RISHI Sunak has said the UK Government handed too much power to the members of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies during the Covid pandemic. 

In a frank interview with the Spectator, the former Chancellor said the public health experts were given too much influence over decisions on lockdowns, and that not enough consideration was given to the impact on the economy and education. 

His account has been disputed by No 10, while Scottish health secretary, Humza Yousaf, described it as "desperate Trumpism."

In the interview, Mr Sunak said he “wasn’t allowed to talk about the trade-off” in Cabinet during the early phases of the pandemic.

He said: “we shouldn’t have empowered the scientists in the way we did.”

"We didn’t talk at all about missed appointments or the backlog building in the NHS in a massive way. That was never part of it."

At one meeting he says he raised the impact on children’s education: “I was very emotional about it.

"I was like ‘Forget about the economy. Surely we can all agree that kids not being in school is a major nightmare’, or something like that.

“There was a big silence afterwards. It was the first time someone had said it. I was so furious.”

Setting out the problems he found with UK Government policy being influenced by outside academics, he said: “If you empower all these independent people, you’re screwed.”

He said that if the trade-offs had been acknowledged from the beginning, in March 2020 when the first lockdown was imposed, then different decisions could have been taken.

“We shouldn’t have empowered the scientists in the way we did,” he said.

“And you have to acknowledge trade-offs from the beginning. If we’d done all of that, we could be in a very different place.”

He suggested different decisions could have been reached on keeping schools open and the lockdown could have been shorter.

Mr Sunak suggested that minutes of Sage meetings, setting out the discussions on guidance for ministers had omitted dissenting views.

He claimed the panel members did not realise there was a Treasury representative on their calls, feeding back to him.

He said she would tell him: “‘Well, actually, it turns out that lots of people disagreed with that conclusion’, or ‘Here are the reasons that they were not sure about it’. So at least I would be able to go into these meetings better armed.”

Mr Sunak was also critical of what he described as the "fear" narrative of the public health advertising.

He told the magazine: "It was always wrong from the beginning. I constantly said it was wrong."

The Tory leadership hopeful told the magazine that he soon sought out his own advice.

When the Omicron variant started to emerge last December, Mr Sunak spoke to academics at Stanford University and consulted research by investment bank JP Morgan which used South African data on the virus.

Crucially, the said UK hospitals would not be overrun, while Sage warned that deaths could reach 6,000 a day.

Mr Sunak flew back early from a trip to California and told Boris Johnson:"'It’s not right: we shouldn’t do this.’"

He told the Tory leaders that his ministers would back him if he shunned a lockdown: "I remember telling him: 'have the cabinet meeting. You’ll see. Every-one will be completely behind you… You don’t have to worry. I will be standing next to you, as will every other member of the cabinet, bar probably Michael [Gove] and Saj [Javid].’"

Mr Johnson’s former communications chief, Lee Cain, dismissed Mr Sunak’s assessment of the situation, saying he is “simply wrong”.

Mr Cain said: “It would have been morally irresponsible of the Government not to implement lockdown in spring 2020 – the failure to do so would have killed tens of thousands of people who survived Covid.

“In addition, without lockdown, the NHS simply could not have survived and would have been overwhelmed.”

That would have resulted in an “even greater backlog” and more excess deaths from incidents such as missed cancer appointments, he suggested.

A No 10 spokesman said: “Throughout the pandemic, public health, education and the economy were central to the difficult decisions made on Covid restrictions to protect the British public from an unprecedented novel virus.

“At every point, ministers made collective decisions which considered a wide range of expert advice available at the time in order to protect public health.

“The UK Government spent over £400 billion to support people, families and their livelihoods throughout our response to the pandemic, which included the fastest lifesaving vaccine rollout in Europe.”

Taking to Twitter, Mr Yousaf tweeted: "Have stayed out of circus that is Tory Leadership contest but this needs called out."

He added: "Such desperate Trumpism from Sunak. If we ignored experts and let Covid rip through our communities before a single vaccine was administered thousands more would be mourning in Scotland alone.

"While clincians advised us, Govts were free to make the policy decisions we did. Every Govt Minister should be grateful to our scientists & clinicians, not be attempting to throw them under the bus in a desperate attempt to win over those on the fringes."