Matt Hancock, a former health secretary, has expressed his “profound regret” for each death brought on by Covid-19.
At the height of the pandemic, the UK was recording tens of thousands of deaths every day.
An investigation on how the government handled the pandemic and what may be learned from it is currently under progress.
Mr. Hancock expressed his regret for each tragedy that occurred when testifying today, saying, “I am profoundly sorry for the impact that it had.”
‘And I also understand why, for some, it will be hard to take that apology from me. I understand that, I get it.
‘But it is honest and heartfelt, and I’m not very good at talking about my emotions and how I feel. But that is honest and true.
‘And all I can do is ensure that this inquiry gets to the bottom of it, and that for the future, we learn the right lessons, so that we stop a pandemic in its tracks much, much earlier.
‘And that we have the systems in place ready to do that, because I’m worried that they’re being dismantled as we speak.’
For the families gathered outside the Inquiry – many who held photos of loved ones lost – Mr Hancock’s comments were deemed ‘disingenuous.’
Jean Adamson’s father Aldrick Adamson died of Covid-19 aged 98 in a care home in April 2020.
Ms Adamson, 59, said of the former health secretary: ‘He just hasn’t taken any responsibility whatsoever for his actions. It’s just essentially a self-serving exercise from him trying to save his own skin.’
Asked about Mr Hancock’s apology for those who died during the pandemic, she said: ‘He’s only sorry that he got caught. He happened to be the one in charge at the time, and he’s now being held accountable.
‘I felt it was disingenuous.’
The MP, who has sat as an independent since having the whip removed in November 2022, was directly rebuffed by one of the relatives outside the Inquiry when he approached them on his way out.
He walked up to Amanda Herring Murrell and started to tell her: ‘I just wanted to say I’m sorry’, before she cut him off and turned her back, saying: ‘Go away! Get your face out of it.’
Charles Persinger, who lost both his mother and wife to coronavirus one month apart in 2021, dressed as the Grim Reaper for the event and sarcastically shouted after Mr Hancock: ‘I’m a big fan of your work.’
During his questioning, Mr Hancock seemed to divert some blame to a lack of preparation done by those who came before him.
Doctrinal failures had ‘consequences’ in areas such as ‘stockpiles, testing, antivirals, contact tracing, and much more widely’ when Covid-19 struck.
He said that, instead of focusing on preventative measures like large-scale testing and contact tracing, the ‘attitude, the doctrine of the UK was to plan for the consequences of a disaster’.
Giving examples, he added: ‘Can we buy enough body bags?
‘Where are we going to bury the dead?
‘And that was completely wrong.’
He added: ‘The problem with the UK plan was that once we got to community transmission, it was wrongly assumed it wasn’t possible to stop the spread.’
Mr Hancock argued that the country needed to be prepared to lockdown early in future to stop a virus spreading, adding that to accept it will just pass between people is ‘implicitly an assumption and a decision that those most vulnerable to it will be hardest hit’.
He said there are ‘costs of lockdown’ and ‘you’ve got to work out whether the impact of the virus is going to be worse than the cost of lockdown, and if it is going to be worse, as was the case with Covid-19, you’ve got to hit it hard and very, very early.’
The Government’s ‘VIP Queue’ for personal protective equipment (PPE) contracts dominated headlines in early 2022.
Mr Hancock added that distinguishing between a flu pandemic and coronavirus pandemic was ‘second order’ when it came to stockpiling PPE.
He also said he asked for more information on pandemic preparedness – in particular vaccine manufacturing in the UK – when he started his role at the Department of Health and Social Care.
Examining a ‘day one high-level briefing’, he said he recalled asking for more detail on emergency preparedness.
Mr Hancock said: ‘I wanted to know about the department’s preparation and its planning processes,’ he told the public inquiry.
‘And I recall receiving a note, I think it was in August 2018, and continued to ask questions.
‘For instance, one of the areas that I pushed hard on was the lack of UK domestic vaccine manufacturing given the importance of a vaccine to responding to any pandemic.
‘And that was an area that I worked on intensively up until the pandemic struck and, obviously then, thereafter, so this was a programme of work for me, on which I iterated with the with the team.’
The UK Covid-19 Inquiry has been set up to examine the UK’s response to and impact of the pandemic, and learn lessons for the future.
Mr Hancock also admitted there was a ‘colossal scale of failure’ in the assumption that the spread of disease cannot be stopped.
He told the Covid inquiry: ‘There’s an irony there as well which is that we were dealing with a live ebola epidemic, with the potential threat that would come to this country as a pandemic.
‘And yet at the same time the paperwork was all focused on a flu pandemic.
‘So the theory written down in these strategies was actually not what was playing out in the day-to-day practice of infectious disease management that we were undertaking as a department and the PHE was undertaking.’
Hugo Keith KC, lead counsel to the inquiry, replied: ‘But Mr Hancock, it’s not just a question of irony, is it? These failings materially hampered the United Kingdom’s ability to prevent death.’
Mr Hancock said: ‘The central failing that hampered the UK’s response common with the rest of the Western world, was the refusal and the explicit decision that it would not be possible to halt the spread of a new pandemic – that is wrong and that is at the centre of the failure of preparation.
“I know that because I was the person responsible, as the category one responder, when this pandemic struck, and all of the other considerations are, are small, important but small compared to the colossal scale of failure in the assumption that it will not be possible, and the lack of ambition, in the assumption that you can’t stop the spread of a disease. We can.’
