Boris Johnson's determination to get Brexit done led to lives being lost to coronavirus, the SNP has claimed.
The Nationalists slammed the Prime Minister after a report found many civil servants were focusing on the UK's departure from the EU in 2019 at the expense of other contingency plans.
The National Audit Office (NAO) found preparations for Brexit took up "a significant amount of time and resources across the civil service" department experts shifted away from their usual roles.
At one department - the Civil Contingencies Secretariat - 56 of its 94 full-time staff were working on no deal Brexit planning in March 2019 - limiting the resources it could devote to planning for other emergencies.
The NAO said preparations for leaving the EU enhanced some departments’ “crisis capabilities”, but also took up significant resources - meaning the UK Government had to pause or postpone some planning work for a potential flu pandemic.
UK ministers have faced huge criticism for the speed of their initial response to the coronavirus pandemic, which saw the NHS and care homes struggling to acquire enough supplies of personal protection equipment (PPE).
Philippa Whitford, the SNP's health spokeswoman at Westminster, claimed the report showed civil servants had been distracted by Brexit in the year leading up to the first lockdown in March 2020.
The SNP MP for Central Ayrshire said: "These findings are utterly damning but they are not surprising.
"the threat of a pandemic has been at the top of the UK risk register since 2009 - but everyone knows the Westminster Government took its eye off the ball to prepare for a possible no deal Brexit.
"When diligent and capable civil servants should have been ensuring the PPE stockpile was maintained and planning the response to any major health emergency, their Tory bosses diverted them to focus instead on their Brexit obsession.
"Sadly, it is difficult to come to any other conclusion than that this obsession ultimately led to lives being lost to Covid, including those healthcare staff who could not access PPE."
Whitford continued: "Had the Tories not been so consumed by their damaging Brexit folly, lessons could have been learned and preparations would have been in place to better combat the pandemic that has left so many families grieving.
"Political decisions have consequences. On top of a decade of austerity, which had weakened healthcare provision, Brexit was a Tory choice for which many people have paid dearly.
“It is as unforgivable as it was avoidable. The Tories refused our calls, and offers from the EU, to suspend the Brexit process and steamed ahead with the end of the transition with cavalier disregard for the consequences."
A spokeswoman for the UK Government said: “We have always said there are lessons to be learnt from the pandemic and have committed to a full public inquiry in spring.
“We prepare for a range of scenarios and while there were extensive arrangements in place, this is an unprecedented pandemic that has challenged health systems around the world.
“Thanks to our collective national effort and our preparations for flu, we have saved lives, vaccinated tens of millions of people and prevented the NHS from being overwhelmed.”
To sign up to the Daily Record Politics newsletter, click here.
