Hancock says he was not informed about eat out to assist out scheme till day it was introduced
Hancock says he didn’t know in regards to the eat out to assist out scheme till the cupboard assembly on the day it was introduced.
Q: Should you had been informed about it upfront, what would you’ve got stated?
I don’t know, Hancock says.
Q: However as secretary of state you had been plainly on the facet of warning.
Hancock says it was necessary, general, to make sure there was not an excessive amount of opening up. The precise combination of measures was much less necessary. Ultimately there was an excessive amount of opening up, he says.
However he says on the time he was additionally making an attempt to get funding to assist individuals who examined constructive to isolate.
(Hancock appears to be implying that he had a motive to not choose a combat with the Treasury, however he doesn’t say that explicitly.)
Q: Did you specific reservations about it?
Hancock says he argued towards it being prolonged. And it was not prolonged.
He says the federal government had an R finances, and it may introduce varied measures so long as collectively they didn’t push R above one.
He repeats the purpose about wanting cash from the Treasury, this time saying explicity that he was motivated by the need to maintain the chancellor onside.
Key occasions
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Hancock says he was not told about eat out to help out scheme until day it was announced
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Hancock’s media adviser questioned his claim goverment had ‘locked down care homes before rest of country’, inquiry told
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Hancock accepts comment about throwing ‘protective ring’ about care homes gave wrong impression
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Cabinet secretary Mark Sedwill thought Hancock hit testing target via ‘creative counting’, inquiry hears
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Hancock says there’s ‘spectacular imbalance’ between spending to counter military threats and health threats
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Alba party calls for referendum on giving Scottish parliament power to negotiate independence
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Hancock defends saying increasing testing and contact tracing ‘in hand’ on 14 March 2020
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Hancock says, with hindsight, lockdown should have started on 2 March 2020, cutting death toll in first wave by 90%
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Politicians from across political spectrum pay tribute to Alistair Darling
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Starmer pays tribute to Darling, saying his ‘calm expertise and honesty’ helped UK through financial crisis
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Former Labour chancellor Alistair Darling has died, aged 70, his family says
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Hancock says Cummings created ‘culture of fear’ in No 10 which undermined effectiveness of Covid response
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Hancock denies being liar and says Cummings to blame for ‘toxic culture’ in No 10
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Hancock says his ‘single biggest regret’ is not insisting on policy being based on assumption of asymptomatic transmission
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Sunak claims he is ‘not in hock to ideological zealots’ over climate crisis
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No written evidence to support Hancock’s claim he told Johnson on 13 March 2020 to order lockdown, inquiry hears
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Hancock claimed UK ‘better prepared than other countries’ for Covid on 12 March 2020, inquiry hears
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Hancock dismisses claims he was over-confident, saying he had to keep system ‘driving forward’
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Hancock says he was trying to ‘raise the alarm’ about Covid early, but ignored by No 10
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Hancock claims diary evidence showing DHSC was seen by No 10 as chaotic shows there was ‘toxic culture’ in Downing Street
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Matt Hancock starts giving evidence to Covid inquiry
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Boris Johnson to give evidence to Covid inquiry all Wednesday and Thursday next week, inquiry says
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Dominic Cummings’ list of examples of when he says Hancock lied to No 10 about Covid
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What previous witnesses to Covid inquiry have said about Hancock
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Matt Hancock appears at Covid inquiry
Keith reveals the inquiry textual content messages between Hancock and Simon Case, the cupboard secretary, from August 2020 displaying that the Treasury and No 10 had been warned on the time eat out to assist out was pushing up Covid instances.
Hancock defends not saying this publicly, saying he abided by collective accountability.
Hancock says he was not informed about eat out to assist out scheme till day it was introduced
Hancock says he didn’t know in regards to the eat out to assist out scheme till the cupboard assembly on the day it was introduced.
Q: Should you had been informed about it upfront, what would you’ve got stated?
I don’t know, Hancock says.
Q: However as secretary of state you had been plainly on the facet of warning.
Hancock says it was necessary, general, to make sure there was not an excessive amount of opening up. The precise combination of measures was much less necessary. Ultimately there was an excessive amount of opening up, he says.
However he says on the time he was additionally making an attempt to get funding to assist individuals who examined constructive to isolate.
(Hancock appears to be implying that he had a motive to not choose a combat with the Treasury, however he doesn’t say that explicitly.)
Q: Did you specific reservations about it?
Hancock says he argued towards it being prolonged. And it was not prolonged.
He says the federal government had an R finances, and it may introduce varied measures so long as collectively they didn’t push R above one.
He repeats the purpose about wanting cash from the Treasury, this time saying explicity that he was motivated by the need to maintain the chancellor onside.
Hancock’s media adviser questioned his declare goverment had ‘locked down care properties earlier than remainder of nation’, inquiry informed
Keith confirmed the inquiry an alternate of messages displaying that on 13 Could 2020 Hancock’s media adviser, Jamie Njoku-Goodwin, informed Hancock that he was involved that there was little proof to justify Hancock telling Boris Johnson that the federal government had “locked down care properties earlier than the remainder of the nation”.
