All we learnt from Matt Hancock Covid Inquiry grilling together with on love affair

Matt Hancock has endured a two-day grilling on the Covid Inquiry the place he confronted questions on deaths in care houses and the essential selections to impose lockdowns.

Quizzed beneath oath the previous Health Secretary admitted his notorious declare to have thrown a “protective ring” round care houses was mistaken and insisted he pushed for an early lockdown.

He additionally claimed that “many, many lives” would have been saved if Boris Johnson had ordered the primary nationwide lockdown at the start of March 2020.

His rule-breaking affair along with his former aide, which led to his resignation, additionally got here beneath the highlight as he admitted it had a dangerous affect on public confidence throughout the disaster.

Here The Mirror seems to be at a number of the key moments from the previous Health Secretary’s two-day look.

First Covid lockdown was three weeks too late

“Many, many” lives had been misplaced because the UK went into lockdown three weeks later than it ought to have, Mr Hancock admitted. He mentioned he was advised the huge loss of life toll was a “reasonable worst case scenario” on February 27, 2020. But the primary nationwide lockdown was not launched till a number of weeks later, on March 23.

Mr Hancock mentioned: “With hindsight – Italy having locked down initially, locally in Lombardy on January 21, and then nationally locked down around also February 28… If that moment, we’d realised that it was definitely coming and the reasonable worst case scenario was as awful as it was, that is the moment we should have acted.

“And we had the doctrine I proposed, which is as quickly as you’ve got to lock down, you lock down as quickly as potential, then we’d have gotten the lockdown carried out over that weekend on March 2 – three weeks sooner than earlier than.”

Boris Johnson faced ‘enormous pressure’ from Rishi Sunak

As the debate raged over whether to lockdown the country for a second time in the autumn of 2022 Mr Hancock said the Rishi Sunak would have put “huge stress” on the previous PM Boris Johnson.

A WhatsApp exchange from October 2020 between Mr Hancock and Cabinet Secretary Simon Case showed how Mr Hancock was pressing for information from a meeting on October 30 that he claims he was “blocked” from attending.

It suggested Mr Sunak was in favour of tighter controls when it came to schools, rather than the closure of all shops. Mr Hancock wrote: “When then? Rishi is within the room – opposite to the silly guidelines – so the PM will probably be beneath huge stress to not do sufficient as soon as once more.”

Mr Case replied: “I do not know what is occurring within the room – I’m 90 miles away. “Rishi has already resigned himself to the choice ahead – I spoke to him earlier. “He is comparatively open on regional or nationwide (not least as a result of regional is so large that affect is fairly much like nationwide now). “His only question (and a fair one) is about nonessential retail – where obviously we have no evidence of transmission.

“He thinks higher to do one thing in secondary faculties (the place we all know transmission takes place) as an alternative of closing all outlets (the place we all know it does not appear to).”

Care home ‘protective ring’ claim boast was wrong

The infamous claim from Mr Hancock that a “protecting ring” was thrown around care homes came under the spotlight during the two-day hearing. Hugo Keith KC said the phrase had suggested “an impermeable barrier” in the care sector.

He quoted England’s former deputy chief medical officer, Professor Sir Jonathan Van-Tam, who had told the inquiry: “My view is a ring is a circle without a break in it.” Hancock, who said he understood why people “feel strongly about this”, replied: “It is quite clear from the evidence that Professor Van-Tam is right.”

On the second day of the hearing Mr Hancock was also told he was warned in April 2020 about the need for a “targeted effort” on testing people in care homes. There were nearly 27,000 excess deaths in care homes in England and Wales during this time compared to the 2015-19 average.

Impact of rule-busting affair with aide

Mr Hancock admitted his rule-busting affair with his former aide Gina Coladangelo had a damaging impact on public confidence during the Covid crisis.

The former Health Secretary faced an excruciating grilling as he appeared at the Covid Inquiry today. He was forced to quit in June 2021 after he was caught breaching social distancing guidance by kissing his colleague in his government office.

Mr Hancock stayed in his job when CCTV footage first emerged, but stood down three days later amid public fury. Lead counsel Hugo Keith KC told him: “I’m sure you acknowledge the incredible offence and upset that was caused by that revelation.” Mr Hancock said: “What I’d say is that the lesson for the future is very clear. It is important that those who make the rules abide by them and I resigned in order to take accountability for my failure to do that.”

Mr Keith said the resignation “should have been a mirrored image of the truth that you understood the significance of, or the deleterious penalties of, rule-breaking or guidance-breaking on public confidence within the public at massive”. Mr Hancock replied: “Yes”.

‘Creative counting’ on Covid tests

The UK’s top senior civil servant congratulated Hancock on using “inventive counting” to claim he’d met his 100,000-a-day Covid test target.

