Matt Hancock complained that No10 did not understand how difficult the Covid response was today as he faced a grilling at the official inquiry.
Kicking off his evidence, the ex-health secretary stressed his ‘vast’ responsibilities in the brief and highlighted ‘unpleasantness’ from the ‘toxic’ heart of government.
Pushing back at claims he bungled the response and ‘lied’ to colleagues about what his department was doing, Mr Hancock said there was a ‘lack of generosity or empathy in understanding the difficulty of responding to such a challenge’.
He said there were ‘inexplicable’ delays to the Cabinet Office signing off an action plan, and suggested colleagues had not ‘cottoned on’ to the scale of the Covid wave coming.
Denying that planning had been non-existent, he insisted that ‘there were plans’ and some parts of the reaction by the Department of Health were ‘very strong’.
But Mr Hancock acknowledged that preparations were ‘inadequate’ and the department needed to ‘tool up’, saying it was ‘blazingly obvious’ that DoH would have more work to do during a pandemic.
Mr Hancock is giving a full day of evidence as he defends his performance during the pandemic.
In one memorable piece of testimony previously, a senior civil servant recalled how in the early stages of Covid Mr Hancock aped cricket shots in his office as he dismissed the idea he was under pressure.
Mr Hancock quit the Cabinet in June 2021 after it emerged he had been caught on CCTV kissing his aide Gina Coladangelo in his office.
He now sits as an independent MP after losing the party whip for appearing on ITV‘s I’m A Celebrity reality TV show.
In other twists and turns today:
- Mr Hancock claimed that he told Boris Johnson on March 13, 2020 that there needed to be a lockdown. But inquiry counsel Hugo Keith pointed out that was not included in his book on the pandemic, and there was no written evidence;
- Messages shown to the hearing indicated that as late as March 12 Mr Hancock was arguing that the government should be pushing back against people calling for tougher action;
- Mr Johnson asked Mr Hancock in messages on March 7, 2020 whether there was anything more he could do to help, and the then-health secretary answered that they should turn the crisis into a ‘national effort’ to help old people.
Matt Hancock stressed his ‘vast’ responsibilities as health secretary today as he kicked off his evidence at the Covid Inquiry
Matt Hancock arriving at the Covid Inquiry to give his evidence today
Mr Hancock was revealed to have been branded a ‘c***’ and a ‘proven liar who nobody believes’ in foul-mouthed WhatsApp messages sent by former No10 aide Dominic Cummings
Protesters were waiting outside the inquiry venue as Mr Hancock made his appearance
A slew of witnesses have expressed concern about Mr Hancock’s approach, with the inquiry hearing that the Cabinet Secretary at the time, Lord Sedwill, wanted him sacked.
The inquiry heard that in one WhatsApp exchange with the permanent secretary at Number 10 Simon Case – who is the current Cabinet Secretary – Lord Sedwill joked it was necessary to remove Mr Hancock to ‘save lives and protect the NHS‘.
WhatsApp messages shared with the inquiry also revealed that former top Number 10 adviser Dominic Cummings repeatedly pushed Boris Johnson to fire the former minister.
Mr Hancock was branded a ‘c***’ and a ‘proven liar who nobody believes’ in foul-mouthed missives from Mr Cummings.
Helen MacNamara, who served as deputy cabinet secretary, claimed in her evidence that Mr Hancock displayed ‘nuclear levels’ of overconfidence and a pattern of reassuring colleagues the pandemic was being dealt with in ways that were not true.
She described how, in one bizarre incident, Mr Hancock imitated being a cricket batsman at the height of the pandemic and told her: ‘They bowl them at me, I knock them away.’
In his evidence today, Mr Hancock said DoH was left to deal with the early stages of the pandmemic, when the centre of government should have been coordinating.
Extracts from chief scientists Sir Patrick Vallance’s diaries read out at the UK Covid-19 Inquiry complained of a ‘massive internal mess inside DHSC (Department of Health and Social Care) and PHE (Public Health England)’ and recorded that Lord Sedwill said there was a ‘clear lack of grip in DHSC’.