Hancock accepts remark about throwing ‘protecting ring’ about care properties gave mistaken impression
Keith says on 15 Could Hancock stated at a No 10 press convention:
Proper from the beginning, we’ve tried to throw a protecting ring round our care properties.
Q: Do you settle for that that was open to misinterpretation, and that that implied protections had been in place initially?
Hancock says he understands “why individuals really feel strongly about this”. On the press convention he went on to clarify what he meant. He had listed measures being taken by the federal government.
He was making an attempt to summarise the measures being taken.
Q: Prof Van-Tam says a hoop is a circle and not using a break? However the measures weren’t an unbroken circle of safety.
Hancock says Van-Tam is correct.
Cupboard secretary Mark Sedwill thought Hancock hit testing goal by way of ‘artistic counting’, inquiry hears
Keith reveals Hancock a message he received from Mark Sedwill on 1 Could 2020 congratulating him on assembly his goal to get testing as much as 100,000 checks per day. It was extensively stated that Hancock solely met this goal by fiddling the methodology, and Sedwill appears to acknowledge this, congratulating Hancock on “artistic counting”.
Requested if he was engaged in artistic counting, Hancock rejects that. He says he achieved the goal on each attainable measure.
Hancock says there’s ‘spectacular imbalance’ between spending to counter navy threats and well being threats
Hancock says the federal government spends £50bn on defence. Nevertheless it spends lower than £500m on the UK Health Safety Company. That’s lower than 1% of spending happening well being safety.
But well being safety failings have killed extra civilians than terrorism has, he says. He says that may be a “spectacular imbalance”.
And he says the top of UKHSA ought to sit in on the nationwide safety council the entire time, as an alternative of simply when well being subjects are being mentioned.
Referring to what he stated earlier about initially being refused permission to carry a Cobra assembly in January (see 12.36am), he says that if he had gone to the cupboard secretary and stated there was a 50/50 probability of a terror assault killing 100,000 individuals, there would have been a Cobra assembly – and the PM would have chaired it.
Keith asks about Public Health England.
Hancock says its scientific work was excellent. At one level it was doing half the genomic sequencing on the planet.
Nevertheless it didn’t have the capability to scale up, he says.
And he says it didn’t need to have interaction with non-public corporations in a position to assist increase testing capability.
Again on the Covid inquiry, Hugo Keith KC reveals Hancock a paper with referenes to what was stated at Sage at varied factors about what harm could be carried out to the NHS by a pandemic. Right here is one entry.
Q: Did the federal government have a view as to when the NHS can be overwhelmed?
Hancock says nobody absolutely knew what that might appear to be, “however we knew it could be catastrophic”.
This could imply individuals going with out therapy, Hancock says. And he says he was decided that might not occur.
He says the disaster level would depend upon varied elements, like staffing ratios. In intensive care it’s usually one member of workers to at least one affected person. Throughout Covid, at some factors that went as much as one to 6 sufferers.
The NHS would have survived, he says.
However he says, if it had been overwhelmed, it could not have been in a position to provide care to everybody.
Alba celebration requires referendum on giving Scottish parliament energy to barter independence
Libby Brooks
In a transfer that seems as a lot designed to additional annoy the SNP authorities as advance the reason for independence, Alex Salmond’s Alba celebration is proposing a referendum on whether or not the powers of the Scottish parliament needs to be prolonged to incorporate the ability to legislate for and negotiate independence.
The previous SNP management candidate Ash Regan, who defected to Alba final month, informed a press convention this morning that she would introduce a member’s invoice to seek the advice of the individuals of Scotland 10 years on from the 2014 independence referendum.
However Regan admitted that she had not but spoken to any fellow MSPs about her plan – a member’s invoice wants 18 proposers from three events – however stated she noticed “no motive” why the Scottish authorities wouldn’t again it. She did this whereas sitting alongside the Alba chief, Alex Salmond, who final week launched a multi-million pound damages declare towards the exact same Scottish authorities.
Regan additionally famous that the parliament’s non-government payments division is already “at capability”.
Salmond boasted that “hardly a day goes by” when he doesn’t communicate to SNP parliamentarians, however wouldn’t title any SNP MSPs he thought prone to help the invoice.
Salmond additionally revealed that the proposed invoice had been his plan B in 2012 within the occasion of David Cameron refusing an independence referendum.
Each Salmond and Regan insisted their plan, which features a “session” with the broader independence motion, would break the constitutional logjam round a route to a different referendum.
At SNP convention in October, the celebration chief and first minister Humza Yousaf urged members to cease speaking about course of and persuade voters how independence was related to the price of residing disaster. The celebration additionally agreed that if the SNP wins a majority of Scotland’s Westminster seats on the normal election, it’ll have the mandate to barter independence with the UK authorities.
The Covid inquiry has stopped for a 10-minute break.