The then-Health Secretary pledged to achieve the goal by the end of April 2020. At a Downing Street press conference, Hancock boasted the target had been met with 122,000 tests on April 30. But it emerged the figure included 40,000 tests that were sent out but had not been used or processed. The total number of tests processed in a day did not reach 100,000 until June 2020.

Lord Sedwill, who was the Cabinet Secretary at the time, sent Hancock a WhatsApp on May 1 to congratulate him. He wrote: “Hi Matt. Well carried out this night. Creative counting and 122k!” Hancock was yesterday asked if he accepted or rejected the creative counting suggestion. He replied: “I reject it, and on each completely different approach you would probably depend these measures, we hit that concentrate on.”

Dominic Cummings accused of making ‘tradition of worry’

Dominic Cummings was accused of being a “malign actor” who created a “tradition of worry”. Mr Hancock said the former No10 official sought to exert influence over decision making in a way that was “inappropriate in a democracy” as Covid spread.

The former Health Secretary also accused Mr Cummings of bypassing emergency COBRA meetings and instead taking major decisions into his office. He added: “He invited a subset of the individuals who wanted to be there to those conferences.

“He didn’t regard ministers as a valuable contribution to decision making as far as I could see in the crisis or, indeed, any other time.” Mr Hancock mentioned the “toxic culture” in authorities was “essentially caused by the chief adviser [Cummings]” and the affect was that “others were brought into it”.

Concerns PM and Hancock had been attempting to ‘rewrite historical past’

Chris Whitty and Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance raised issues that Boris Johnson and Hancock had been attempting to rewrite historical past. In a WhatsApp alternate on July 24, 2020, Sir Patrick requested: “Why are PM and Matt Hancock saying we did not learn about asymptomatic transmission?”

Sir Chris wrote: “I have no idea. We did not know how important they were, that is correct. But we were aware of the possibility.” Sir Patrick replied: “I think [by March] we were pretty clear that we thought there was asymptomatic transmission.” “Yes,” Sir Chris added. “We will have to put up with quite a bit of this. “Just as nicely SAGE minutes are [in the] public area.”

UK sick pay ‘far, far too low’

Sick pay in the UK is “far, far too low”, the former Health Secretary told the Covid Inquiry as he praised the Trades Union Congress’s work on the issue. During the crisis Mr Hancock had admitted on BBC Question Time he could not live on the payment – which stood at just £94-per-week at the time.

Speaking at the Inquiry, Mr Hancock said sick pay is “far decrease than the European common” and people go to work when they should be recovering. He added: “Having larger sick pay would encourage employers to do extra to take care of the well being of their staff.” The TUC has previously warned the lack of decent sick pay left millions “brutally uncovered” as the virus spread across the country.

Mr Hancock claimed to the Inquiry he had been campaigning in government behind the scenes to “considerably improve sick pay”. He said he would “double” the £109-per-week payment if he had a “magic wand”. After his comments on Friday, the TUC Assistant General Secretary Kate Bell said: “Matt Hancock has let the cat out of the bag. During the pandemic, every minister knew our sick pay system was broken but they chose to sit on their hands and do nothing.”

Boast UK had ‘full pandemic plans’

Matt Hancock insisted the Government had “full plans” to take care of a pandemic in a WhatsApp message to Dominic Cummings in January 2020.

He mentioned: “We have full plans up to & including pandemic levels, regularly prepped and refreshed. “The CMO [Chief Medical Officer] is an epidemiologist by background. ESCAPE Wuhan “It is in our top tier risk register – and we had an SR [spending review] bid even before this.”

In response, Cummings wrote: “Great. Am reading about CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and preps for flu pandemic. V worrying.” Hancock added: “Yes. We are about to evacuate British nationals from Wuhan. They say vaccine for WnCoV is at least a year away – I am pushing them very hard on that.”

Backslapping messages with Boris Johnson

WhatsApp messages reveal backslapping exchanges between Boris Johnson and Hancock regardless of the speedy unfold of the virus. On March 7, 2020, the PM wrote: “You are doing great, keep going. Anything I can do to help?” Mr Hancock replied: “Kind of you to say. It’s not easy. You are doing great too. Follow the science!

“There’s one factor I feel we should always do extra on when the second is correct: that this can be a nationwide effort. Everyone can do their bit. It begins with hand washing however there will probably be extra: serving to previous of us if they’ve to remain at house…

“It’s a great unifying clarion call for you to lead when the time is right.” The PM messaged again: “OK let’s talk Mon. Am off to rugby.” “Excellent. Enjoy,” Hancock replied. The PM and his then fiancee Carrie, inset, went to the England v Wales match at Twickenham that day, although there had been two UK Covid deaths by then.