Health Secretary Matt Hancock
(Picture: PA Wire)Matt Hancock will give a Downing Street press conference today after he bore the brunt of scathing allegations by Dominic Cummings.
The health secretary is due to lead the coronavirus briefing at 5pm today.
It comes after Mr Cummings, the prime minister’s former chief adviser, said Mr Hancock should have been sacked for lying during the pandemic.
Mr Cummings told a joint committee of MPs yesterday: “He should have been fired for at least 15, 20, things, including lying to everybody in multiple occasions, in meeting after meeting in the Cabinet room and publicly.”
In one of his most stinging attacks, Mr Cummings claimed that government talk of putting a shield around care homes was "complete nonsense".
He said: "Quite the opposite of putting a shield around them, we sent people with Covid back to the care homes."
The health secretary on Wednesday night said he had not seen Mr Cummings’ seven-hour evidence to MPs as he was “saving lives” by dealing with the vaccination rollout.
As he arrived at his north London home on Wednesday evening, Mr Hancock said: “I haven’t seen this performance today in full, and instead I’ve been dealing with getting the vaccination rollout going, especially to over-30s, and saving lives.
“I’ll be giving a statement to the House of Commons tomorrow and I’ll have more to say then.”
In one of his most stinging attacks, Mr Cummings claimed that government talk of putting a shield around care homes was “complete nonsense”.
He said: “Quite the opposite of putting a shield around them, we sent people with Covid back to the care homes.”
MPs will on Thursday question Mr Hancock on the claims, which include that he indulged in “criminal, disgraceful behaviour” in interfering with the building of the test-and-trace system to maximise his chances of hitting a “stupid target” of testing 100,000 people a day.
A spokesman for Mr Hancock said “we absolutely reject” the criticisms made by Mr Cummings.
