Keeping schools shut as pubs and restaurants reopened during the pandemic was a “terrible mistake”, the former children's commissioner told the official Covid-19 inquiry today.
Anne Longfield said children were “at the back of the queue” when it came to the government’s initial response to the pandemic.
Appearing to aim a swipe at then-education secretary Gavin Williamson, she told counsel to the inquiry Dermot Keating: “It was very clear there was no one at the cabinet table who was taking children’s best interests to those decisions… There was an empty chair at the table.”
