Cummings set to release ‘crucial document from pandemic decision-making’

DOMINIC Cummings has said he will release a key document on the UK Government’s coronavirus decision-making when he appears in front of MPS next week as part of their inquiry into the handling of the pandemic.

Since his departure from Downing Street in December, the Prime Minister’s former senior adviser has offered scathing critiques of what he believes were crucial mistakes made by the Government in the early weeks of the pandemic, including on border closures and mask-wearing.

Mr Cummings is due to appear before the joint inquiry, which is being conducted by MPS on the Commons’ health select committee and the science and technology committee, next Wednesday.

He has said he will answer questions “for as long as MPS want” and also said he is prepared to submit private text messages to any Covid-19 inquiry, a claim which Downing Street has refused to comment on.

He has also tweeted saying he has “the only copy of a crucial historical document from Covid decision-making”, later saying he would give the documents to the inquiry.

Mr Cummings has made a number of critical comments in recent days about mistakes he believes the Government made during the pandemic, including calling the UK’S borders policy “a joke”.

In a Twitter thread, he said that “political pundits” had spread a “trade-off” argument between lockdown and economic recovery, saying that evidence was clear that “fast hard effective action [is] best policy for economy AND for reducing deaths/suffering”.

Mr Cummings suggested that halfmeasures initially pursued by the Government had been the worst of both worlds. “Pseudo ‘lockdowns’ [without] serious enforcement are hopeless: econ[omy] hit and people die anyway, nightmare rumbles on.”

It came as Mr Johnson said there is no “conclusive” evidence to deviate from England’s roadmap out of lockdown despite concerns over the Indian variant.

The Prime Minister has previously warned the rise in cases of the highly transmissible variant could risk the country’s next stage out of lockdown, currently pencilled in for June 21, being delayed.

If outbreaks are limited, ministers could opt instead to push ahead with the reopening, while keeping some areas under restrictions in an echo of the tiers system introduced in 2020.

Mr Johnson said the “wall of defences” built up by the vaccination programme meant: “I don’t see anything conclusive at the moment to say that we need to deviate from the roadmap”.

But, he added: “We’ve got to be cautious and we are keeping everything under very close observation.”

Asked whether local lockdowns could be used, Mr Johnson said: “We’ve just got to be cautious about the way we approach it and we will be letting people know as much as we can, as soon as we can.”