Planning for a no-deal Brexit was "some of the best preparation" attainable for the COVID pandemic, Michael Gove has argued.

The veteran Tory, who was Cabinet Office minister and chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster when the pandemic started in 2020, stated the work on EU withdrawal made the UK "more match fit" as a result of it "enhanced" civil servants' crisis-management abilities.

Giving proof to the COVID-19 inquiry, he denied that transferring workers over to Brexit work harmed pandemic planning.

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"The nature, the pace and the intensity of the work undoubtedly placed pressure on individuals and the system, but it also ensured a greater degree of match fitness for what none of us anticipated but what was to come the year after," he stated.

"I would argue that the skills acquired, honed and refined during EU exit preparation helped us not only to have an organisational system that was better in dealing with the crisis, but having a cadre of people who'd been through an intense process that enhanced their ability to respond."

Mr Gove added: "The preparation for EU exit in and of itself was some of the best preparation that could have been undergone for any future crisis."

The levelling-up secretary is the newest high-profile politician to provide proof to the inquiry, which is at the moment analyzing the nation's preparedness for a pandemic.

His assertion that Brexit planning helped the UK's readiness contradicts proof given by different witnesses, including former Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon.

Under Boris Johnson's premiership, Mr Gove was answerable for mitigating the dangers of a no-deal Brexit throughout authorities departments.

Explaining that his staff needed to work at an "accelerated" tempo because of the EU exit deadline, he stated: "I do believe that it was helpful for all of government to be operating at that pace, because we made government more match fit overall for the terrible events that this inquiry has been set up to look at."

Mr Gove additionally defended the perform of "amateur" politicians in resilience planning, as a result of they ask the "daft, laddie question".

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"Sometimes it is only when someone asks that question that we find out that the emperor has no clothes or the pandemic preparedness plan has a huge hole in the middle," he stated.

The inquiry continues.