But Mr Hancock told the inquiry: ‘It’s normal for the centre, the Cabinet Office, to be sceptical of departments.’
He added: ‘I think that the toxic culture that you’ve seen at the centre of Government, that’s been the subject of much discussion, was unhelpful in assuming that when anything was difficult or a challenge, therefore there was somehow fault and blame.
‘That’s a part of the toxic culture that we have seen and some of these exhibits that you’ve just shown demonstrate a lack of generosity or empathy and understanding the difficulty of rising to such a big challenge.’
Mr Hancock said he ‘takes issue with’ the idea there was no plan.
‘There wasn’t absence of a plan, there were plans. I’ve critiqued the plans, I’ve said that they weren’t adequate but there were plans in place,’ he said.
He cited the 2011 pandemic plan and the sickness exercise carried out while Jeremy Hunt was health secretary as examples.
The inquiry was shown an exchange of messages between Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock from the beginning of March
As late as March 12, 2020, messages suggested Mr Hancock was arguing against locking down – although he claimed the next day he told the PM there should be a lockdown
‘There were areas in which the early response was very strong,’ Mr Hancock said.
‘Of course, when a pandemic strikes, even if you had the very best plans, those responsible for responding would have to strengthen the operaiton, would have to tool up, and in the early days we expanded the department very significantly and we ultimately brought in army personnel for instance, lots more clinical personnel and we took people off non-pandemic-related work and put them on to pandemic-related work,’ he said, adding this would have been necessary ‘even if we have the perfect plan.’
Inquiry lead counsel Hugo Keith KC cited ‘repeated references’ heard by the probe that Mr Hancock was ‘desperate to own and lead’ in February and March 2020 and he ‘kept too much in the DHSC (Department of Health and Social Care)’.
Asked if this suggests that ‘the DHSC failed to tell central government how bad it was’ Mr Hancock replied that is ‘completely the wrong way around’.
‘From the middle of January, we were trying to effectively raise the alarm,’ he said. ‘We were trying to wake up Whitehall to the scale of the problem.
‘And this wasn’t a problem that couldn’t be addressed only from the health department – non-pharmaceutical interventions cannot be put in place by a health department. The health department can’t shut schools. It should have been grasped and led from the centre of government earlier.’
Mr Hancock said the probe has seen evidence that he and his department ‘repeatedly’ tried to ‘make this happen’.
He added: ‘We were on occasions blocked and at other times, I would say our concerns were not taken as seriously as they should have been until the very end of February.’
Mr Hancock has come under fire over the decision to discharge Covid patients back to care homes, which many believe led to large numbers of deaths.
Earlier this week, Andy Burnham told the inquiry the former health secretary knew Tier 3 restrictions would not work when he imposed them on Greater Manchester.
The mayor accused the Government of administering a ‘punishment beating’ for the city in late 2020, following an argument over financial support for residents who were unable to work due to the restrictions.
Quoting from written evidence from Mr Hancock, Mr Burnham said: ‘He says in his evidence about Tier 3, ‘I was in despair that we had announced a policy that we knew would not work.’
Matt Hancock (pictured during the pandemic) is scheduled for a full day of evidence as he defends himself from claims he ‘lied’ to colleagues about what his department was doing to contain the burgeoning crisis
Mr Hancock has now forged a new career appearing in reality TV shows such as SAS: Who Dares Wins
Sir Christopher Wormald, a senior civil servant in the Department of Health, suggested it was a ‘very small number of people’ claiming that the minister was ‘actually telling untruths’.
But he added that there were a lot who thought he was ‘overoptimistic’ and ‘overpromised’ on what could be delivered.
Mr Johnson and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak are both expected to appear before the inquiry before Christmas.
A spokesman for Mr Hancock said: ‘Mr Hancock has supported the inquiry throughout and will respond to all questions when he gives his evidence.’