Poorer people weren’t sitting in their gardens on Zoom during lockdown, says Burnham
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Poorer people weren’t sitting in their gardens on Zoom during lockdown, Andy Burnham said.
The Mayor of Manchester said those in less affluent areas were unable to work remotely during the pandemic.
He said: “In the less well off parts of the country people weren’t by and large sitting in their gardens doing whatever on Zoom. They were in work.”
Greater Manchester has large proportion of people working in warehousing and manufacturing, and Mr Burnham said his office was “inundated with complaints” saying such workplaces were unsafe.
He told the Inquiry he had repeatedly called for support measures to address hardship in poorer areas such as Bolton.
04:31 PM GMT
The Covid Inquiry is over for the day
Questioning of Steve Rotheram has finished and the Covid Inquiry is over for the day.
It will resume at 10am on Tuesday.
Thanks for following our live coverage, check the website for the latest updates.
04:04 PM GMT
Rotheram: We weren't informed about Wuhan cases isolating in area
Steve Rotheram was not told people from Wuhan would be isolating in Liverpool, the Inquiry heard.
The Mayor of Liverpool said: “People who came from Wuhan to isolate and go to Arrow Park hospital came through many areas and ended up in the Liverpool City region and we weren’t even informed that these people were going to travel through our area or end up in a hospital environment being isolated.”
Mr Rotheram said he found out about it “on the news” with no communication in advance, adding: “That seems to be the way things were conducted early on.”
03:34 PM GMT
Steve Rotheram questioned at Inquiry
Mayor of Liverpool Steve Rotheram is being questioned at the Covid Inquiry. Andy Burnham has finished giving evidence.
03:31 PM GMT
Government imposed restrictions they knew would not work, says Burnham
The Government was imposing lockdown restrictions they knew would not work and appear to have been deciding regional lockdown policy based on which mayors were most well behaved, according to Andy Burnham.
The Greater Manchester mayor read from a minute of a meeting of the Government’s “Covid-O” committee that said: “Lancashire should have a lighter set of measures imposed than Greater Manchester since they had shown a greater willingness to co-operate.
”Tougher measures should be imposed on Greater Manchester that day.”
03:17 PM GMT
Burnham accused Government of discussing 'punishment beating' for Manchester
Matt Hancock has admitted that when the Government brought in Tier 3 restrictions in October 2020 they knew they would not work.
An extract from the former health secretary’s witness statement was read out to the inquiry, in which he wrote of the restrictions introduced to parts of the north of England in autumn 2020: “I was in despair that we had announced a policy that we knew would not work”.
Mr Burnham said minutes of a Covid-O meeting on October 14 showed that the Government had decided to give a “punishment beating” to Manchester as they thought the mayor had “behaved appallingly” when debating the issue of financial payments to workers. It was agreed by the Government in the same meeting, he said, that Lancashire should have lighter measures as they showed a greater willingness to cooperate.
Asked about the accusation that he had behaved in such a way, Mr Burnham said: “I’ve seen that minute and frankly it’s nothing short of disgraceful. It wasn’t me that was behaving appalling. It was the people in that room who were behaving appallingly.
“They were behaving appallingly because they were about to impose a policy on Greater Manchester, which they knew didn’t work.”
03:08 PM GMT
Hancock 'more sympathetic' to hardship faced in poorer areas, says Burnham
Matt Hancock was “more sympathetic” than other ministers to providing financial support for businesses and workers during the pandemic, Andy Burnham said.
The Mayor of Manchester told the Inquiry he had repeatedly called for support measures to address hardship in poorer areas such as Bolton during tiered restrictions.
When asked how Mr Hancock responded to a direct request for support, Mr Burnham said: “To be fair he was more sympathetic actually than other ministers that I spoke to about the matter.”
He added: “We had spent pretty much the best part of a year by now saying, ‘look what is happening here, help us’.
“We felt like we were shouting into the abyss.”
02:58 PM GMT
No Manchester-Scotland travel ban warning, says Burnham
The Mayor of Manchester said there was “no notification” and “no consulation” ahead of the Manchester-Scotland travel ban.
He said this was “exactly what the SNP would always accuse Westminster of doing to Scotland. They had done exactly the same to us”.
It was “another example of a lack of UK coordination,” he added.
02:54 PM GMT
Burnahm 'astonished' by 'massively centralised' response
Andy Burnham said he was “astonished” by the Government’s “massively centralised” response to the pandemic.
The Greater Manchester mayor told the Covid-19 Inquiry the decision to stand down local testing was an example of the region not being consulted by ministers on major decisions in March 2020.
