Matt Hancock has been accused of misleading MPs after changing his story on why the government delayed putting India on the travel red list for weeks, as variants were arriving in the UK.
The Health Secretary defiantly defended his claims to MPs - while subtly reversing course on figures he used to back them up just two days earlier.
Shadow Health Minister Justin Madders said Mr Hancock had "misled the House" - and accused him of "obscuring the truth" over the decision.
Cases in India began to soar at the beginning of April - but it was not added to the red list until 19 April, with restrictions taking effect on 23 April.
It was announced on April 2 that Pakistan and Bangladesh would be added to the list from April 9.
The Government has denied being slow to act on locking down travel from India, even as infections surged in the country.
And they have denied the delay was over hopes a scheduled trade visit to India by the Prime Minister could be salvaged.
From a weekly rate of around 114,000 on March 1, cases skyrocketed to 240,082 on March 15 and 372,494 on March 22.
India’s health ministry issued a warning about a so-called “double mutant” strain of the virus - which is now running rampant through parts of the UK.
But it would take the UK government 31 days to require arrivals from India to stay in hotel quarantine.
And the Mirror revealed this week flights were still landing from India at UK airports.
On Monday, the Health Secretary claimed the decision had been made to add Bangladesh and Pakistan to the list at that stage, but not India because “positivity among those arriving from those countries was three times higher than it was among those arriving from India.”
But data published by the NHS shows that between March 25 and April 9, the positivity rate of arrivals from Bangladesh was 3.67% and from Pakistan was 6.23% - neither of which is three times the figure from India, which was 5.07%.
Challenged on this in the Commons yesterday, the Health Secretary insisted he’d been right.
But he subtly changed the figures on which he relied - now claiming the decision was based on overall positivity rates in the countries themselves.
He said: “The positivity rates on which we took the decision to put Pakistan, but not India, on the red list were 1.6% in India and 4.6% in Pakistan, which is three times higher, as I said.”
Three days after Mr Hancock first referenced them in the Commons, the Department of Health has refused to provide a source for this data, or to say which dates it relates to.
Mr Madders said: "Matt Hancock continues to obscure the truth on the reasons for the delay putting India on the red list.
"Without publishing the real data, it appears that the only reasons for the delay was Boris Johnson’s planned visit to India.
"Matt Hancock has been as slippery as a bar of soap over the reasons why there was a delay but the truth is he has been trying to cover up and make excuses for what is now clearly a terrible and dangerous decision.
"He has compounded that by misleading the house with dodgy data and should come clean."
Asked for clarification last night, the Department repeated the Health Secretary’s claim that “at the time of the decision to place Pakistan on the red list the test positivity rate for the country was 4.6% compared to a rate of 1.6% for India.”
But these figures are at odds with reported data from the time.
On April 1, the New Delhi Business Standard reported the daily positivity rate across India the previous day stood much higher, at 6.5%.
India’s health ministry put the figure across the first week of April at 8.4%.
Meanwhile figures for similar dates in Bangladesh and Pakistan were higher - around 13% and 9.6% respectively - but neither match the claims made by the Health Secretary.
The Mirror has asked the Department of Health to clarify the discrepancies multiple times over the last 24 hours.
While they could offer no explanation of Mr Hancock’s figures, a government spokesperson said: “Our first priority is protecting the public and saving lives and the traffic light system we have in place categorises countries and territories based on risk, using the latest data.
“All decisions on red, amber or green list assignment and our border regime are taken by Ministers based on regular scrutiny of the latest scientific data, the Joint Biosecurity Centre’s (JBC) risk assessment and wider public health factors.
“We have some of the toughest border measures in the world and our regime ensured, prior to India being placed on the red list in April, anyone coming to the UK has to test negative and quarantine for 10 days.”
