I won't believe Boris Johnson is following scientific advice until he proves it

Whether it is having the highest average death rate in the world, the crisis engulfing our care homes, the shocking inability to provide adequate PPE to doctors and nurses, or being far too slow to increase testing capacity, to name just a few, this Government has failed every step of the way.

Now they can add wrongly defending a senior adviser who flouted their own lockdown rules to the list.

Throughout this pandemic, the Government has fought back against constructive criticism by at first claiming they have been ‘following the science’. The implication was that decisions had been made on the advice of scientists. But once scientists started speaking out, the Government changed their language to say they were ‘guided by the science’. What exactly does that mean?

There is one big problem with the Government’s approach: we do not really know what the scientific advice has been.

The Government’s approach to its scientific advice has been secretive – the membership of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) was only recently released, after much protest, and many scientific documents have been redacted.  

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It is also expected that, like any Government meetings, Sage meetings should be minuted and released publicly for reasons of accountability. Some have been – but not all of them.

This means that much of the science informing or guiding our Government is still not in the public domain. 

This is concerning and leads me to ask: where are the missing papers, what do they say, and what exactly is this Government trying to hide? 

The simple truth is, without visibility of the scientific advice, it will be difficult to corroborate the Government’s assertion that it always follows, or is guided by, the scientific advice. 

We can’t wait until this pandemic is over to release these papers. Doing so would be a cynical attempt to hide accountability and hope that the public might be preoccupied with other things.

I have news for the Government: too many people have died for this to just go away.

We need to see the papers now, and the Science and Technology Committee – on which I serve – is calling on the Government to regularly publish a summary of the scientific advice that has informed their decisions.

This, after all, is currently the biggest issue that has serious implications for public health. The Government could theoretically be acting against its scientific advice and pursuing policies that put us all at risk, and we wouldn’t know for sure without seeing those papers. 

The issue of scientific advice is extremely important now, at a time when the Government is pushing to reopen schools and shops, and further ease lockdown restrictions. The next stage of lockdown should not be based on common sense or political considerations, but on facts, circumstances and informed decisions. 

Following the Dominic Cummings fiasco, scientists are now worried that his actions have undermined decisions and that introducing an element of personal discretion as part of the rules is putting lives at risk. This crisis has put some very important concerns at the forefront of this pandemic.

I have long wondered who is making decisions in response to the pandemic and why, because some of these decisions don’t seem to make sense – or, on far too many occasions, they were made too late. 

I believe the Government were too late to implement lockdown, too late to put in place a mass testing system, too late to get PPE to everyone on the frontline, too late to develop the test, track and trace system, and too late to bring in a quarantine requirement for those coming into the UK. 

Given this, and that Dominic Cummings recommends policy, it’s that it is vital that we the public are informed of the science as soon as it’s available to make sure our prime minster is following the best path for the public, rather than the one his chief advisor prefers.

Cummings isn’t elected and it is now apparent that he is not accountable to anyone either. He needs to be sacked.

I don’t want him to make decisions for the country – what I want is to see the science. Otherwise, I will continue to think Johnson appears to be principally guided by one senior adviser, and only one senior adviser.

If the Government wants to prove once and for all that their every decision has been following the science, then I have a simple solution: release the missing papers, and show us all you have nothing to hide.

Do you have a story that you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk

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