Mr Burnham said: “You had a mature system like Greater Manchester that was simply bypassed.
“The kind of thing that sticks in my mind from the period we’re talking about is genuine astonishment.
“I could not even get my head around why local testing teams... would be stood down.”
02:51 PM GMT
London-centric approach stuck Manchester with higher Covid, says Burnham
London-centric decision-making “stuck” Greater Manchester with a higher Covid case rate for the whole of 2020, Andy Burnham told the Inquiry.
Mr Burnham said the first national lockdown was lifted “too early” for Manchester, which was closer to its peak than London was at the time, and said he would have argued against the decision if he had been consulted.
He said: “I think they were looking more at the picture in London and they were more concerned with that than where we were.
“There was pressure to lift it from voices here and I think the decision was more influenced by that than what we were seeing.”
Blaming “London-centricity”, he added: “I think because of that, Greater Manchester was left stuck with a high case rate for the rest of 2020.”
02:45 PM GMT
Pictured: Khan leaves Inquiry
02:39 PM GMT
People in less well off parts of the country weren't sitting in their gardens doing Zoom, says Burnham
Mr Burnham told the inquiry people should remember that those in less well off parts of the country weren’t “sitting in their gardens doing whatever on Zoom” in 2020.
Asked how the message by the UK Government to return to work in May 2020 was received, the mayor told the inquiry: “I recall something from this period that needs to be remembered, which was a lot of people never left work.
“And in the less well off parts of the country people weren’t by and large sitting in their gardens doing whatever on Zoom. They were in work. And then in Greater Manchester a high percentage of people were working in warehousing or or in manufacturing or in other things.”
He said his office was “inundated with complaints” from distribution centres and warehouses across the Northwest at the time from people saying that their workplace were not safe.
02:36 PM GMT
Burnham 'repeatedly' asked to attend Cobra meetings
Andy Burnham “repeatedly” asked to attend Cobra meetings but was not invited to a single one, he told the Covid Inquiry.
The Greater Manchester mayor said he and Liverpool City Region mayor Steve Rotheram had a “worry” that “there was a London-centricity in decision making” and they “wanted to create the balance in people’s thinking by saying ‘look, this is how it seems from here’. And genuinely, it was in the spirit of national emergency.
“We weren’t there to use it as a platform for politics or anything like that, it was simply to say ‘we are worried, this is a challenging situation, we want to be heard and taken as seriously as anywhere else’.”
Without access to Cobra issues raised by metro mayors “had nowhere to go”, Mr Burnham added.
He said: “We raised them in the media because we had no alternative. If Cobra had been properly structured, we would have been able to put these issues on the agenda, have proper response to them, but we were never afforded that opportunity.”
02:33 PM GMT
Andy Burnham said government pandemic approach 'chaotic'
Andy Burnham described the Government’s approach to the pandemic as “chaotic” and “overly top down”.
The Manchester mayor wrote in his witness statement to the inquiry that there was a “lack of adequate consultation and poor communications”, and it “frequently felt chaotic”.
“It was massively centralized,” Mr Burnham said, adding: “You had a mature system like Greater Manchester that was simply bypassed.”
02:18 PM GMT
The Inquiry has resumed
Andy Burnham is being questioned at the Covid Inquiry after a lunch break.
The Mayor of Manchester is giving evidence this afternoon ahead of Liverpool mayor Steve Rotheram.
02:11 PM GMT
Reader comments
Here’s how Telegraph readers have been reacting to Sadiq Khan giving evidence to the Covid Inquiry:
Jonathan Conway said: “Not really clear why Sadiq Khan and Andy Burnham are involved in this increasingly expensive and pointless inquiry?
“Both will criticise the Conservative Government and Boris Johnson and argue they had zero input into the decision making process and/or accountability.”
Jane Marple said: “The Mayor of London claimed that he could have pointed out how transmission occurs in London.
“I’m guessing that having also been the mayor for eight years, Boris Johnson would have no idea as to how transmission could occur in our capital city.”
Join the conversation in the comments section here.
01:13 PM GMT
Inquiry breaks for lunch
The Covid Inquiry has paused for lunch. Questioning of Andy Burnham will resume at 14.10.
12:54 PM GMT
Khan dismissed and Burnham sworn in
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has been dismissed. The Inquiry moved on to the next witness Mayor of Manchester Andy Burnham, who is now being sworn in.
12:50 PM GMT
Khan said the Government initially had “no understanding” of importance of data
Sadiq Khan said the Government initially had “no understanding” of the importance of gathering data on the impact of Covid-19 on different ethnic groups.
