HM Treasury confirmed that it regards the NAO’s £372 billion estimate of the total cost of the government’s response to the pandemic to be a good representation of the total gross lifetime costs of policy decisions driven by COVID-19, and a reliable snapshot based on what is known now. It remarked that the NAO’s estimate is close to the figure of £407 billion for the COVID-19 funding made available at the Budget, and that it can reconcile the £35 billion difference between the two.11