Doom-mongers ‘trying to bounce us into decisions’

SCIENTISTS were last night accused of trying to ‘bounce’ ministers into imposing draconian restrictions to tackle the Omicron variant.

Leaked minutes from a meeting of the Government’s scientific committee sage revealed that advisers are pushing for much tougher restrictions on travel despite emerging evidence that the risk posed by the variant may have been overstated.

A Government source voiced irritation over the leak last night, saying the minutes from Monday’s meeting of sage had been handed to the BBC before they had even been seen by ministers.

And tory MPs reacted angrily, accusing scientists of ‘scaremongering’. Former tory leader sir iain Duncan smith called for sage to be broken up and replaced by a new body that was required to follow rules of ‘collective responsibility’. He insisted: ‘it is impossible to govern properly if advisers are going to leak bits of their advice or go on the airwaves to talk about it.

‘sage need to be put back in their box. they are scientists looking at one aspect of this while the Government has to look at the bigger picture. it is not their job to gainsay ministers’ decisions and try to bounce them into doing something different.

‘You also have to remember that every forecast made by sage has been wrong. On the other hand, the Government has been proved right in taking the decision to open up in the summer. tougher restrictions now, when we have no idea what this variant does, would just be another unnecessary hammer blow to the economy.’

Ministers announced a crackdown on travel last week in response to Omicron.

But the leaked sage document shows Government scientists want to go much further. the minutes state that bringing back predeparture tests for people flying to the UK would be ‘valuable’.

And they say that testing after two days will ‘identify significantly fewer cases’ than if the tests were taken five or eight days after arrival – something that would require much longer quarantine periods.

Labour seized on the advice, calling for the immediate introduction of pre-departure tests. But Huw Merriman, tory chairman of the Commons transport committee, told the Mail: ‘these are the same voices of doom who resisted the relaxation of the barriers to international travel over the last year and were proven wrong in the process.’

A Government source said: ‘sage have been very helpful for the last couple of months so it is disappointing to see this leaked in this way.

‘there are obviously some people wanting to go very hard without really knowing anything. We prefer a balanced approach.’

‘Put scientists back in their box’