Former prime minister Rishi Sunak has told the COVID inquiry "it was a surprise" to be appointed Chancellor just weeks before the pandemic hit, and there was "no playbook" to deal with the crisis.
Mr Sunak insisted "we didn’t have the luxury of time" as the virus spread, and defended the Treasury’s actions in the early days of lockdown insisting "we had to get things out fast or the consequences would have been negative."
Today’s hearing, examining the economic impact of the pandemic, will focus on Sunak’s time as chancellor when the government approved £350bn of economic interventions to save jobs and support the economy.
Read more: https://news.sky.com/story/politics-latest-budget-taxes-reeves-starmer-labour-badenoch-farage-12593360
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