Covid inquiry live: Hancock ‘wanted to decide who should live or die if NHS became overwhelmed’

Lord Simon Stevens says Cabinet ministers ‘avoided’ Cobra meetings chaired by then-health secretary

Covid inquiry roundup: Lee Cain and Dominic Cummings provide worrying insight into No 10

Ex-health secretary Matt Hancock believed that he – rather than doctors or the public – should decide “who should live and who should die” if hospitals became overwhelmed with Covid patients, the former NHS chief executive has said.

Lord Simon Stevens said that “fortunately this horrible dilemma never crystallised”, as he told the Covid inquiry on Thursday that it would have to look “very carefully” at the issue of asymptomatic Covid patients being discharged from hospitals into care homes.

Meanwhile, Mr Hancock, who was health secretary at the start of the Covid outbreak, told Public Health England’s then medical director Yvonne Doyle “not to patronise him” when she warned that the virus could be in the UK, she told the inquiry.

She said she was barred from doing media interviews for a time after that, and apologised to him, even though she had been telling the truth.

It comes a day after former top civil servant and ethics chief Helen MacNamara said the “female perspective” was missed during the pandemic as she condemned a “toxic” and “macho” culture at the highest levels of Mr Johnson’s government.

Key Points

• Matt Hancock ‘wanted to choose who lived or died if NHS overwhelmed'
• Revealed: Ministers braced for 840,000 Covid deaths
• Hancock told medical chief not to ‘patronise’ him by telling truth
• Watch: Ministers ‘avoided’ Cobra meetings chaired by Matt Hancock

[8 November 2023 11:42 · Matt Mathers]

Boris Johnson’s half term break was ‘regrettable’, Lord Sedwill

The former cabinet secretary said Boris Johnson’s break from February 10 to February 24 2020 was “regrettable”, as the former PM was not receiving information about the unfolding pandemic, Archie Mitchell reports.

Lord Sedwill said he “would have expected” work at the top of government on Covid to continue.

[8 November 2023 11:38 · Matt Mathers]

Boris Johnson said ‘confidence is contagious’ at February 2020 cabinet meeting

Boris Johnson said confidence was “contagious” too as he urged ministers to project a sense of calm and control at the start of the pandemic, Archie Mitchell reports.

At a cabinet meeting on February 6, 2020, Johnson cautioned against overreacting to the spread of the pandemic and the “economic damage” that would cause, the Covid inquiry has heard.

Minutes of the meeting shown to the probe show the former PM said “confidence is contagious” and stressed the importance of government “remaining measured” in its response.

The minutes read that health secretary Matt Hancock had “taken the right tone”, adding: “Often the significant economic damage of a crisis came from political overreaction rather than the problem itself. This had been true of Bovine spongiform encephalopathy.”

(Covid inquiry)

[8 November 2023 11:11 · Matt Mathers]

Lord Sedwill worried about ‘stupid’ decisions being taken during pandemic

Lord Sedwill believed the government risked taking “stupid” decisions based on projections about the potential for 600,000 Covid deaths, Archie Mitchell reports.

In an exchange of messages with the permanent secretary of the Department of Health Chris Wormald, the former cabinet secretary said the figure touted by Dominic Cummings at a meeting in February 2020 was “twice the number” he had been given.

Sir Chris cited chief medical officer Sir Chris Whitty saying the reasonable worst case scenario was one for between 100,000 and 300,000 excess deaths.

“We almost ended up with stupid decisions being taken in an informal meeting,” Lord Sedwill fumed.

(Covid inquiry)

[8 November 2023 11:07 · Matt Mathers]

Cabinet meeting on February 4, 2020 only heard ‘short update’ on Covid

A cabinet meeting on February 4, 2020 heard only a “short update” on Covid, despite the unfolding crisis, the Covid inquiry has heard, Archie Mitchell reports.

Lord Sedwill said at that time the probability of the worst-case scenario unfolding was about 10 per cent, and the “seriousness of the crisis was not apparent”.

[8 November 2023 10:58 · Matt Mathers]

Sedwill: Covid plans should have been interrogated as pandemic struck

Lord Sedwill has said ministers were repeatedly assured “plans were in place” to manage the pandemic as it emerged, but in hindsight they should have been “interrogated more carefully”, Archie Mitchell reports.

The former cabinet secretary told the Covid inquiry said he “presumed” that plans for isolating the most vulnerable would have been in place from a flu pandemic exercise in 2016.

“But I did not interrogate that,” Lord Sedwill said.

He added that the capability to stop Covid entering UK “did not exist” as pandemic struck

Lord Sedwill said that government officials knew in January that if Covid left China it would lead to a crisis in the United Kingdom.

But the former cabinet secretary said the capability to stop the virus entering the UK “did not exist”.

[8 November 2023 10:57 · Matt Mathers]

Russian-backed politician in Ukraine killed in car bomb - report

A car bomb has killed a Russian-backed politician in Ukraine’s eastern region of Luhansk, local media reports.

Mikhail Filiponenko was a former head of the Luhansk local militia, the Moscow-backed separatist army that had been fighting against Kyiv since 2014.

“As a result of an explosive device that detonated in Mikhail Filiponenko’s car, the People’s Council deputy received injuries incompatible with life,” his son told the Luhansk Information Centre.

[8 November 2023 10:47 · Matt Mathers]

Sedwill: I was concerned Hancock called Cobra to ‘make a splash’

Lord Sedwill did not accept a request to convene a Cobra meeting in January 2020 because he did not want to “unnerve” the public, Archie Mitchell reports.

The former cabinet secretary told the Covid inquiry he was made aware of the virus on January 21 that year and then received a request from the Department of Health to convene the emergency committee.

But he said at the time the government’s communications approach was to “try and maintain calm in its public communications” and the meeting could have been “unnerving”.

He added that he was concerned the Cobra meeting was being convened to “make a splash” about the role of the Department of Health and the health secretary Matt Hancock”.

[8 November 2023 10:38 · Matt Mathers]

Johnson government was ‘more like opposition party coming to power’

Boris Johnson’s government before the pandemic was “more like an opposition party coming to power… than a government that had been in power for 10 years”, Lord Sedwill has said, Archie Mitchell reports.

The former cabinet secretary told the Covid inquiry that was due to the nature of the Brexit process and the “change in personalities Mr Johnson brought in”.

The “primary focus” of January 2020 was Brexit, Lord Sedwill added, after which Mr Johnson’s focus turned to delivering on his manifesto commitments.

[8 November 2023 10:35 · Matt Mathers]

Sedwill: Johnson had to reminded to include cabinet in decision-making

Former cabinet secretary Lord Mark Sedwill had to remind Boris Johnson to include his cabinet in decision-making over concerns the top ministers were being sidelined.

Lord Sedwill told the Covid inquiry he did not believe the cabinet was being as “fully participative” in key decisions.

“I did need to remind him of the importance of involving cabinet colleagues not just in the formal decision but formulation of that decision,” he said.

[8 November 2023 10:19 · Matt Mathers]

Sedwill: access to record-keeping ‘troublesome’

Mark Sedwill said that record keeping during the Covid pandemic and access to those records had been “troublesome”.

“The record keeping and the access to records has been troublesome,” he said.

He did, however, say that he had access to a “range of material” and had to identify what was important from this.