1/ Some people are questioning why it matters that an advisor attend SAGE? Indeed, in my time in govt non-scientific civil servants regularly attended similar meetings in a non-participatory or note taking role. However, these were never SPADs who are of course party political.

2/ I remind people that I served under both Labour and Conservative governments so the concern I am showing is not party political. Let me be clear on this, the Chief Scientific Advisor's role is to distil information from experts on SAGE and inform government.

3/ If a SPAD is sitting on SAGE it’s a fair assumption that *they* are at least in part playing this role, one which it’s simply inappropriate and wrong for them to be playing.