Rishi Sunak defends Eat Out to Help Out scheme under intense pressure during Covid inquiry

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Rishi Sunak has fiercely defended his controversial Eat Out to Help Out program and said it was unfair to brand the Treasury a 'death squad' during the pandemic .

The Prime Minister used an eight-hour evidence hearing to dismiss accusations that he launched the controversial project without proper scientific advice. He praised the “incredibly hardworking people” who worked at the Treasury when he was chancellor, hitting back at Boris Johnson's suggestion that they were happy to oversee a rise in deaths in order to lift lockdown restrictions.

The current Prime Minister also said he had “constantly” warned his predecessor, Mr Johnson, about the wider impacts of the lockdown, blaming the “economic scars” it left on precarious finances of the country today.

Mr. Sunak opened his hearing by apologizing to families bereaved during the pandemic. He then made the extraordinary claim that he had been unable to deliver his pandemic WhatsApp messages because he "changed his...