‘There is NO reason to stop working from home’: Boris’s own science chief torpedoes PM’s efforts to get Brits back to the office, says lockdown should have been a WEEK earlier and says government ‘made mistakes’
- Sir Patrick Vallance said ‘absolutely no reason’ to change work from home rules
- Sir Patrick said that UK ‘still at a time when distancing measures are important’
- Comments are a hammer blow to the PM’s hopes of persuading people to return
- Boris Johnson due to tell nation tomorrow night it is time to head back to offices
- Chief Scientific Adviser also said ‘absolutely clear’ UK fared badly during crisis
The Government’s top scientific adviser today dealt a hammer blow to Boris Johnson’s hopes of persuading workers to return to their offices as he said there is ‘absolutely no reason’ to change the current work from home guidance.
Sir Patrick Vallance said the UK is ‘still at a time when distancing measures are important’ and that working remotely ‘remains a perfectly good option’.
He then went even further as he said many companies had found working from home had not been ‘detrimental to productivity’ and as a result there is no need to move away from the policy.
The Prime Minister is expected to use a Downing Street press conference tomorrow evening to urge people to physically return to their places of employment and to use public transport to do so.
The Government is increasingly concerned about the impact continued working from home could have on the nation’s economic recovery as many city and town centres remain deserted.
But Sir Patrick’s comments will increase pressure on the Prime Minister to set out exactly why he believes it is safe for people to return to something more like normal life.
Meanwhile, Sir Patrick also delivered bombshell interventions on the timing of the UK’s lockdown and of the Government’s overall performance during the pandemic.
England’s chief scientific adviser said lockdown measures should have been introduced a week earlier while the outcome of the pandemic ‘has not been good for the UK’.
He also told MPs on the Science and Technology Committee that researchers have been in favour of the wearing of face masks since April.
Sir Patrick Vallance set an example by arriving at today’s Science and Technology Committee wearing a face mask and then explaining that it was safe for him to remove it because everyone was at least two metres away from him
Speaking to MPs on the science committee, Sir Patrick said: ‘It’s clear that the outcome has not been good in the UK; I think we can be absolutely clear about that.
‘It’s also clear that we can see a band of countries that have done less well in the temperate zone. Countries that are very well connected internationally, countries that have got population structures of a certain type.
‘So there are many factors that are going to play in as we look and say, well what is it that makes some countries [do] worse than others?
‘And there will be decisions made that will turn out not to have been the right decisions at the time.’
Arriving wearing his own face mask, Sir Patrick was then quizzed on what the scientific advice is behind the Government’s upcoming policy on masks.
From next Friday, July 24, it will be mandatory for all adults to wear face masks inside shops unless they have medical reasons for not doing so.
Until now, it had only been required on public transport and, before that rule started on June 15, the Government had advised against them.
The deputy chief medical officer, Dr Jenny Harries, even appeared in a video with Prime Minister Boris Johnson in which she said they could be troublesome because people fiddle with them so much and touch their faces.
But Sir Patrick said scientists had been saying for the past three months that masks can be beneficial.
He told MPs today: ‘If you go back, our advice on face masks was in April.
‘And we said face masks are of marginal positive value when used in enclosed spaces where crowding may occur and you can’t keep two metres’ distance, which essentially is the advice that WHO [World Health Organization] have come up with and essentially is the advice that now forms the basis of policy…
‘We were rather ahead of [the WHO] in terms of that particular piece of advice. I think there’s a danger of confusing operational accountability with scientific advice.’
He explained repeatedly in the meeting that he and SAGE do not have the power to make or influence decisions, only to advise politicians and government ministers.
The chief scientist added: ‘It’s true that in April and during lockdown the value of face masks was rather minimal because most people aren’t going out.
‘So it is sensible to think about timing… Timing now as we go into release of measures is a sensible time to start thinking about what other mitigating factors you want to put in place.
‘For example, making the workplace completely Covid-secure in the middle of lockdown would have made no difference because nobody was going into workplaces.’