BRITAIN’S pandemic response was “too little, too late” with tens of thousands of lives were lost as absent PM Boris Johnson embraced a “toxic and chaotic” culture in No 10, a damning Covid inquiry report found today.

More than 23,000 lives could have been saved if ministers imposed a lockdown just a week earlier in March 2020, Baroness Heather Hallett found.

She said that by the end of January 2020 it “should have been clear that the virus posed a serious and immediate threat” but all four British governments failed to act until it was “too late.”

Baroness Hallett described February 2020 as “a lost month” involving an “inexcusable” lack of urgency overall in government as Mr Johnson was too optimistic in his outlook in the early months of 2020.

By failing to tackle the “toxic and chaotic culture” in No 10 throughout the pandemic “and, at times, actively encouraging it — Mr Johnson reinforced a culture in which the loudest voices prevailed and the views of other colleagues, particularly women, often went ignored, to the detriment of good decision-making,” the retired judge and cross-bench peer said.

Mr Johnson should have addressed his adviser Dominic Cummings’s “destabilising behaviour” that “poisoned” the atmosphere in Downing Street — but similar mistakes were then repeated later in 2020 as the second lockdown approached, all of which were “inexcusable,” said her report into the government’s handling of the pandemic.

She also noted that it was surprising that a government Cobra meeting was not chaired by Mr Johnson until March 2, saying that while he spent the whole February school half-term at the government’s Chevening country retreat “it does not appear that he was briefed, at all or to any significant extent, on Covid-19 and he received no daily updates.”

As the pandemic unfolded, then health secretary Matt Hancock “gained a reputation among senior officials and advisers at 10 Downing Street for overpromising and underdelivering,” the report said.

In a statement, Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK said that “while it is vindicating to see Boris Johnson blamed in black and white for the catastrophic mishandling of the pandemic, it is devastating to think of the lives that could have been saved under a different prime minister.

“We now know that many of our family members would still be alive today if it weren’t for the leadership of Boris Johnson and his colleagues.”

They blasted Mr Johnson for putting “his political reputation ahead of public safety.

“In delaying lockdowns he made them longer, more damaging to the economy and less effective, he ignored scientific advice that didn’t fit his agenda, and he ignored the impact of his decisions on the front line, repeating the mistakes of the first wave and prolonging the second.”

Unison general secretary Christina McAnea said: “The Conservative government’s Covid legacy will be how not to respond to a national crisis.

“Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock should hang their heads in shame for deserting health and care patients and staff during their hour of need.

“Boasts of a protective ring around care homes were a complete fiction. 

“There are important lessons to be learned. Among them, fixing social care must be a top government priority.

“A nationally integrated, fully funded system could have saved lives. And the UK might have avoided one of the worst death rates in Europe.” 

GMB general secretary Gary Smith said: “Workers bore the brunt of the Tories’ inept response to the pandemic — from the NHS staff who died saving lives, to the educators left in limbo by chaotic school closures. 

“GMB members will never forget how care homes were turned into morgues whilst those in No 10 Downing Street partied the night away. 

“Lessons must be learned from this report so such catastrophic incompetence can never be repeated.” 

Baroness Hallett’s inquiry into all aspects of the response and handling of the pandemic is due to run until 2027.

PM Sir Keir Starmer said that the government would carefully consider her report.