Matt Hancock is at the centre of a furious row over the Government's handling of the pandemic following a bombshell leak of more than 100,000 WhatsApp messages.
A tranche of Covid-era messages from the former Health Secretary and officials have been made public after he shared them with journalist Isabel Oakeshott who helped him write his pandemic memoir.
Today, Mr Hancock furiously disputed the "distorted account" of key decisions, with his spokesman claiming the reports in Telegraph had been "spun to fit an anti-lockdown agenda".
"It is outrageous that this distorted account of the pandemic is being pushed with partial leaks, spun to fit an anti-lockdown agenda, which would have cost hundreds of thousands of lives if followed," the spokesman said.
"What the messages do show is a lot of people working hard to save lives."
The leak throws Covid decision-making back into the spotlight, with a string of explosive allegations about care home policy and availability of tests.
Further allegations are expected in the coming days covering what is said to be an often casual approach that officials took over decisions such as shutting schools, face mask policy and testing.
Here are the key claims from more than 100,000 leaked messages.
Advice on care home testing was 'ignored'
The most controversial exchanges centres on testing in care homes at the height of the first Covid wave, when the virus ripped through vulnerable residents.
The leaked WhatsApps allege Mr Hancock did not accept advice from Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty that there should be testing for “all going into care homes” in April 2020. Mr Hancock fiercely disputes that he ignored clinical guidance.
On April 14, messages between Mr Hancock and one of his aides, Allan Nixon, discussed this advice ahead of the publication of new Covid guidance, which made testing mandatory only for people coming into care homes from hospitals.
Later that day, Mr Hancock allegedly removed this commitment to test everyone going into care homes from the community.
At 6.23pm, Mr Nixon sent a message saying: “Just to check: officials are saying your steer is to *remove* the commitment to testing on admission to care homes *from the community*, but *keep* commitment to testing on admission to care homes *from hospital*. Is that right?”
Soon after, he messaged again: “Update: we can say in the doc that it’s our ambition to test everyone going into a care home from the community where care homes want (‘in the comings weeks’ is the suggested timeframe I’ve been told).”
Mr Hancock responded: “Tell me if I’m wrong but I would rather leave it out and just commit to test & isolate ALL going into care from hospital. I do not think the community commitment adds anything and it muddies the waters.”
The former Health Secretary fiercely denied suggestions that he ignore clinical guidance - and accused the Telegraph of removing a key part of the message where Mr Nixon said: "I wasn't in testing mtg".
A spokesman said the removal changed the context, adding: "It demonstrates there was a meeting at which advice on deliverability was given.
"By omitting this, the messages imply Matt simply overruled clinical advice. That is categorically untrue.
"He went as far as was possible, as fast as possible, to expand testing and save lives. This story categorically shows that the right place for this analysis of what happened in the pandemic is in the inquiry.”
Ex-Health Minister Lord Bethell said the decision was taken due to a lack of testing capacity and insisted "we wanted to test everyone who went into social care".
He told the Today programme that Mr Hancock "changed his view because there was an operational meeting to talk about how you were actually going to test people and how many actual tests we had".
He added: "The reality was there was a very, very limited number of those tests... The thing that held us back was not a dispute about the clinical advice. It was simply the operational ability to deliver tests."
Speaking in the Commons, Minister Helen Whately said there was email evidence that backed this up, but did not give further details.
She said the government "strained every sinew" to protect care homes.
New admissions to care homes from the community did not have to undergo mandatory tests until August 2020. Between April 17 and August 13, some 17,678 people died of Covid in care homes in England.
In 2021, Mr Hancock told the Health and Social Care Committee that “the strongest route of the virus into care homes, unfortunately, is community transmission, so it was staff testing that was most important thing for keeping people safe in care homes”.
Hancock expressed concerns that care home testing could hit capacity
Mr Hancock was pushing hard to meet his ambitious target for 100,000 tests a day by the end of April 2020.
Messages published by the Telegraph show he agreed to prioritise testing in care homes that month - but expressed concern that it could hamper the ability to hit the target.
An official allegedly told him: "Asymptomatic testing sub is reading. Top recommendation is: That you agree to: Prioritise testing of asymptomatic staff and residents in care homes where an outbreak has been recorded within the past 14 days.
"We estimate this will result in 60,000 tests being carried out across 2000 care homes in the next 10 days.
Mr Hancock replied: "This is ok so long as it does not get in the way of actually fulfilling the capacity in testing."
Hancock warned by minister that care home Covid rules were ‘inhumane’
The-then Social Care Minister Helen Whately told Mr Hancock that the extremely strict rules governing care home visits were "inhumane".
The messages from October 2020, published by the Telegraph, show Ms Whately warned him against preventing “husbands seeing wives” as the country was put into tiered lockdowns, with tougher rules in places where the virus was spiralling.
