Matt Hancock denies claims he lied about Covid plans

Matt Hancock has denied claims he lied during the pandemic, insisting there is “no evidence” to show he was not telling the truth.

Speaking at the Covid inquiry today, Hancock was shown evidence where he claimed on multiple occasions that the UK had concrete and up-to-date pandemic plans in place.

In a WhatsApp message from 23 January 2020, he claimed: “We have full plans up to and including pandemic levels regularly prepared and refreshed.”

And a cabinet meeting document from 6 February shows Hancock claiming: “The government had a plan to deal with this illness.”

In a WhatsApp from 12 March, he wrote: “We are better prepared than other countries.”

But Chris Whitty, former chief medical officer to England, told the inquiry last week there was a “complete absence of plans” and that the government did not “have a plan that was going to be useful from a prevention or management point of view”.

Helen MacNamara, former deputy cabinet secretary, told the inquiry that by March 2020, she “had no idea that we did not have plans for what was coming”.

A Coronavirus Action Plan was published on 3 March 2020, which Macnamara called “an extraordinary document” and that “much of what was in the document had not been adequately tested or just was not true for the circumstances we were in.” It had been commissioned 21 days earlier.

Hancock called the plan “better than nothing” and defended claims he lied about having plans. He said there were planning documents, such as a 2011 Pandemic Flu Strategy, but those plans were not “adequate.”

When asked whether the Coronavirus Action Plan was “a significantly flawed” document, Hancock said: “It was better to have it out and driving action than nothing.”

Patrick Vallance, the former chief scientific adviser, claimed Hancock “had a habit of saying things which he didn’t have a basis for”.

But the former health secretary insisted he was not a liar, and denied there was no plan.

“I was not [a liar]” he said. “You will note that there is no evidence from anybody who I worked with in the department or the health system who supported those false allegations.”

“Where there have been specifics attached to any of those allegations I have gone through them and I'd be very happy to answer questions on any of them,” he added.

Lockdown

Hancock was quizzed by the inquiry counsel on when the country should have gone into lockdown, and when the alarm was raised.

He claimed he told the PM on 13 March to implement a lockdown, however there is no written evidence of this and it is not mentioned in his memoir, Pandemic Diaries, which is billed as “the inside story of Britain's battle against Covid”.

The former health secretary, who resigned from his role after CCTV footage exposed him breaking coronavirus rules, said “with hindsight having obviously thought about this and reflected on this a huge deal” the UK should have actually locked down on March 2, rather than March 23.

He was also quizzed on why the government did not act earlier on the risk that coronavirus was asymptomatic. Initially, it was thought that the virus was only transmitted when those infected had symptoms.

Hancock said it was his “single biggest regret” that he did not explore this earlier, claiming that although he had anecdotal evidence, he did not have enough evidence to act.

But messages from July 2020 seen at the inquiry show Whitty and Vallance questioning why Hancock had said he had “no idea” about asymptomatic spread in mid-March.

Vallance wrote: “Why are PM and Matt Hancock saying we didn’t know about asymptomatic transmission.”

Whitty replied saying they did know about it, adding: “We will have to put up with quite a lot of this.”

Despite this, Hancock claimed “it’s not true” that scientists had sufficient evidence on asymptomatic testing.

The I’m a Celeb loser is speaking over two days at the inquiry in a module examining political governance and decision-making. It is not the first time he has appeared before this inquiry.

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