Government ‘probably did go too far’ with lockdown rules, Johnson sayspublished at 12:46 BST 21 October
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Next is a question from Children’s Rights Organisation representative Steve Broach.
He asks Johnson about the rules around social gatherings – for instance the rule of six, which prevented gatherings of people greater than this number.
Broach says children were not exempted from these rules, and asks whether the government merely saw children through the lens of virus transmission rather than rights-holding individuals.
Johnson responds that the complexity and wide-ranging nature of the rules and lockdowns demonstrates the government “probably did go too far”.
“I think that looking back on it all, the whole lockdowns, the intricacy of the rules, the rule of six, the complexity, particularly for children, I think we probably did go too far and it was far too elaborate,” he says.
“Maybe we could have found a way of exempting children.”
He adds: “Hopefully this thing never happens again, but it we have to do anything like this again, I think we’re really going to have to consider the whole NPI (non-pharmaceutical intervention) system, lockdowns, whether we want to go down that route at all, particularly whether we want to close schools.
“Because it really should be a measure of last resort in the budget of allowances that you speak of.
“It should be the very last one to be spent, to be used, and we’ve got to find better ways of doing this.”
