Covid inquiry has published hundreds of new pieces of evidence and written statements on its website

Back to the Covid evidence and, as Chris Smyth reports in the Times, a Treasury official has revealed that, as the government considered ways of boosting the economy in the summer of 2020, it considered issuing people with pre-paid debit cards.

Dan York-Smith, who is now the Treasury’s director general for tax and welfare and who was head of the strategy, planning and budget group during Covid, discusses the plan in his witness statement. Another proposals that was considered was to distribute vouchers for use in some retail sectors.

The first option, namely the distribution of pre-paid debit cards, presented substantial challenges and risks. For example, registering every adult in the UK would have presented very significant challenges in the time available. Even if that could be achieved, there would have been significant risks associated with tens of millions of cards being distributed through the post as part of a highly publicised and marketed scheme, such as theft, fraud and loss. That was a risk that also attached to sending out vouchers by post. A substantial customer support function would also have been required, which did not exist. The compressed timetable of the scheme increased the significance of these challenges.

It has been a pleasure working with Andrew. He is a man of great bravery and we remain hugely supportive of his campaigning on a number of issues. He rightly sees his role to raise issues of concern to his constituents. There are too few in parliament prepared to do that.

He has been an excellent constituency MP and we wish him every success in his bid for re-election in North West Leicestershire. As a reflection of that support, we have made a considerable donation to Andrew’s campaign fund.