Mr Kahn said he wrote to then health secretary Matt Hancock on May 7 2020 urging him to introduce routine ethnic data collection in death registrations, as evidence emerged of the disproportionate impact of the virus on black, Asian and minority ethnic communities.
When he did not receive a response from Mr Hancock, Mr Khan wrote to then home secretary Priti Patel two weeks later to raise concerns.
He said: “But it appeared to me the government didn’t really understand the issues that I was talking about.”
Mr Khan then suggested the deficit in understanding could have been due to few members of the Cabinet representing diverse communities.
He added: “I was given short shrift. There was no understanding of why it is important and also no action.”
The Government introduced the monitoring of ethnicity in October 2020.
12:43 PM GMT
Second lockdown may not have been needed, Inquiry hears
Mr Khan argued that a second lockdown may not have been needed in the UK had Boris Johnson taken his advice, and the advice of scientists, to impose more restrictions in autumn 2020.
The mayor of London urged the prime minister in September 2020 to impose new restrictions early, “rather than a full lockdown when it’s too late”.
The letter, sent to Mr Johnson on September 18, read: “I am of the firm view that we should not wait for this virus to again spiral out of control before taking action and the best thing for both public health and the economy is new restrictions imposed early, rather than a full lockdown when it’s too late.
“London was too late into lockdown in March. This decision cost lives and untold damage to the economy. We simply cannot afford to be slow to respond again.”
Mr Khan told the inquiry: “Lockdown two may not have been needed had the Government taken the advice from Sage for example for a circuit breaker, and lobbying from people like me.” He said this was “another example of delay necessitating a second lockdown”.
Boris Johnson announced a second national lockdown on November 5 2020 in response to rising cases in the UK.
12:36 PM GMT
Sadiq Khan says he 'lacked power and influence' during pandemic
Sadiq Khan said he “lacked power and influence” during the pandemic.
The Mayor of London told the Covid-19 Inquiry that he was “kept in the dark” about the severity of the virus in its early stages and was not invited to Cobra meetings until March 16 2020.
He said: “I’ll never forget the feeling of a lack of power, a lack of influence, not knowing what was going on in our city.
“I was writing to the Government and contacted the Government to ask for information - that wasn’t coming in January, February or March.”
Regional mayors Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram will also be giving evidence at the inquiry today.
12:32 PM GMT
Khan asked Government to review advice face coverings were not effective
In April 2020, Sadiq Khan wrote to Dominic Raab, who was standing in for the prime minister who had Covid at the time, and asked the Government to review the advice that face coverings were not effective.
He received a response from Matt Hancock several days later saying government expert groups had “decided there was not sufficient evidence to recommend facemask use by the public”, but that the latest available evidence was under review.
Mr Khan told the inquiry that he was “disappointed” by this response, arguing it was “symptomatic of the lack of care and attention the Government were giving to the experiences of cities and countries across the globe”.
He said that once evidence changed across the globe, “considerations by our government didn’t”.
12:30 PM GMT
Mixed messaging from government was concerning, says Khan
The Mayor of London said he spoke with leaders of devolved administrations during the pandemic and that he and the ministers shared their experiences of what was working and what wasn’t to tackle the spread of the virus.
Khan said that “everyone” expressed concern in a call in May 2020 that the government wasn’t engaging sufficiently and that there had been a “shift” its approach.
He said mixed messaging from the government was worrying when Britons were being told to both return to work and to avoid using public transport.
11:56 AM GMT
Lives could have been saved, says Khan
Sadiq Khan has said “lives could have been saved” if he had been permitted to attend early emergency Cobra meetings.
Mr Khan confirmed that repeated requests to attend the meetings in March 2020 were rejected by No10 on the grounds that other mayors would also have to be present.
He said: “I was told that something in London was different because I was told the pandemic was having an impact on London ahead of the rest of the country.
“The Government was aware of the challenges in ICU, the challenges in our hospitals, and the Government was aware of community transmission in London.”
Later describing being confused about why he could not attend Cobra meetings, he said: “In this particular case, I can see no explanation at all why... the Greater London Authority, the Mayor of London were not around the table.
“I think lives could have been saved if we were there earlier.”
11:45 AM GMT
Sadiq Khan cancelled London’s St Patrick’s Day after 'shocking' meeting with Whitty
Sadiq Khan said he cancelled London’s St Patrick’s Day parade in 2020 after a “shocking” meeting with Chris Whitty.
