Fifty staff were invited to “festive drinks” in the Department for Education canteen during lockdown two years ago, with then education secretary Gavin Williamson providing wine and mince pies.
At the time, London was in tier 2 lockdown, where gatherings of two or more people indoors continued to be prohibited unless an exception applied. For instance, where the gathering was “reasonably necessary for work purposes”.
A report by senior civil servant Sue Gray says that in early December 2020, DfE began planning an event to “thank members of staff who had been working in the office during the pandemic”.
