PRESS RELEASE – 20 JUNE 2023 – ‘SCOTTISH COVID BEREAVED’ RESPOND TO GEORGE OSBORNE’S INSULTING OFFER OF SYMPATHY

PRESS RELEASE – 20 JUNE 2023

‘SCOTTISH COVID BEREAVED’ RESPOND TO INSULTING OFFER OF ‘HEARTFELT SYMPATHY’ BY FORMER CHANCELLOR – GEORGE OSBORNE – DAY 6 OF UK COVID-19 PUBLIC INQUIRY

Statement by lead solicitor Aamer Anwar on behalf of the Scottish Covid Bereaved:

“George Osborne, as Chancellor of Exchequer opened his evidence this afternoon by stating “I want to express my heartfelt sympathy to all those who lost a loved one during the pandemic.”(At 11.42.24) Mr Osborne’s sympathy is an insult to the memory of all those who lost their lives to Covid-19. Although he was seen as the ‘Godfather of Austerity’, he failed to apologise or acknowledge that chronic underfunding left the NHS unfit for purpose in 2020.

The long-term impact of Osborne’s policies was to have devastating consequences for inequality, the health of the UK stalled for the first time since the second World War, with a reverse of life expectancy gains in the decade after he came to power in 2010, all of which placed the health of the UK at a deadly point when the pandemic hit our shores. It is simply unbelievable that he stated, “by the time I left office there were more doctors working in the NHS, more nurses working in the NHS.” (At 12.31.43)

Evidence shows the long period of austerity after 2010 dangerously reduced the resilience of health and care services in their ability to deal with the pandemic, which ultimately led to the loss of over 227,000 lives. The bereaved families find it grotesque that George Osborne who as the architect of austerity, played such a lethal key role in the catastrophic loss of life, failed to offer one word of apology today.”