Rishi Sunak put Boris Johnson under “enormous pressure” not to introduce further Covid restrictions in autumn 2020, Matt Hancock wrote in a message at the time that has been released to the pandemic inquiry.
In a WhatsApp message to the cabinet secretary, Simon Case, the then health secretary asked for information about a meeting on 30 October that he claimed he was “blocked” from attending.
“Rishi is in the room – contrary to the stupid rules – so the PM will be under enormous pressure to not do enough once again,” Hancock wrote in the message, which is part of evidence that Sunak could be questioned on when he appears at the inquiry.
The reply from Case, who was not physically at the meeting, suggested that Sunak – who was then chancellor – was in favour of tighter controls when it came to schools rather than the closure of all shops.
“He thinks better to do something in secondary schools (where we know transmission takes place) instead of closing all shops (where we know it doesn’t seem to),” replied Case, who has yet to appear at the inquiry.
A spokesperson for the prime minister said Sunak would not be drawn on the claims because he did not want to get into “piecemeal evidence” to the inquiry.
Hancock was questioned about the WhatsApp exchanges during his second appearance at the inquiry, where he continued to reiterate his assertion that locking down sooner would have prevented a later surge in cases. The issue of schools is important as they ended up being closed in January 2021 amid concern that the NHS would be overwhelmed.
Hancock told the inquiry that “on reflection and with hindsight”, he thought: “If we’d have taken action sooner, in September of 2020, then we might, for instance, have avoided the need to close schools, which in the end we had to as cases were so high by January.”
He also said that he had “gone over and over” in his head about the decision to discharge hospital patients into care homes in the early phase of the pandemic, but no one had produced an alternative solution that would have saved more lives.
Discussing the decision, he said that “every decision was a choice between difficult options”, but he argued that leaving patients in hospital would have made them “more likely to have caught Covid because of the risks of nosocomial infection”.
“It was rational and reasonable to make sure that they were in the safest place that they could be,” he said, adding that he had not heard of a solution to the problem of discharging patients that in hindsight would have “resulted in more lives saved”.
Hancock also accused Nicola Sturgeon of sometimes leaving meetings involving the UK government and devolved administrations before they had concluded and announcing pandemic measures to the public sooner than agreed.
There were occasions when she would communicate in ways that were “unhelpful and confusing” to the public, claimed Hancock, who insisted he had a “constructive relationship” with his counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
However, tensions between the government in London and elsewhere were illustrated in WhatsApp messages sent by Hancock in July 2020 in relation to measures imposed by the UK government, which ordered people returning from Spain to isolate for 14 days afterwards to help slow the spread of the virus.
Before this, Hancock was told No 10 wanted to communicate the matter “asap”, to which he replied: “Me too. It will leak anyway – and the Scots will try to get their announcement out first.”
There was only a brief mention of Hancock’s rule-breaking with an aide during the pandemic, which led to his resignation, when he acknowledged that his affair with Gina Coladangelo damaged public confidence in Covid rules.
“I’m sure you acknowledge the incredible offence and upset that was caused by that revelation,” said Hugo Keith KC, the inquiry’s counsel, to Hancock, referring to footage that emerged of the then minister kissing his aide during a time of strict Covid rules. He asked if Hancock thought it affected the “public’s propensity to adhere to rules”.
Hancock replied: “Well, what I’d say is that the lesson for the future is very clear. And it is important that those who make the rules abide by them, and I resigned in order to take accountability for my failure to do so.”
