Rishi Sunak Covid inquiry live: Eat Out to Help Out was safe and designed to save jobs - Sunak - BBC News
The prime minister, who was chancellor during the pandemic, says the summer 2020 policy was not a major risk.
Sighs and groans from public gallery - while Sunak sticks to script

Unlike the scrutiny of some recent witnesses, the questioning of Rishi Sunak by Hugo Keith KC hasn’t been strictly chronological and has appeared broader in its framing. The prime minister — rarely less than disciplined and cautious in public and even more rarely lured by the temptation to use colourful language — stuck to his principal and unsurprising argument that the country’s economic welfare was his primary concern. We heard of real worry in the Treasury in March 2020 that the government was briefly struggling to borrow money. This was resolved but Sunak pointed out the consequences of having to do so then still has economic consequences now. And without ever saying it pithily, there is a recurring theme of the prime minister saying he constantly emphasised in private the downsides of lockdown measures while accepting that public messaging had to be more simply expressed, especially in the early months. The frequency with which Sunak has said he is unable to recall particular meetings has become a source of irritation in the public gallery — the sighs and groans from some of the relatives of the bereaved became louder during the morning session.