Michael Gove says he wants to 'apologise to victims and their families' for pandemic response

Transcript

00:00 Regardless of whether the cause was a systemic one, a structural one, a problem

00:06 with the Cabinet Office in blunt terms being given too much to do, the reality

00:11 in terms of the impact was very serious was it not? Oh yes. The government body

00:16 responsible for synthesizing the response of government in the face of

00:20 this unprecedented crisis was largely, as it must have seemed to you, not fit for

00:26 purpose in February, March, April, May of 2020. Yes, I want to take this opportunity

00:33 if I may my lady, to apologize to the victims who endured so much pain, the

00:42 families who endured so much loss as a result of the mistakes that were made by

00:47 government in response to the pandemic and as a minister responsible for the

00:53 Cabinet Office and who was also close to many of the decisions that were made. I

00:56 must take my share of responsibility for that. Politicians are human beings, we're

01:03 fallible, we make mistakes and we make errors and I'm sure that the inquiry

01:08 will have an opportunity to look in detail at many of the errors I and

01:12 others made. But I also want to stress that I and those with whom I worked

01:19 were also seeking at every point in circumstances where every decision was

01:26 difficult and every course was was bad to make those decisions that we felt we

01:32 could in order to try to deal with an unprecedented virus and a remarkable

01:43 assault on the institutions of the country.