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Deputy PM defends pause of pandemic prep to plan for no-deal Brexit

Others speaking in the inquiry have described Operation Yellowhammer as ‘a really major consumer of resources’

By Ruby Lott-Lavigna
Deputy PM defends pause of pandemic prep to plan for no-deal Brexit
A piece of street art depicting an NHS worker in London, April 2020. Oliver Dowden has defended prioritising preparations for a no-deal Brexit over pandemic prep in the run-up to Covid | Andrew Redington/Getty Images
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It was appropriate to deprioritise emergency preparations before the pandemic in order to plan for a no-deal Brexit, the deputy prime minister has said.

Speaking at the Covid-19 inquiry in London, Oliver Dowden has defended the decision to pause some emergency planning in order to work on Operation Yellowhammer, the cross-government preparation for Britain’s no-deal exit from the EU.

Dowden told the inquiry on Wednesday this was a direction from Boris Johnson, who was prime minister at the time.

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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0