Sunak spent £2m on focus groups and polls for 'eat out to help out' scheme

Rishi Sunak ordered multiple taxpayer-funded focus groups and polls to craft the messaging of his planned "eat out to help out" campaign in July 2020, despite keeping the UK's top medical and scientific advisers in the dark about the scheme.

- Pippa Crerar

The Treasury negotiated five public opinion contracts worth more than £2m from June 2020 throughout the pandemic, while Sunak was chancellor, including those to establish how best to "sell" the scheme to voters.

The Whitehall department has resisted efforts to obtain details of the focus groups and polls but was ordered by the information commissioner to publish almost six weeks' worth of internal emails, which were released this week.

The documents reveal that it was only the day after Sunak's announcement that anyone at the Treasury suggested asking the public if they were worried about how eat out to help out would affect the spread of coronavirus.

Sunak has denied the £850m policy - which gave diners a state-funded £10 discount - drove a second wave of Covid infections despite research showing it caused a rise of between 8% and 17%, while the economic benefits of the scheme were short-lived.

The Covid inquiry has heard that senior scientific advisers were not consulted before Sunak launched eat out to help out, leading some in government to privately refer to him as "Dr Death" and the Treasury as the "pro-death squad".