Mr Khan told the UK Covid-19 Inquiry he had requested a meeting with Professor Whitty, the then chief medical officer, to discuss Covid and was told there would be a “global pandemic” with London expected to suffer “really serious” consequences in two or three weeks.
He said: “Although I had read the phrase ‘global pandemic’, Chris Whitty telling me there was going to be a global pandemic was shocking to me.”
He added: “It was clear from what Chris Whitty was saying that the impact on London was going to be huge.”
11:42 AM GMT
Boris Johnson 'not aware' other countries had imposed lockdowns, Inqury hears
Boris Johnson was “not aware” that other countries had imposed lockdowns in March 2020, Sadiq Khan has said.
The London Mayor met the then-prime minister in Downing Street on March 19, and said it was “clear” to him that some proposals for lockdown measures “had been surfaced, but the prime minister wasn’t persuaded”.
He told the Covid-19 Inquiry: “The prime minister wasn’t aware that in other parts of the world they had lockdowns in place and fines could be issued if you breached the lockdown.
”I was surprised he wasn’t aware of that in relation to what was happening elsewhere.”
Mr Khan said he felt that the UK’s “advantage” in being able to see what was happening in the rest of the world “wasn’t being used”.
11:28 AM GMT
Khan: 'I was kept in the dark'
Mr Khan said he felt “kept in the dark” as Mayor of London in the early stages of the pandemic.
He wasn’t invited to Cobra meetings until March 16, Mr Khan revealed.
He said: “I’ll never forget the feeling of a lack of power, a lack of influence, not knowing what was going on in our city.”
The Mayor of London claimed that he could have pointed out how transmission occur in London.
11:16 AM GMT
Khan 'disappointed' with information from No10 in early stages of pandemic
Sadiq Khan said he “wasn’t aware how serious” Covid was as the virus emerged in February and March 2020.
The Mayor of London claimed he was “chasing” the Government for updates, adding that he was “dissapointed” in the level of information being provided to his office.
Mr Khan said: “I was writing to the government and contacted the government to ask for information - that wasn’t coming in January, February or March.
“That is unusual by the way. I can give examples of other emergencies where this hasn’t happened.”
He also revealed that he was not invited to Cobra meetings, despite feeling that the capital was particuarly exposed to the virus.
11:00 AM GMT
My role was being 'the voice of London', says Khan
When asked about his role and powers as the Mayor of London during the pandemiuc, Mr Khan described himself as being the “voice of London” and its near nine million people.
10:45 AM GMT
Simon Case will not appear at Covid Inquiry due health problems
Simon Case will not appear before the UK Covid-19 Inquiry this year due to an ongoing health problem.
Mr Case, the Cabinet Secretary, was formally excused from giving evidence in 2023 “due to ill health” in a ruling published on Monday.
Inquiry chairwoman Baroness Heather Hallett said she would receive an update on Mr Case’s ability to give evidence at the end of January 2024 or on his return to work from sick leave, and is expected to convene a special hearing to receive his evidence.
She said: “It very much remains my intention that Mr Case should give oral evidence to the inquiry.”
10:44 AM GMT
Pictured: Andy Burnham arrives at Inqury
Mayor of Manchester Andy Burnham arrives at Inquiry.
10:42 AM GMT
Questioning has begun
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has arrived at the Covid Inquiry.
He has been sworn in and is now being questioned.
10:36 AM GMT
Catch up: Treasury ignored Oxford study warning that Eat Out 'did not make economic sense'
Rishi Sunak’s team at His Majesty’s Treasury ignored a study from Oxford University warning that opening up restaurants like they did with Eat Out to Help Out in 2020 “did not make economic sense”, The Daily Telegraph revealed on Sunday.
The study found that opening customer-facing industries like hospitality would see deaths rise and have minimal impact on unemployment.
Read the full story by Science Correspondent Joe Pinkstone here.
10:29 AM GMT
Welcome to The Telegraph's live coverage of the Covid Inquiry
Good morning and welcome to The Telegraph’s live coverage of the Covid Inquiry.
Sadiq Khan will join regional mayors Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram in giving evidence at the Covid-19 inquiry on Monday kicking off a highly anticipated week at Lady Hallett’s probe, with former health secretary Matt Hancock and ex-deputy prime minister Dominic Raab among those giving evidence.
Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove and former health secretary Sajid Javid will also appear, alongside former deputy chief medical officer Professor Dame Jenny Harries.
Mr Hancock in particular has faced repeated criticism from a number of witnesses before the inquiry, with the independent MP down to give evidence across Thursday and Friday.
