Delaying a Covid public inquiry until next year will allow ministers and officials to ‘rewrite memories’ and for documents to ‘go astray’, Dominic Cummings has warned.
Boris Johnson ’s former top aide said there’s “absolutely no excuse” for delaying the inquiry.
Mr Cummings railed against Downing Street for denying their original plan for managing the virus was aimed at “herd immunity” - allowing the virus to pass through the population, and for people to get sick in order to build up immunity in the country and avoid a second surge in infections.
He told a committee of MPs: “If Number 10 today won't tell the truth about the official plan which they briefed the media about and explained on TV a year ago, what on earth else is going on in there now?”
Mr Cummings made the comments while giving evidence to a joint hearing of the Science and Technology and Health Select Committees, on lessons learned from the Covid response.
Asked if he backed plans for a judge-led inquiry, Mr Cummings said: “I don't know about being led by a judge because often these judge-led things actually don't really get to the bottom of it.
“I think the idea that a serious inquiry, a lessons learned, doesn't start until next year is completely terrible.
“The families... tens of thousands of people died who didn't need to die. There's absolutely no excuse for delaying that.
“Because a lot of the reasons for why that happened are still in place now. Look at the whole debate about variants and what not. This has to be honestly explained.”
He went on to urge MPs to rise up and force Downing Street to bring forward the inquiry as they did during rows over Brexit.
He said: “If MPs could seize control of the legislative programme and say we are in charge, not Number 10, when it came to Brexit and the second referendum, why on earth can MPs now not take control and say it's intolerable that this can be delayed?
“The elected representatives of families of people who died and didn't need to die must get to grips with this now.”
Earlier, the Prime Minister angrily rejected the demand at PMQs.
He fumed: “No! As I’ve said before I’m not going to concentrate valuable official time on that now while we’re still battling a pandemic.”
Mr Cummings added: “There's absolutely no excuse for delay. And the longer it's delayed, the more people will rewrite memories, the mored documents will go astray, the whole thing will just become cancerous.”
Asked why Mr Johnson had avoided meeting with representatives of bereaved families groups, Mr Cummings said he "couldn't imagine" why.
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