Michael Gove says Brexit planning made Britain better prepared for Covid
Gove says Brexit prep made UK better prepared for Covid
Michael Gove has passionately argued against the claim that time spent by civil servants planning for a no deal Brexit left Britain underprepared for Covid.
The Brexit supremo spent two and a half hours up in front of the Covid inquiry this afternoon, which is currently scrutinising Government planning in the lead-up to the 2020 pandemic.
Kate Blackwell KC put to Mr Gove that a number of witnesses had claimed the hours spent preparing to mitigate the potential effects of a no deal Brexit wasted time that would have otherwise been spent preparing Britain for a pandemic.
Mr Gove argued the opposite was the case, and that Brexit planning had improved Britain’s Covid response.
He said: “I think that the preparation for EU exit in and of itself was some of the best preparation that could have been undergone for any future crisis.
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“One of the points that I think has been well made by Oliver Letwin and by others, is that it is training; it is the acquisition of general skills in crisis management, that is among the most useful ways of ensuring we have pandemic preparedness.
“And of course, it is possible that had a particular meeting or had a particular work stream been taken forward then we might have identified something that could have strengthened our ability to weather the pandemic.
“But nowhere have I seen – outside of one or two scholarly articles from John Hopkins and elsewhere – anyone who was suggesting that Government should be orienting its work towards the particular type of pandemic that Covid was to become.”
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Mr Gove’s argument tallies with that given some weeks ago by former Health Secretary Matt Hancock.
Mr Hancock used his evidence session to also argue Brexit preparations helped Britain come through the pandemic.
Mr Hancock told the inquiry Brexit prep stopped Britain’s intensive care drugs from “running out”.
“The work done for a no deal Brexit on supply chains was the difference between running out of medicines in the peak of the pandemic and not running out.
“We came extremely close within hours of running out of medicines for intensive care during the pandemic, it wasn’t widely reported at the time.”
“At the point at which the pandemic struck, because of the no-deal Brexit work, we knew more about the pharmaceutical supply chain in the UK than at any time in history.
“We had relationships with the pharmaceutical suppliers and the data to know exactly who had what available and where and the extent of that information was the difference between running out and not running out of drugs in intensive care in the pandemic.
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