UK COVID-19 inquiry|22 May 2025

Former Health Secretary Matt Hancock.

Introduction

A man that needs no introduction having already made SEVEN appearances at the inquiry including the submission of NINE witness statements.

‘‘There was no book or report to pull off a shelf…and there was no-one alive with experience of dealing with a pandemic of this scale.’’

-Paragraph 8 of statement

‘‘No one in public service had handled a crisis of this scale since the Second World War.’’

-Paragraph 11 of statement

‘‘My view is that Ministers should be 'guided by the science' rather than '‘following the science.’’

-Paragraph 53 of statement

Reform of the WHO is also needed to ensure it can act faster and with fewer political constraints.’’

-Paragraph 59 of statement

‘‘Antibody testing was especially important in disproving the false predictions by anti- lockdown voices such as Sunetra Gupta.’’

-Paragraph 129 (339) of statement

Testimony highlights

• Pre COVID pandemic planning wrong.

• Isolating the virus.

• Creating a test.

• Asymptomatic transmission.

• Lessons for the future.

• Defence spending on military threats vs biological threats.

‘‘It’s absolultey critical that next time there’s a pandemic ..because there will be a next time we are ready.’’

‘‘Even BEFORE we had a case in the UK PHE has developed a test after the Chinese had published the viral sequence of the virus.’’

‘‘In future we should ASSUME asymptomatic transmission whether or not we have evidence for it.’’

Statement highlights

‘‘Effectively, the powerful and experienced COBR system was not used properly. This was a major mistake.’’

-Paragraph 29

‘‘ In future the formal emergency management system based on COBR should be used to manage an emergency like a pandemic.’’

-Paragraph 31

‘‘My team and I worked every day with the one overriding mission of saving lives in the face of a virus which we knew very little about.’’

-Paragraph 47

‘‘I supported a new global health treaty to address the need for transparency of reporting, for scientific co-ordination, the appropriate time for border restrictions, co- ordination over vaccine preparedness and other matters. Such a treaty should not allow the WHO to determine a domestic response, but, to maximise its chances of being adopted, should focus on the most important areas on international co- ordination. Reform of the WHO is also needed to ensure it can act faster and with fewer political constraints.’’

-Paragraph 59

‘‘For the future, a rapidly scalable testing and tracing capacity should be maintained, ready for urgent expansion. I am concerned that at present our current capacity is being dismantled and we will find it much harder to scale again in the future as a result.’’

-Paragraph 70

‘‘On 12 January 2020, the Chinese authorities shared the genetic sequence, which facilitated the development of a specific diagnostic test.’’

-Paragraph 74

‘‘On 7 February 2020, I met with Department officials and the CMO to discuss introducing further legal powers to quarantine / isolate individuals as there was a concern that the existing powers under the 1984 Act were too limited.’’

-Paragraph 100

‘‘There were reports that NHS staff were avoiding taking tests as they did not want staff to test positive and then be required to stay at home, impacting staffing levels. I was astonished to hear this.’’

-Paragraph 163

‘‘We need for the future a single organisation focussed on preparation for, and fighting pandemics.’’

-Paragraph 197

‘‘On 27 September 2020, we made The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions)(Self-Isolation) (England) Regulations 2020 which brought the legal requirement to self-isolate into force for those who had tested positive and for their close contacts, and which provided for the imposition of fines ranging from £1,000-£10,000 for those who failed to self- isolate having been notified to do so by NHST&T.’’

-Paragraph 252

‘‘I considered the impact of my decisions upon disabled people, people who were clinically vulnerable, clinically extremely vulnerable and severely immunocompromised, those from minority ethnic backgrounds or lower socio- economic backgrounds and/or other groups with existing health inequalities throughout the pandemic.’’

-Paragraph 264

‘‘We knew that a lockdown would pose particular challenges for those likely to be vulnerable to the virus.’’

-Paragraph 265

‘‘For example, given the enormous and adverse social and economic impact of local and national lockdowns, to the extent TTI shortened the imposition of such lockdown, the money spent on it was money well-spent.’’

-Paragraph 272

‘‘It (test+trace) is a vital weapon in the Government's armoury to combat any new disease and, depending on the transmissibility and virulence of that disease, may be sufficient alone to suppress and contain it without having to resort to further social distancing measures.’’

-Paragraph 274

There was a report of this testimony by the Mirror online.

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