Former education secretary Gavin Williamson criticises Boris Johnson’s ‘panic’ Covid school closures in 2021 – UK politics live

Covid inquiry has published hundreds of new pieces of evidence and written statements on its website

Good morning. Over the last two days the Covid inquiry has published hundreds of new pieces of evidence on its website. It is going to take journalists a while to go through them properly, and on Monday and Tuesday they did not receive much coverage, but with the Commons now in recess, and other political news starting to dry up, there is more time to take a look.

The best story to emerge so far comes from Penny Mordaunt’s witness statement. Mordaunt, who is now leader of the Commons, describes in some detail how a series of WhatsApp messages with Boris Johnson mysteriously disappeared from her phone, and that Johnson’s then chief of staff ignored 14 attempts by her to arrange a meeting to discuss the matter. Peter Walker has the story here.

On the decision to close schools in January 2021, my advice was initially taken into account by the PM during December 2020. On this basis, I was able to work up detailed plans with [Matt Hancock, the health secretary] on the return to school plans, with headteachers and DfE officials working all through the Christmas period to make this happen. Ultimately though, on the final decision to close schools on 4 January 2021, 1 consider that the PM did not give my advice sufficient weight or sufficiently take children’s interests into account.

I considered this decision to be wrong on two grounds. Firstly, we had seen the impact, especially on the most disadvantaged children, of not having schools open and operating as normally as possible. My concern was that a second set of restrictions would set back children’s educational recovery and progress even further. Secondly, I felt it was wholly unnecessary. We had seen exceptionally high rates of Covid-19 in a number of northern towns and cities, yet had been able to keep schools open in these areas over this period. While this would be exceptionally challenging at a national level, I felt it was the right thing to do, as keeping children in school was so beneficial to them. I still believe that the decision did not sufficiently take children’s interests or wellbeing into account. I believe that the decision to close schools in January 2021 was not required. It was a panic decision, made without having children’s interests front and centre.