Confusion over face masks as Downing Street contradicts Matt Hancock over food shop exemption
New rules on face coverings descended into chaos on Wednesday as Downing Street suggested they would not be mandatory in food shops just hours after the Health Secretary Matt Hancock said they would be.
MPs urged the Government to clarify exactly where people would be required to wear masks following a series of conflicting statements and Cabinet ministers adopting different approaches in-store.
It came as Luke Johnson, the former chairman of Pizza Express, suggested that forcing people to wear masks in shops was an attempt by ministers to reassure those “scared witless” by what he referred to as “project fear.”
Speaking to The Telegraph’s Planet Normal podcast - which you can listen to on the audio player below or subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast app - he said the measures seemed more “about reassurance” than any “compelling evidence” they had a "significant benefit" in limiting the spread of Covid-19.
However, Mr Johnson argued that forcing people to wear masks would only serve as a “constant reminder to everyone that this disease is taking over our lives.”
Separately, the British Medical Association (BMA) said face coverings should be worn “whenever physical distancing is not possible”, including in the workplace, despite Mr Hancock insisting they would not be required in offices.
Asked whether customers buying takeaway from chains such as Pret a Manger would be required to wear a face covering from July 24, Mr Hancock told Sky News: “You do need to wear a face mask in Pret because Pret is a shop.
"In hospitality, so in a restaurant, there needs to be table service. If there's table service, it is not necessary to have a mask. But in any shop, you do need a mask. So, if you're going up to the counter in Pret to buy takeaway, that is a shop.”
Mr Hancock also claimed that the rules for shops would remain for the “foreseeable future”, suggesting that only a vaccine would allow the rule to be lifted.
However, when asked about the new rules several hours later, the Prime Minister’s spokesman told reporters that he did not believe the rules applied in outlets such as “sandwich shops.”
"We will be publishing the full guidance shortly but my understanding is that it wouldn't be mandatory if you went in, for example, to a sandwich shop in order to get a takeaway to wear a face covering.
"It is mandatory... we are talking about supermarkets and other shops, rather than food shops."
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Downing Street’s comments were later challenged by other Government sources, one of whom told The Telegraph: “You can’t have a situation where you can go into a Pret to buy a bag of crisps without a mask but you can’t go into a corner shop to do the same thing.”
The confusion within Government was exemplified further when Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, was pictured in a Pret wearing a face covering.
International Trade Secretary Liz Truss has also been pictured wearing a face mask at Pret, but Michael Gove was on Tuesday pictured leaving the same store in central London without one.
Earlier in the day, Mr Hancock also said the Government had looked at whether face coverings should be recommended in workplaces but had now decided against it.
It came after The Telegraph revealed on Tuesday that officials from the Department for Business had contacted major employers’ organisations to canvass their views on extending the guidelines to face coverings to include all public spaces, including offices and workplaces.
However, in a statement issued on Wednesday, Dr Chaand Nagpaul of the BMA said: “The BMA believes that face coverings should be worn whenever physical distancing is not possible to prevent spread of infection.
“This includes situations in the workplace in which people cannot keep 2 metres apart, unless other mitigating action is taken, for example the installation of effective plastic screens.”
Questioning the reasoning behind face coverings, Mr Johnson told The Telegraph: “I think it is more about trying to reassure those scared witless people that it is safe to go outside, it’s safe to go to shops.
“I think it acts as a constant reminder to everyone that this disease is taking over our lives and it continues to reinforce the obsession and hypochondria around one single illness to the detriment of every other aspect of life.”
