Covid inquiry: Matt Hancock denies that he lied about having a plan
Dominic Cummings has claimed Matt Hancock is “flat out lying” to the Covid inquiry by claiming he pressed Boris Johnson for a lockdown on 13 March 2020.
Despite the supposed interaction not appearing in his Pandemic Diaries book, Mr Hancock insisted “further evidence had come to light” in an email he sent to Mr Johnson – but could not tell the inquiry whether it contained the words “immediate” or “lockdown” because he did not have it in front of him.
Mr Johnson’s former chief political aide wrote on Twitter/X that Mr Hancock was “flat out lying”, and claimed to have “physically stopped” the then-health secretary coming to a meeting the following day because he “was bull****ting everybody about herd immunity”.
In an escalating war of words, Mr Hancock claimed to the inqury that Mr Cummings was a “malign influence” who created a toxic “culture of fear” and abused the ex-health secretary’s staff. He described vicious messages about his competence as part of this “unhealthy toxic culture”.
Matt Hancock mocked over ‘little notebook’
Matt Hancock has been mocked by Covid inquiry lead counsel Hugo Keith KC for having a “little notebook” to refer to.
The former health secretary used one of the breaks to uncover new evidence of a phone call between himself and the prime minister.
“You know perfectly well that we have scoured every possible source for documents and materials relevant to issues in this inquiry,” Mr Keith said. “Are you saying that you have a record of a phone call which you have not disclosed at this inquiry?”
Mr Hancock said no, but that he had a record of the phone call taking place.
Minutes later, as he discussed another phone call, Mr Keith joked that Mr Hancock may be able to find the details “in that little notebook you’ve just produced”.
A snappy Mr Hancock replied: “It’s not a notebook. It was a phone record.”
Hancock claims government would have saved ‘many, many lives’ by following his ‘doctrine’
Matt Hancock has claimed that, had government listened to him, it would have first locked down three weeks earlier and more than 90 per cent of those who died in the first Covid wave would have survived.
“If we had the doctrine that I proposed, which is ‘as soon as you know you’ve got to lock down you lock down as soon as possible’, then we would have got the lockdown done over that weekend, in on the 2nd of March, three weeks earlier than before,” the ex-health secretary told the inquiry.
“There’s a doubling rate at this point estimated every three to four days. We would have been six doublings ahead of where we were, which means that fewer than a tenth of the number of people would have died in the first wave.
“At the time there was still enormous uncertainty. The number of cases were still very low. In fact there were only 12 cases reported on the 1st of March. So you can understand why – and the costs of what I’m just proposing were known and huge. So I defend the actions that were taken by the government at the time, knowing what we did.
“But in hindsight that’s the moment we should have done it. Three weeks earlier. And it would have saved many, many lives.”
Hancock claims he kickstarted ‘action’ on first lockdown – which could have been three weeks sooner
Matt Hancock has claimed that his phone call with Boris Johnson after finding out that Covid’s fatality rate was 1 per cent – and therefore in a reasonable worst case scenario could kill 500,000 people in the UK – was the moment government “really started to come into action”.
And the ex-health secretary went so far as to claim that, had government followed his own wishes, the first national lockdown might have happened three weeks earlier.
“I found that out on the evening of the 27th [of February 2020] if I recall that correctly. On the 28th, I was still not being allowed to communicate in the way I’d want on this – not able to go on certain radio shows including the Today programme, which is a very important part of the national debate.
“And I phone up the prime minister and I remember it very well. Because he didn’t take the call and then he called me back and I was in a classroom in a primary school in Suffolk … and I had to say to the kids ‘I’m sorry the prime minister’s calling me, I’ve got to go’. It was quite a moment.
Mr Hancock claims he told the PM he needed to chair a Cobra meeting and said “we need to be able to communicate properly, including on all of the programmes, instead of having this political boycott”.
In the following days, Mr Hancock said he made public comments that schools and whole cities may have to be shut down, adding: “That all flowed from this phone call on the morning of the 28th February.
“I regard that as the moment that the centre of government, led by the prime minister, really started to come into action.
“And if I may say so with hindsight Italy having locked down initially locally in Lombardy on the 21st of January and then nationally locked down on the 28th of February … at that moment we realised it was definitely coming and the reasonable worst case scenario was as awful as it was.
