It’s time for ministers to stop hiding behind unpublished 'scientific advice'

From the outset of the Covid-19 crisis, the government was determined that scientists would play a central and highly visible role. The Prime Minister set the tone in his first daily press briefing, when he addressed the nation flanked by the chief medical officer and the chief scientific adviser. The message was clear: this was a government that cherished, not rejected, experts. They were not going to be kept in a back room, but would be there to explain the reasoning behind all policy-making.

But this new relationship between government and scientific establishment risks going sour. Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College advised the government that Covid-19, if left unconfronted, could take 500,000 lives: almost as many as are killed each year by all other causes put together. Lockdown, he said, would limit this to about 20,000. Ministers started to publish charts comparing the UK favourably with other nations. They stopped doing this when it became clear Britain had somehow ended up with more Covid deaths than any other European country.

What went wrong? It’s not so much that Professor Ferguson’s advice was incorrect: it almost certainly was, but everyone, in the early stages, was simply making their best guess. Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, would regularly remind us of how little we knew for sure. Ministers kept repeating that they were following ‘the best scientific advice’ — yet that advice, mysteriously, was usually kept confidential, perhaps because it simply laid out options and emphasised how little certainty there actually was. Scientists stressed that decisions lie with politicians, who must also gauge the effects of non-scientific issues such as school closures, economic hardship and lives damaged by both lockdown and the virus.