Rishi Sunak should be proud of his lockdown scepticism

On Monday, the Prime Minister will appear before the Covid Inquiry. He should do so with his head held high. The record shows that Mr Sunak was an early and consistent voice arguing against lockdowns wherever possible. He raised the alarm about the serious costs of lockdown policies, both to the economy and wider society, far more than other senior ministerial voices at the time. As the shocking long-term costs of lockdown continue to emerge, his judgment only appears more prescient.

In particular, Mr Sunak led the resistance to plans for a “circuit-breaker” lockdown in late September 2020. He also flew back early from California in the winter of 2021 to lobby against a new lockdown to counter the omicron variant. 
Mr Sunak’s critics will be keen to use his appearance at the inquiry to lambast him for exactly these virtues. Much will no doubt be made of the government scientific adviser who called him “Dr Death” in a reference to his Eat Out to Help Out scheme.

As a result the Prime Minister may be tempted, as other witnesses have been, to play down his scepticism at the time. He should hold his nerve. The Covid inquiry is an opportunity to remind the country of his capacity for leadership. That is much needed, at a time when his judgment is in question over an immigration policy that attempts to please all sides and satisfies no one. Here at least, he was willing to resist the call of herd opinion and to make bold, difficult calls in the long-term national interest.

When running for the Conservative leadership in the summer of 2022, Mr Sunak told The Spectator of his frustrations that discussion was short-circuited on the potential costs lockdown might have, alongside any benefits. “I wasn’t allowed to talk about the trade-off,” he said.

The consequences of that will be with us all for a long, long time. A new report from the Centre for Social Justice lays bare the impact of lockdowns on our social fabric, with harrowing stories of what it has meant for the most vulnerable in society.

The report reveals that the number of people economically inactive due to long-term sickness in the UK is up by almost half a million since the pandemic. It also finds that during lockdown calls to a domestic abuse hotline rose by 700 per cent, while mental health issues in the young also rose sharply. According to the study, by 2030 there will be 108 per cent more boys diagnosed with mental health disorders than if lockdown had not happened.

In October 2020, when Mr Sunak defended the Government’s resistance to a blunt national lockdown in Parliament, he stated that “The most vulnerable have been at the forefront of our mind throughout this crisis … a plan blind to and detached from reality – is no plan at all.”

So it has proved. On lockdowns, Mr Sunak deserves credit for seeing the reality of how much they would cost the vulnerable, even if his arguments often failed to win the day.