Excluding us from meetings harmed Covid response, mayors tell inquiry

Excluding regional mayors from key meetings harmed the UK's response to the pandemic, Sadiq Khan and Andy Burnham have told the Covid inquiry.

The Labour mayors of London and Greater Manchester said their repeated requests to join emergency Cobra meetings at the start of the pandemic were refused.

London mayor Mr Khan said "lives could have been saved" if he had been allowed to attend earlier.

Greater Manchester's Mr Burnham said decision-making was "London-centric".

Cobra meetings, which were held throughout the pandemic, bring together a mixture of ministers and officials from relevant departments and agencies to coordinate the government's response to national emergencies.

Despite London facing higher rates of Covid than other parts of the country in early 2020, Mr Khan said he was not allowed to attend any Cobra meetings until 16 March.

The inquiry heard that his earlier requests to attend were rejected by No 10 on the grounds that other regional mayors would then need to be invited.

"I was told the pandemic was having an impact on London ahead of the rest of the country," Mr Khan said.

"The government was aware of the challenges in ICU [intensive care units], the challenges in our hospitals, and the government was aware of community transmission in London."

He added: "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."

He said there was also no reason other mayors could not have joined meetings virtually.

Mr Khan told the inquiry he was "kept in the dark" by the government and if he had been given a fuller picture he would have taken more action, including lobbying the prime minister for a lockdown earlier.

In his evidence to the inquiry, Mr Burnham said he "repeatedly" asked to attend Cobra meetings but was not invited to a single one during the pandemic.

The mayor of Greater Manchester said London-centric decision-making meant his region was "stuck" with higher Covid rates for the whole of 2020.

Mr Burnham said there was "zero consultation" with him over easing the national lockdown in May 2020, which he argued was "too early" for Greater Manchester.

He added that as Covid had spread from the south to the north of England, the north was closer to a peak in cases than the south of the country at that time.

Mr Burnham told the inquiry he was "astonished" by the "massively centralised" response to the pandemic.

In the summer of 2020, the mayor said he was given only an hour's notice to discuss the imposition of local restrictions in Greater Manchester with local leaders before they were announced.

He described the situation as "chaotic" and said he was "inundated" with questions from residents about whether they could go to work the following day.

In October 2020 a formal three-tier system was introduced, which imposed varying levels of restrictions in different regions of England depending on local Covid rates.

However, the system did not bring rising cases and deaths under control and in November a four-week national lockdown was introduced.

Mr Burnham said he repeatedly asked for more financial support for businesses and workers affected by tougher restrictions.

He accused the government of discussing a "punishment" for his region, because he had "stood up" for people who would have struggled with lockdown measures without extra financial support.

The mayor read out 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."

Asked to respond to criticism that he was "obstructive" in discussions over financial support, Mr Burnham said it was the government which behaved "appallingly" by imposing a policy which he claimed ministers knew would not work.

Quoting from written evidence submitted by former Health Secretary Matt Hancock, Mr Burnham said: "He says in his evidence about tier three, 'I was in despair that we had announced a policy that we knew would not work'."

Giving evidence to the inquiry later, Liverpool City Region mayor Steve Rotheram also criticised the government's communication with local leaders during the pandemic.

The Labour mayor said his team had been left to wait for the evening news bulletin to find out "nearly every major announcement".

He highlighted discussions around moving his area to tier three, saying he had previously agreed with then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson that they should work together on announcing the move in autumn 2020.

However, later the same day Mr Rotheram said the PM independently announced the restrictions "without any notification to me".

"Then we had to try and pick up the pieces," he added.

Mr Rotheram said the confusion and anger around the announcement resulted in him receiving "direct threats" and needing 24-hour police protection.

The inquiry is taking witness evidence in London until Christmas, before moving to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.