No-deal Brexit planning made UK ‘more match fit’ to respond to Covid, says Michael Gove
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Planning for no-deal Brexit made the UK “more match fit” to respond to the Covid pandemic, Michael Gove has said.
Mr Gove, who was Cabinet Office minister and chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster when the pandemic began in 2020, told the Covid Inquiry that planning for leaving the EU was “some of the best preparation” possible for a crisis.
The veteran Tory, who is now the Levelling Up Secretary, was questioned by the inquiry over his previous roles and pandemic planning.
Giving evidence on the fifth week of the inquiry, the 55-year-old denied that moving staff over to Brexit work had a detrimental effect on pandemic planning.
He said the Civil Service expanded in readiness for departing the EU after being asked by Kate Blackwell KC, counsel to the inquiry, whether staff were overworked.
‘Better in dealing with the crisis’
“The nature, the pace and the intensity of the work undoubtedly placed pressure on individuals and the system, but it also ensured a greater degree of match fitness for what none of us anticipated but what was to come the year after,” said Mr Gove.
“I would argue that the skills acquired, honed and refined during EU exit preparation helped us not only to have an organisational system that was better in dealing with the crisis, but also having a cadre of people who’d been through an intense process that enhanced their ability to respond.
“The preparation for EU exit in and of itself was some of the best preparation that could have been undergone for any future crisis.”
Mr Gove, a staunch Brexiteer, chaired a Cabinet committee overseeing preparedness for no-deal Brexit across government departments under Boris Johnson’s premiership.
The Exit Operations committee had to work at an “accelerated” tempo because of the EU exit deadline, he said.
“I do believe that it was helpful for all of government to be operating at that pace, because we made government more match fit overall for the terrible events that this inquiry has been set up to look at,” he added.
Focus had been on flu pandemic
Asked whether workforce capacity issues resulting from moving staff over to prepare for a no-deal Brexit had a detrimental effect on pandemic planning, Mr Gove said: “No, because I haven’t yet seen any activity that has been identified that would have enabled us to significantly better deal [with the pandemic].”
He also said Britain was unprepared for a coronavirus pandemic because it was focused on responding to a flu outbreak instead.
“Ultimately, the pandemic that occurred was not a flu pandemic. It was one for which we were unprepared because few western nations, if any Western nations had anticipated the particular type of pandemic that Covid-19 was,” he said.
The MP for Surrey Heath added that the Cabinet Office “did flex rapidly once it was clear what the scale of the pandemic was” in the spring of 2020.
The inquiry continues next week, when the first of six modules will come to an end.
