Dominic Raab has said he was effectively given “five minutes’ notice” that he would be leading the UK when Boris Johnson was hospitalised with COVID in spring 2020.
The former first secretary of state was the latest person to give evidence to the UK’s COVID inquiry.
Mr Raab deputised for Mr Johnson in April of the first lockdown when the then-prime minister became seriously ill from coronavirus – including needing a stay in intensive care.
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His written evidence confirmed that, if Mr Johnson had died, Mr Raab would have taken over as caretaker prime minister while a successor was chosen from a leadership election.
The then-foreign secretary said that, in his role as first secretary of state, it had been confirmed he would stand in for Mr Johnson if he was unable to serve as prime minister.
He said this was discussed more in the context of a national security scenario, as opposed to a pandemic.
Asked what the level of preparation was for him to take over in an emergency, Mr Raab said it was “sparse”.
He said he was told he would become the country’s leader as he finished an address to the country on 6 April 2020.
“I was effectively really told on five minutes’ notice,” he told the inquiry.
He went on to say his priority at the time was to “steady the ship” – adding he “didn’t want anyone saying that Dom Raab’s enjoying this a bit too much, because [firstly], I wasn’t, and [secondly], I was there to do a job.”
Mr Raab told the inquiry it would “probably be worth” ensuring there are proper contingency plans in place in case the prime minister of the day becomes indisposed in future.
He also said he did not think Dominic Cummings was acting as the prime minister – in opposition to what former health secretary Sajid Javid had earlier claimed.
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Earlier in the day, the inquiry heard evidence from Professor Dame Jenny Harries – who was deputy chief medical officer from 2019 to 2021, and is now the head of the UK Health Security Agency. She also ran NHS Test and Trace.
Emails Professor Harries sent in the early days of the pandemic were examined.
In one sent in March 2020, she explains to an official from the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) that people with COVID would need to be discharged from hospitals to care homes to stop the NHS from overflowing.
This was in response to Rosamond Roughton, the director general for adult social care at the DHSC, who said her “assumption” was that “we would have to allow discharge to happen” – otherwise the NHS could get “clogged up” with people who are not seriously ill.
This policy – and whether it is compatible with the government’s promise to put a “protective ring” around care homes – are some of the most controversial parts of the response to the pandemic.
Professor Harries told the inquiry this was the “top line awful prospect” of what needed to be done if hospitals were overwhelmed.
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Deborah Doyle, spokesperson for COVID-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK, told Sky News: “In the face of a virus that would go on to kill 230,000 people in this country, Jenny Harries was employed specifically to find a way to protect people and make the best of the situation.
“It’s clear that instead she took the ‘easiest’ and cruellest option of sacrificing care home residents, some of the most vulnerable people in the country. It was families like ours that paid the awful price for her failure, and it’s absolutely disgraceful that she has since been promoted, made a Dame and is head of the UKHSA.”
