced under great pressure.

“The enthusiasm for locking people up was something that was not shared with the rest of the Cabinet – or the evidence!” He said such decisions were made by a so-called “Quad” of Boris Johnson, the prime minister; chancellor Rishi Sunak; the then health secretary Mr Hancock and Michael Gove, the levelling-up secretary.

He added: “It was decided by the Quad, and I think the then chancellor Rishi Sunak was making the case for easing lockdowns.

“When I spoke to Boris during this period, I was inevitably making the case for easing lockdowns, but I wasn’t in the Quad. There were Cabinet discussions but by the time we got to those discussions most of those decisions had already been made. We had a pre-cabinet briefing for those of us who weren’t in the “Quad basically to tell us what had been decided.”

The quarantine period for close contacts was reduced from 14 days to 10 in December 2020, but it was not until August 2021 that some groups were were made entirely exempt from the requirement.

Mr Rees-mogg agreed with the suggestion that the lockdowns had a “calamitous” effect on the country’s mental health and economy.

He said: “I agree. We must never do this again. When it first started, I was not in favour of emergency legislation.

“I was in favour of the Civil Contingencies Act, which has much greater parliamentary scrutiny, and happens on a Uk-wide basis, rather than the devolved authorities.

“The devolved stuff was ridiculous. If you lived on the Welsh border and you went into Wales, you were at risk of being arrested.

“It caused great confusion. It should have been done on a Uk-wide [basis].”