Rishi Sunak’s Evidence to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry

Module 9 Economic Response 15 December 2025

Context from the Excluded community perspective

From the perspective of the Excluded taxpayers: the estimated 3.8 million people who complied with the law, and were nevertheless left without meaningful financial support during the UK Government’s Covid-19 economic response. It is grounded in close scrutiny of Rishi Sunak’s oral evidence to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, Module 9 (Economic Response), and in particular what that evidence omits, minimises, or reframes.

At the outset, it is essential to state a critical finding that shapes the entire analysis which follows. In his evidence to the Inquiry, Rishi Sunak makes no direct reference to the Excluded as a group. There is no mention of ExcludedUK, no acknowledgement of excluded taxpayers as a defined population, and no recognition that exclusion affected millions rather than a handful of marginal cases. Instead, exclusion is repeatedly characterised as an inevitable feature of policy design, affecting isolated individuals who would, it is claimed, be supported elsewhere.

This framing is fundamentally at odds with the lived reality of excluded taxpayers. The evidence shows that exclusion was not accidental, temporary, or marginal. It was the foreseeable and sustained consequence of deliberate policy choices taken by the Treasury under Sunak’s leadership. Those choices resulted in millions of taxpayers being instructed by the state to stop working, while being denied income replacement, and then told that this outcome was unavoidable.

This report therefore does not assess Sunak’s evidence from a neutral or abstract economic standpoint. It scrutinises his performance as Chancellor through the lens of detriment, broken assurances, and accountability to those who were left without support after being explicitly told that “no one would be left behind”. It examines how exclusion is minimised in his testimony, how responsibility is displaced onto Universal Credit and discretionary hardship schemes, and how the scale and severity of harm to excluded taxpayers is absent from his narrative.

The analysis that follows places this failure at the centre of the UK’s economic response to Covid-19, rather than treating it as a peripheral flaw in an otherwise successful intervention.

The phrase “no one will be left behind” set a clear and universal expectation of inclusion. It implied that while individual circumstances might differ, all taxpayers would receive some form of meaningful financial support to enable compliance with lockdown restrictions imposed by the state. The subsequent design and implementation of support schemes did not meet this standard.

Fraud, risk and the false justification for exclusion

A central justification advanced by Sunak throughout his evidence for the exclusion of millions of taxpayers is the risk of fraud. He repeatedly argued that widening eligibility, particularly through self-certification or manual verification, would have created unacceptable fraud risk and overwhelmed HMRC’s operational capacity. This rationale is used consistently to explain why newly self-employed workers, company directors paid via dividends, and those with mixed income were excluded from SEISS and related schemes.

At the same time, Sunak asserted in general terms that fraud across the Covid-19 support schemes was relatively low, particularly when measured against the scale and speed of intervention. He presented fraud risk as something that had to be tightly controlled at the point of eligibility, implying that exclusion was necessary to protect public money.

This position is internally inconsistent and deeply problematic from the perspective of excluded taxpayers. It is now well established in the public domain that fraud and waste across Covid-19 business support schemes ran into tens of billions of pounds, with credible estimates exceeding £10 billion. This fraud occurred overwhelmingly within schemes that Sunak describes as tightly designed, digitally delivered and safeguarded by HMRC data.

In other words, the government accepted very substantial fraud losses within schemes that paid out to those deemed eligible, while simultaneously refusing to design any parallel mechanism to support excluded taxpayers on the grounds that fraud risk would be unacceptable. Excluded taxpayers were denied support not because fraud did not occur elsewhere, but because fraud risk was treated as an absolute barrier only when inclusion was at stake.

This asymmetry matters. It reveals that fraud was not a neutral constraint but a selectively applied justification. Billions of pounds were written off as the cost of speed and scale when supporting employees and eligible self-employed workers, yet even modest, capped or retrospective support for excluded taxpayers was repeatedly rejected.

For the Excluded, this amounted to a double injustice. They were first denied income replacement on the basis that fraud risk was too great. They then watched as confirmed fraud and waste on a vast scale was tolerated within other schemes, without any corresponding reconsideration of their exclusion.

The implication is unavoidable. Fraud risk was prioritised over fairness. Administrative convenience was prioritised over equity. And taxpayers who had complied with the system were treated as a greater risk than those who ultimately defrauded it.

Policy objectives versus lived outcomes

In his evidence, Sunak outlined his core objectives as Chancellor during the pandemic. These included preventing mass unemployment, avoiding widespread business failure, protecting the most vulnerable, maintaining confidence, and minimising long-term economic scarring.

From a macroeconomic perspective, some of these objectives were partially achieved. Headline unemployment figures did not reach the catastrophic levels initially predicted. Many businesses survived due to furlough, grants and loan schemes. However, these aggregate outcomes obscure severe distributional failures.

For the Excluded, the economic shock was neither temporary nor mitigated. Lockdown removed their ability to trade, often overnight. At the same time, government support was explicitly withheld. Unlike employees placed on furlough or eligible self-employed claimants under the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS), the Excluded were required to absorb the full economic impact of state-imposed restrictions without income replacement.

