Truss says lockdown policy went ‘too far’, especially with school closures
Liz Truss has joined Rishi Sunak, her rival in the Tory leadership contest, in saying the Covid lockdown was too strict. Asked about Sunak’s comments in his Spectator interview (see 9.22am and 9.47am), she said:
I didn’t actually sit on the Covid committee during that time, I was busy striking trade deals around the world.
My view is we did go too far, particularly on keeping schools closed.
I’ve got two teenage daughters and know how difficult it was for children and parents and I would not have a lockdown again …
I was very clear in cabinet, I was one of the key voices in favour of opening up.
Key events
A summary of today’s developments
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At the penultimate hustings in Norfolk, Liz Truss said she would prefer Boris Johnson be prime minister rather than Rishi Sunak.
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Sunak said he would rather Truss be prime minister than Johnson, as he called for the country to “move forward”.
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Truss said the “jury’s out” on whether France’s president Emmanuel Macron is “friend or foe” to the UK. The foreign secretary added that if she was prime minister she would judge him on “deeds not words”.
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Truss said she questioned lockdown policy during the pandemic, and argued on reflection “we did do too much”.
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Steve Barclay, the health secretary, was harangued by a passerby outside a hospital who demanded to know what he was going to do about the ambulance waiting time crisis. She said that during their 12 years in office the Tories had done “bugger all about it”.
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Ipsos released some new polling that suggests that, by a margin of more than two to one, people do not trust Liz Truss to reduce the cost of living. Keir Starmer has the best ratings on this measure of the four politicians featured in the poll, followed by Rishi Sunak, Boris Johnson and then Truss.
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Prof John Edmunds, head of infectious disease modelling at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and one of the most prominent and influential figures on Sage during the pandemic, has responded to Rishi Sunak’s criticism of the pandemic scientists. He says that if Sunak thinks the economic consequences of lockdown did not receive enough attention, then Sunak himself is to blame, because as chancellor he should have been commissioning that analysis.
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In his World at One interview, Rishi Sunak also ruled out leaving politics if he loses the leadership campaign. When it was put to him that Dominic Cummings, the PM’s former chief adviser, said today that Sunak’s Spectator interview read like something from someone “whose epicly bad campaign had melted his brain” and who was about to quit politics (see 12.11pm), Sunak laughed briefly and said this was “absolutely not” the case.
And that brings the hustings to an end.
The final one is in London on 31 August.
Truss is told by an audience member that one of the major benefits of Brexit was meant to be free trade and is asked whether she is a free trader or a protectionist.
She replies she is a free trader and has “scars on my back” from battles in Whitehall to get the Australian deal through.
Truss vowed to “take on” the so-called “Treasury orthodoxy” that means money is funnelled into areas already heavily invested in.
The foreign secretary told the audience: “I would level up in a Conservative way, by setting up low tax investment zones where local communities want them, driving business, growth and investment.
“And I’ll also take on the Treasury orthodoxy, the rules that currently mean that more investment goes into areas that already have the investment.”
Questioned about single-sex changing rooms, Truss said: “I am very clear and I have made this clear in parliament. Places absolutely have the ability to restrict access on the basis of biological sex.”
But she is asked about Marks & Spencer’s decision to allow shoppers to choose whether to use the men’s or women’s changing rooms.
She replies: “M&S is a shop, they can decide their policies as they see fit.”
When asked to name a single public service that works well, Truss says the education system has got a hell of a lot better in the last ten years.
Emmanuel Macron, friend or foe? Truss says the jury is out and she will judge the French president on deeds not words.
If not you, who would be a better PM, Boris Johnson or Sunak? Truss says Johnson.
Following on from Sunak’s comments to The Spectator about Sage advisers being empowered too much during the pandemic, Truss said she questioned the lockdowns.
She said: “Clearly in retrospect, we did do too much. It was too draconian. I don’t think we should have closed schools.
“A lot of children have ended up suffering.”
She added: “I can assure you that I would never impose a lockdown if I am selected as PM.”
Truss said she would fundamentally change the NHS culture of top-heavy management and review doctors’ pensions.
“It’s not about the money – it’s about the culture,” she said.
It is now Truss’s turn. She said she would introduce league tables of how long police forces spent on the beat and tackling crime.
She also said she supported stop and search.
Earlier, Sunak said it is “easy to bash the BBC”, but described it as a “proud British institution”.
Asked if the BBC has a Tory or Labour bias, or if it is neutral, he said: “There’s no woke bias option in there.”
He added: “I actually think the BBC is … something that everyone in this country is actually proud of, but it’s right that it reflects the values of everyone in this country and that is what is not done.”