“That is the moment that we should, with hindsight, have acted and if we had the doctrine that I proposed, which is ‘as soon as you know you’ve got to lock down you lock down as soon as possible’, then we would have got the lockdown done over that weekend, in on the 2nd of March, three weeks earlier than before.”
‘Absolutely not’ being enough done on infection control in mid-February, says Hancock
Matt Hancock said there was “absolutely not” enough being done on infection control by mid-February 2020.
Inquiry lawyer Hugo Keith KC questioned him on plans for non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) at the time, saying: “As the secretary of state for health, you have to acknowledge, Mr Hancock, that by the 14th of February, there were still no plans for infection control in existence.
“There was a 2011 strategy report. You had, to be fair to you, commissioned a battle plan. But nothing had been committed to paper, had it?”
Mr Hancock responded: “If your point is ‘was enough going on?’, absolutely not. To the degree that there was something going on, there was clearly not enough.”
Hancock accuses inquiry lead of ‘making same mistake twice’
Matt Hancock has accused the inquiry’s lead counsel Hugo Keith KC of making “the same mistake twice” in saying that communications are not a non-pharmaceutical health measure.
The ex-health secretary argued that in fact communications and legislation are both health interventions, adding: “I am emphatic on that point, because you’ve made that mistake twice.”
The inquiry’s chair Baroness Heather Hallett interjected to say: “I think we’re going round in circles – I think we were here this morning”, before appearing to hide a smile.
I was not reading Sage minutes until February
Matt Hancock said he was not reading minutes of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) until February.
The former health secretary said with hindsight he should have “gone directly to listen” to Sage. He said he did not read the minutes of Sage meetings unless they were presented to him, which did not happen until “some point in February”.
Dominic Cummings, former chief adviser to Boris Johnson mocked Mr Hancock for the admission, saying it “explains a lot”.
ICYMI: Cummings acted as prime minister ‘in all but name’, Sajid Javid tells Covid inquiry
In evidence echoed today by Matt Hancock, his successor as health secretary Sajid Javid told the inquiry yesterday that Dominic Cummings acted as prime minister in all but name and was the driving force behind key decisions during the pandemic.
Mr Javid said cabinet ministers were often excluded from decision-making and it was Mr Cummings calling the shots.
Recalling his decision to resign as chancellor in February 2020, he said he agreed with claims made by others that there was a “toxic” and “feral” culture within No 10 and said he had “not experienced that extent of dysfunction in any government before”.
He blamed the dominance of Mr Cummings, who was Mr Johnson’s top adviser, revealing: “I felt that the elected prime minister was not in charge of what was happening in his name and was largely content with Mr Cummings running the government.”
Boris Johnson to be grilled at Covid inquiry next week
Boris Johnson will appear before the Covid 19 inquiry next Wednesday and Thursday, it has been confirmed.
The former prime minister will answer questions about the government’s decision-making during the pandemic.
Mr Johnson will be the only figure at the inquiry next week, and is scheduled to sit from 10.00am to 4.30pm on both days in a marathon evidence session.
It will offer the ex-PM a chance to answer criticism of his handling of the pandemic, including the incendiary claim that he was “obsessed with older people accepting their fate and letting the young get on with life and the economy going”.
Watch: Matt Hancock claims government’s pandemic preparedness was inadequate
Covid restrictions were not raised in February 2020 exercise to plan for pandemic, says Hancock
Matt Hancock has conceded that the question of what health measures could be needed to counter a coronavirus pandemic if it hit the UK “was not asked” during a ministerial planning exercise in mid-February 2020.
Mr Hancock was asked why – despite it being evidently understood in a February planning session called Exercise Nimbus that many people would die – there was not more generally any debate about infection control measures such as home isolation and shutting schools.
The health secretary said the exercise was based on the 2011 pandemic flu strategy “which was based on the wrong doctrine that the government’s job in a pandemic is to manage the consequences of a pandemic, not to stop it happening”.
He added: “This central question of ‘when do you lock down? what are the triggers?’ … should have been at the centre of Nimbus … at this point it was still 50/50 whether [the virus] would escape China.”
Hugo Keith replied: “It was a ministerial and advisory tabletop exercise designed to try and address the very problem faced by the United Kingdom. And fundamentally there was a complete absence of any attempt to identify what sort of measures might be required.”
Mr Hancock agreed, saying: “The question simply wasn’t asked.”