The architecture of exclusion

Sunak repeatedly emphasised the role of HMRC systems and data in enabling rapid delivery. He described the partnership between HM Treasury and HMRC as indispensable, particularly for CJRS and SEISS. However, this reliance on existing HMRC data architecture became a primary mechanism of exclusion.

Eligibility for SEISS was determined by rigid criteria tied to historic self-assessment returns, the proportion of income derived from self-employment, and arbitrary cut-off dates. Those with mixed income sources, those operating through limited companies, and those newly self-employed were categorically excluded, regardless of tax paid or economic need.

These exclusions were not marginal. By mid-2020, independent analysis estimated that approximately 3.8 million taxpayers received no support from either CJRS or SEISS. Many were told to rely on Universal Credit, despite having paid significant tax contributions and despite Universal Credit being structurally unsuitable for their circumstances.

Awareness without engagement

A critical failing revealed by the record is the absence of meaningful engagement with the Excluded. While Sunak described extensive consultation with trade bodies representing eligible self-employed workers and businesses, there was no equivalent engagement with representative groups for those excluded.

At no point during the pandemic did Sunak or his government meet formally with ExcludedUK or other representative organisations advocating for excluded taxpayers. This absence is striking given the scale of exclusion and the persistence of campaigning, correspondence, protests and legal challenges throughout 2020 and 2021.

The lack of engagement undermines claims of an inclusive or iterative policy process. Iteration occurred within the boundaries of eligibility, not across them.

Iteration without correction

Sunak repeatedly described his approach as “iterative” and “test and learn”. In practice, iteration focused on adjusting payment levels, extending scheme durations, and tightening eligibility within existing frameworks. It did not address the fundamental injustice of categorical exclusion.

Despite repeated awareness, parliamentary debates, select committee scrutiny and public protest, the government refused to design parallel support for excluded taxpayers. This was a political choice, not a technical inevitability.

Reassurance, confidence and harm

Sunak placed significant weight on reassurance as a policy tool. He argued that confidence and certainty were essential to preventing disorder and economic collapse. For those who received support, this reassurance had substance.

For the Excluded, reassurance without delivery became a source of harm. Many made financial decisions, including the use of savings, sale of assets, and accrual of debt, based on the belief that support would eventually materialise. When it did not, the consequences were severe, including business closures, mental health deterioration, housing insecurity and long-term financial damage.

Devolved nations and Scotland

While economic policy and taxation are largely reserved matters, the consequences of exclusion were acutely felt in the devolved nations. In Scotland, where self-employment rates are higher in rural and island communities, exclusion compounded existing structural vulnerabilities.

The Scottish Government introduced limited discretionary grants, but these were constrained by the funding envelope and policy parameters set by the UK Treasury. Barnett Consequentials did not permit the Scottish Government to replicate or replace UK-wide income support schemes at scale.

As a result, excluded taxpayers in Scotland experienced the same denial of support as those elsewhere in the UK, often with fewer alternative employment opportunities and higher living costs in remote areas.

Value for money and false economy

Sunak repeatedly referenced value for money and fiscal sustainability. However, excluding millions of taxpayers proved to be a false economy. The long-term costs of business failure, reduced tax receipts, increased welfare dependency and deteriorating health outcomes are likely to exceed the cost of inclusive support.

Moreover, excluded taxpayers continued to contribute through taxation once restrictions eased, without any retrospective recognition of the losses they absorbed on behalf of the state.

Accountability and the meaning of “no one left behind”

The central issue raised by Sunak’s evidence is not whether decisions were difficult, or whether officials worked under extreme pressure. It is whether the government honoured the commitment it made to the public.

The statement that “no one will be left behind” was not fulfilled. Millions were left behind, knowingly, repeatedly and permanently and additionally were referred to ask fraud risks time and time again without foundation. The absence of engagement with those affected compounds this failure.

As Sunak and inquiry counsel Richard Wright KC round off a discussion on support schemes, the former chancellor stresses that he was always trying to “do the right thing for the country”. He accepts Wright’s assessment that targeting in schemes often left “lots of people shouting, ‘what about me?’.” But, he responds: “Just because people shout at you and get upset at you, is not a reason not to do it right.” “It’s not always easy, and people do get upset with you,” Sunak says. “But that’s life.”

From the Excluded perspective it was more akin to being left for dead not life!

Conclusions

Rishi Sunak’s evidence to Module 9 demonstrates a clear understanding of macroeconomic risk, institutional capability and political communication. It does not demonstrate accountability for the human and economic consequences of exclusion.

The Excluded were not an unforeseen anomaly. They were a foreseeable outcome of policy choices prioritising administrative convenience over equity. The failure to correct those choices represents one of the most significant injustices of the UK’s economic response to Covid-19.

Any future pandemic preparedness must begin with an honest reckoning with this failure. Reassurance without inclusion is not leadership. It is abandonment.

Listen to the evidence here;- https://bit.ly/Sunak-Economic-Response-UK-C19-Inquiry-15Dec2025