Former PM tells inquiry that children ‘were paying a huge, huge price to protect the rest of society’
Boris Johnson laid blame on the Department for Education (DfE) over its lack of preparation for school closures at the outbreak of the pandemic, telling the Covid-19 inquiry that he assumed detailed planning was going on behind the scenes.
“We were focused on trying to delay the peak of the pandemic and we thought that the closure of schools, if it had to be used at all, would be a measure of last resort,” Johnson said, adding: “It was my impression that the work was being done. I certainly, let me put it this way, I certainly assumed that the work was being done.”
Johnson said there were “abundant discussions” within government over planning for school closures in England, including from the DfE, whose permanent secretary at the time, Jonathan Slater, earlier told the inquiry that the department’s first request for a detailed plan didn’t arrive until 17 March.
Asked why the DfE’s main planning document emerged “so late in the day”, Johnson said: “I think my impression was that they’d done a lot of work … You say so late in the day, but so late in the day is, of course, a phrase or a judgment that is only open to people who are operating with hindsight.
