Rishi Sunak considered pre-paid debit card giveaway during Covid

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Rishi Sunak considered a radical plan to give everyone in the country a pre-paid debit card to boost spending during the Covid pandemic, new documents have revealed.

The then-chancellor mulled the idea of sending out debit cards containing taxpayer’s cash in the summer of 2020 in a bid to stimulate the struggling economy.

But Mr Sunak ditched the idea when Treasury officials pointed out the “significant risk” of theft and fraud in sending out tens of millions of cards in the post.

The prime minister issued a strong defence of his controversial Eat Out to Help Out scheme during his recent appearance at the Covid inquiry.

Dan York-Smith, the Treasury’s director-general of tax policy, has provided new written evidence to the inquiry saying there was no “specific risk assessment” of the impact of the scheme aimed at boosting the restaurant trade.

And Mr York-Smith revealed for the first time the details of another scheme – a proposal to send out pre-paid debit cards – that was ultimately rejected.

The Treasury official said it “presented substantial challenges and risks”, including the logistical hurdle of registering every adult in the UK.

“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.”

Another idea considered by Mr Sunak and his team was to give out free vouchers for use by the public in some retail sectors. Mr York-Smith said the chancellor dropped these idea in June 2020 in favour of a more targeted discount scheme for restaurants – Eat Out to Help Out.

“The policy focus remained on restaurants and eating out and responding to the risk that the public had got out of the habit of eating out over the previous few months,” he said.

Meanwhile, new written evidence also revealed that Penny Mordaunt saw a series of Covid-related WhatsApp messages with Boris Johnson mysteriously vanish from her phone.

The cabinet minister told the inquiry she had sent the PM a message on 29 February 2020 “to raise the issue of shielding in care homes” and got a reply.

But the senior Tory discovered the exchange was missing, and realised she could not find other messages shared with Mr Johnson between March 2018 and March 2020.

Elsewhere, Sir Gavin Williamson accused Mr Johnson of making a “panic decision” to close schools in January 2021.

The then-education secretary said he thought about quitting his role over the “wholly unnecessary” decision to shut schools a day after they were reopened.

Mr Williamson said he was not even given an opportunity to argue for keeping them open at cabinet before Mr Johnson’s decision – claiming it “did not sufficiently take children’s interests or wellbeing into account”.

The last batch of written evidence in the inquiry module also showed that social care minister Helen Whately had warned at the peak of the Covid crisis that discharging hospital patients into care homes was a big risk.

An email from her office in March 2020 warned about draft guidance, and said she was “concerned that a patient will take Covid into a care home”.

It comes as Nigel Farage argued that the Covid inquiry needs to discuss procurement of PPE before a general election can be held.

The former Brexit Party leader said it was unacceptable that PPE deals would not get scrutinised by the inquiry until the spring of 2025, amid the Michelle Mone scandal.

“They must get Michelle Mone, must get Michael Gove, must get everybody involved to be held publicly to account,” Farage told GB News. “We cannot have a general election that takes place before we understand why these huge sums of money were wasted.”