13 U-Turns Boris Johnson's Government Has Been Forced To Make During The Pandemic

It’s been another week where Boris Johnson’s government has abruptly changed its mind on a major policy during the coronavirus pandemic.

Here’s a breakdown of all the about-turns, back tracks and missed targets that have left the public frustrated.

Back to the office

Michael Gove revealed on Tuesday a “shift in emphasis ” on the government’s push for people to return to offices – with the emphasis now on not actually doing it.

The cabinet office minister said if people can work from home “then we would encourage them to do so.”

He added: “We are stressing that if it is safe to work in your workplace, if you are in a Covid secure workplace, then you should be there if your job requires it.”

Asked if that was a change in government guidance, Gove said “yes”.

Boris Johnson has spent weeks trying to encourage workers to return to offices in an attempt to reinvigorate town and city centres decimated by lockdown. 

Manchester’s local lockdown 

In August the government performed another U-turn and reversed plans to ease local lockdowns in Greater Manchester.

Health secretary Matt Hancock said following a “significant change” in the level of infection rates in the last few days, Bolton and Trafford would remain under existing restrictions – despite loosening them hours earlier. 

It came after Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham said easing the guidance restricting social gatherings in people’s homes would be “completely illogical”.

Pay for self-isolators

The government announced last month that people on low incomes who live in areas with high coronavirus numbers and are told to self-isolate will be able to claim £13 a day in addition to any other benefits they receive.

Starting with a trial in Blackburn, Darwen, Pendle and Oldham, eligible people who test positive for the virus will receive £130 for their 10-day period of self-isolation.

Other members of their household, who under the current rules have to self-isolate for 14 days, will be entitled to a payment of £182.

The move comes after the Labour Party wrote to Rishi Sunak asking for more help for those who would struggle on statutory sick pay, a request the chancellor rejected earlier in August.

Face masks in schools

After first stating that secondary pupils and staff in local lockdowns wouldn’t have to wear face masks, the government was later forced to backtrack ahead of the start of the Autumn term. 

The advice is now that face coverings should be worn when moving around corridors and communal areas.

They will not need to be worn in classrooms, because other protective measures will already be in place and they might affect learning, it added.

Face coverings will not be recommended in schools more widely, the department said, but added that schools will have the discretion to require them to be worn by staff and children in Year 7 and above in communal areas.

The change follows World Health Organisation (WHO) advice that children aged over 12 should wear masks.

Housing evictions

In August the eviction ban was extended for four weeks. Ministers also decided landlords will have to give the majority of tenants six months’ notice to protect vulnerable renters hit by the coronavirus crisis from a winter eviction.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government announced the move after charities warned there could be mass evictions around Christmas and said tens of thousands of outgoing tenants could be unable to access affordable homes, prompting a “devastating homelessness crisis”.

However four weeks elapsed on Monday, meaning renters are no longer under thee protection of emergency measures and could be evicted. 

Because of how the county court system works, plus the rules around giving renters advance notice of their hearing, the charity Shelter  says it doesn’t expect renters to actually be evicted by bailiffs until October – but courts have now resumed the processing of possession claims.

A-levels

After holding out for five days, education secretary Gavin Williamson was finally forced to admit defeat and ditch the controversial A-level algorithm that had seen 100,000 students marked down in August. 

Ministers announced they would allow for results to be based on teachers’ predicted grades for their students, rather than a “standardisation model” that saw the A-level grades of almost 40% of students downgraded  from what they had originally been awarded.

It followed criticism from students and headteachers and complaints from dozens of Tory MPs, and came more than a week after the Scottish government was forced into its own U-turn after a backlash about the moderation system used there.

Immigration health surcharge

The government eventually decided to waive heavily-criticised NHS fees being charged to migrant health and care workers on the coronavirus front line. 

The government was due to hike the immigration health surcharge from £400 to £624 this October, but in May said it will be scrapped as the Covid-19 crisis gripped the NHS.

The sum had been payable to all overseas workers to use the NHS and from this autumn would have seen a family-of-four hit with a bill as high as £2,500 a year. 

Free school meals   

England footballer Marcus Rashford was credited as playing a key part in forcing the Government to U-turn on its decision not to extend the children’s food voucher scheme into the summer holidays.

On June 16, Cabinet minister Grant Shapps said that free school meals are not normally extended to cover the summer period.

Yet a few hours later, No 10 backtracked on its stance, confirming that it would in fact extend the programme.

Speaking on Sky News the next day, health secretary Matt Hancock mistakenly praised “Daniel Rashford” for his campaigning efforts.

Early return of schools  

In early May, Williamson set out the government’s ambition that all primary-age children in England would have at least four weeks in school before the summer.

But on June 9, he said there was “no choice” but to scrap those plans amid concerns that the two-metre social distancing rule would make a full return impossible.

In August, the government said that its plans would be for all pupils, in all year groups, to return to school full-time from the beginning of the autumn term.

Schools have been required to implement measures including enhanced cleaning procedures, more frequent hand-washing, and keeping pupils and family members with Covid-19 symptoms away, as they return.

NHS contact tracing app

A new NHSX app for contact tracing was announced by health secretary Matt Hancock on April 12, pledging that it would be “crucial” for preventing the transmission of coronavirus.

The app was trialled on the Isle of Wight with a view to it being rolled out more widely across the country in May.

However, on June 18, the government abandoned plans for its own app, instead allowing Apple and Google to take over the project.

On August 13, a trial of the new app was announced, again involving the Isle of Wight as well as NHS volunteer respondents in the UK.

On Monday the government said the technology would be released on Thursday, September 24, but was again forced to issue a correction after incorrectly stating in the announcement that the app wouldn’t actually be able to do the contact tracing it was designed for.

Hours after the announcement was made, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) issued a statement insisting contact tracing would be `“at the heart of the NHS Covid-19 app”. 

Bereavement scheme to NHS support staff

After criticism that care workers, cleaners and porters were being excluded from a Home Office scheme granting families of health workers indefinite leave to remain in the UK if they die of Covid-19, the government announced an extension of the scheme on May 20.

The scheme had been introduced in April to help support families affected by the pandemic.

Home secretary Priti Patel said the extension would be “effective immediately and retrospectively”.

Face coverings

Face masks become compulsory in shops and supermarkets in July, marking a U-turn on previous policy.

The move followed a weekend of confusion over whether ministers intended to make face coverings compulsory after Boris Johnson said they were looking at “stricter” rules.

In the early days of the pandemic, ministers and the government’s scientific advisers repeatedly played down the value of face coverings, saying the evidence on the benefits was thin.

There were also thought to be concerns stocks could be diverted from the NHS at a time of intense pressure on the supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) if the public were encouraged to wear them.

Remote voting

The government was forced to row back on plans MPs to make them vote in person in the House of Commons in the early days of the pandemic.

Labour criticised the “shambolic” long queues MPs had to form to vote which were dubbed the “coronavirus conga”.

A hybrid system enabling parliamentarians to either attend the Commons in person or contribute to proceedings from afar via Zoom was put in place from the end of April before being halted in early June.

Coronavirus testing target

While not technically a U-turn, the monumental failure on testing – which was touted as the best way out of the pandemic – gets an honourable mention.

On April 2, Hancock set a goal of 100,000 coronavirus tests a day by the end of the month.

At the government’s daily briefing on May 1, Hancock said testing figures had hit 122,347 on April 30.

However, the figures included the number of home tests (27,497) that had been sent out as well as the number of tests sent out to satellite sites (12,872).

It suggested that the number of tests actually processed was closer to around 81,978 – short of the government’s target.