No-deal Brexit planning ‘crowded out’ efforts to prepare for pandemic

Covid inquiry hears that from 2018 planning for UK's disorderly exit from EU drained resources and capacity'

Planning for a no-deal Brexit from 2018 crowded out" government efforts to prepare for a pandemic and contributed to leaving the country unready, the first evidence session of the Covid public inquiry has heard.

UK government pandemic planning failed to show proper foresight" and even at this stage, before hearing the evidence, it is apparent that we might not have been very well prepared at all", Hugo Keith KC, counsel to the inquiry, said.