Williamson texted PM he was ‘f****d over’ by Covid decisions

Former education secretary Sir Gavin Williamson texted prime minister Boris Johnson that he had been “fucked over” by decisions about Covid school closures and had his “legs cut from under me” by the appointment of catch-up tsar Sir Kevan Collins.

Williamson, education secretary from July 2019 to September 2021, gave hours of evidence to the Covid inquiry today, as it continues its focus on the impact of the pandemic on children and young people.

The inquiry had already heard Williamson disagreed with Johnson over the “sudden sea change” decision to close schools in March 2020 and over the last-minute decision to close schools again in January 2021, arguing it was not in the best interests of children.

Today, a WhatsApp message from Williamson to Johnson was shown to the inquiry, in which he complained he had been “completely fucked over” by decisions to close schools in January 2021 which he “took the shit and abuse for”.

He also said Downing Street appointed Collins as education recovery tsar without consulting the education secretary, which Williamson said was like getting his “legs cut from under me”.

Here’s what we learned…

1. Two big disagreements…

Williamson said he was frustrated decision-making had become “increasingly centralised” over the course of the pandemic, and he felt he “needed permission to basically act”.

The former education secretary and prime minister had two disagreements during the pandemic, evidence heard. Williamson disagreed with Johnson’s message to families that schools could have a phased reopening in the summer of 2020.

He accused Johnson of giving families “false hope” over plans to reopen schools when the prime minister wasn’t willing to lift social distancing rules.

This meant there was “no physical way that you could ask schools to do it without basically breaking the law,” Williamson told the inquiry.

The second disagreement came in January 2021 when Downing Street decided to close schools again, the inquiry heard.

“It was done as much for messaging and it was trying to influence and change behaviour,” Williamson explained.

“They chose to prioritise different things which is ultimately a choice a PM has to make. I think [Johnson] chose the NHS over children, obviously as SoS ultimately for children in many ways, in all ways, you want to be the one who’s fighting the corner for children, and ultimately the decision was disappointing”.

Williamson said he had been confident a national Covid testing programme in schools would mean they could stay open in January.

2. Williamson felt ‘completely fucked over’

The inquiry was shown a message Williamson sent to Johnson on February 8, 2021.

He claimed Johnson didn’t “have the proper courtesy to discuss” the appointment of Collins as education recovery tsar.

“PM, I always like to be polite in our conversations but I must confess to feeling a little hacked off.

“Not only do I get completely fucked over by decisions on the 4th January that I took the shit and abuse for, I then get my legs cut from under me by an appointment that you don’t have the proper courtesy to discuss with me and get screwed over again.

“I then get No10 leaking the story of the appointment and yet you guys don’t even have the basic level of competence to line up the appointment…then at that point I then have to be deployed to sort out No10’s clusterfuck”.

In a tone change, he added the DfE was “working well with Kevan and I am sure he will come up with some excellent evidence based policies that we are all very enthusiastic about”.

Collins has since been appointed by Labour as the DfE’s lead non-executive director.

3. ‘Many mistakes’ were made

Williamson told the inquiry there were “failures” in the government’s lack of pre-planning before the pandemic.

School closures were first discussed at a SAGE meeting on February 4 2020, but all preparation was for schools to remain open, Williamson said.

“There were lots of actions that were taking place that we thought were right, but as we look back on it now, we should’ve had better actions in place. I readily accept that there were many mistakes pre-pandemic,” he said.

Williamson argued plans for how to deal with a pandemic should have been drawn up as early as 2013.

The former education secretary said he was being “steered” by Downing Street to develop plans to keep schools open, but was given one night to develop a plan to close schools on March 17.

“We were probably overly focused on the mission to keep schools open because that was both the political steer we were getting…but we were trying to do everything within that to actually take the steps that were going to be required in an evolving and different situation.

“I do accept that it wasn’t being done in the best way.”

4. Exam results model ‘quite clearly wrong’

Williamson also admitted the model to award GCSE and A-level grades in 2020 was “quite clearly wrong”.

It involved using an algorithm to modify teacher awarded grades to avoid exam inflation, but resulted in many pupils’ results being lowered.

Coles said Williamson “appeared to recognise what I was saying was correct”, but said it was “too late to do anything about it”.

When asked about this meeting, Williamson said he had “no recollection” of saying that, but admitted to faults in the system.

“The model was quite clearly wrong. We felt at the time and when we consistently met with Ofqual for reassurances on the issue of fairness, was that it was the correct model to be pursuing.

“There wasn’t a realisation in terms of the individual impact on students.”

He blamed “too much of a collective groupthink” over the policy.

5. School closures a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’

Much of today’s session focused on why the government did not consult with stakeholders on the potential closure of schools.

Williamson said: “The moment we had gone out and sat with trade unions or the different organisations and said this is an option that we are looking at doing, closing them, we don’t think it will happen but it may happen…it actually would’ve become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“The ability to have a whole set of confidential conversations with stakeholders that this is going to be a real prospect in terms of how they’re going to do things, it would’ve ended up making the decision for schools to be closed before any decision for schools to be closed was the case.”