Watch again: Matt Hancock defends record as health secretary at Covid inquiry

Watch again as Matt Hancock gives evidence to the Covid inquiry on Thursday, 30 November.

The former minister is expected to defend his record as health secretary during the pandemic.

His appearance comes after a former senior civil servant accused him of displaying “nuclear levels” of overconfidence and a pattern of reassuring colleagues the pandemic was being dealt with in ways that were not true.

Helen MacNamara, who served as deputy cabinet secretary, said she witnessed Mr Hancock adopt a cricket batsman’s stance in Downing Street.

According to her testimony, Mr Hancock said “They bowl them at me, I knock them away.”

Earlier this week, WhatsApp messages shared with the inquiry revealed that Dominic Cummings repeatedly pushed Boris Johnson to fire Mr Hancock.

The former top Number 10 advisor claimed Mr Hancock had “lied his way through this and killed people and dozens and dozens of people have seen it”.

Mr Hancock previously told the inquiry he is “profoundly sorry” for every death caused by Covid-19, adding that it was a “colossal” failure to assume the spread of the virus could not be stopped.