Care homes were closed to visitors in March 2020 and tight restrictions remained in most places until July 2021, meaning many vulnerable people went months without seeing their loved ones.
“I’m hearing there’s pressure to ban care home visiting in tier 2 as well as tier 3. Can you help? I really oppose that,” Ms Whately wrote.
“Where care homes have Covid secure visiting we should be allowing it. To prevent husbands seeing wives because they happen to live in care homes for months and months is inhumane.”
In January 2021, she told Mr Hancock that the Government needed to have a visiting policy "given risks of lives lost through old people just giving up as well as Covid ...and expectation that vaccine = safe to visit.”
But Mr Hancock allegedly replied: “Yes on visiting but only after a few weeks."
Covid test couriered to Jacob Rees-Mogg's child during backlog
Another tranche of messages suggests Mr Hancock's aide helped top Tory Jacob Rees-Mogg get a test for one of his kids during a major testing backlog in September 2020.
An aide messaged Mr Hancock to say: "The lab lost JRM’s child’s test, so we’ve got a courier going to their family home tonight, child will take the test, and courier will take it straight to the lab. Should have result tomorrow am."
There were reports of a backlog of 185,000 tests waiting to be processed on September 11 2020.
Mr Rees-Mogg was approached for comment.
Hancock allegedly met 100,000 daily tests target by counting tests despatched but might never be processed
The messages repeatedly underline Mr Hancock's obsession with hitting his target of 100,000 Covid tests a day by the end of April 2020.
The Government initially struggled to build up testing capacity during the early days of the pandemic as experts around the globe battled to come up with effective tests for the virus.
Mr Hancock was warned by Lord Bethell in mid-April that the ambitious target was unlikely to be met and aides pushed for more supplies from companies like Amazon and Boots.
Lord Bethell said Amazon had more kits that could be sent out by the deadline, and Mr Hancock replied: "If only 20% are being returned then we can send many many many more out."
Lord Bethell replied: "That's true. since they count from the moment they're sent. i'll prod nicely. can you pls prod too."
Other messages with aides show the push for these tests, with Mr Hancock becoming concerned that the figure could be too high.
"IT WILL BE OVER 120,000," he said. "So we should be very very careful that the statos [statisticians] don't accidentally make us look flaky."
Minister claimed system working after 100-mile round trip for test
Then-Care Minister Helen Whately suggested the testing system was "definitely working" when she managed to get a test "just" 50 miles from her home.
She made the 100-mile round trip to get tested in September 2020.
She told Mr Hancock: “Good news from my mystery shopping of our testing system - by repeat visits to testing app as advised have got test for XXXX[redacted] (who is isolating with XXXX) just 50 miles from home."
No one thinks testing is working well, says George Osborne
Former Tory Chancellor George Osborne told Mr Hancock that no one believed his mass testing scheme was going well, the messages claim.
An exchange in November 2020 shows Mr Hancock kicking off over his ex-colleagues comments on the radio where he urged Boris Johnson to make testing his “absolute number one priority”.
“What was this for?” Mr Hancock messaged Mr Osborne.
Mr Osborne replied: “Trying to spread the responsibility from you to Number 10 – I’ve said it before.”
Mr Hancock retorted: “Ok but mass testing is going v well – I fear this looks like you asked for me to be overruled…”
“No one thinks testing is going well, Matt,” Mr Osborne replied, and said he had gone private after waiting three weeks for test results.
Mr Hancock said: “Hmm I don’t think this is right but I can see where you’re coming from.”
Another exchange allegedly shows Mr Hancock pleading with Mr Osborne, who was then editing the Evening Standard to "call in a favour" to promote thousands of spare testing slots.
What does Matt Hancock say?
A spokesperson for Matt Hancock said: "It is outrageous that this distorted account of the pandemic is being pushed with partial leaks, spun to fit an anti-lockdown agenda, which would have cost hundreds of thousands of lives if followed. What the messages do show is a lot of people working hard to save lives.
"The full documents have already all been made available to the inquiry, which is the proper place for an objective assessment, so true lessons can be learned.
"Those who argue there shouldn't have been a lockdown ignore the fact that half-a-million people would have died had we not locked down. And for those saying we should never lock down again, imagine if a disease killed half those infected, and half the population were going to get infected - as is happening right now with avian flu in birds. If that disease were in humans, of course we’d want to lockdown.
"The story spun on care homes is completely wrong. What the messages show is that Mr Hancock pushed for testing of those going into care homes when that testing was available.
"Instead of spinning and leaks we need the full, comprehensive inquiry, to ensure we are as well prepared as we can be for the next pandemic, whenever it comes.
"The Telegraph story is wrong, based on partial, spun leaks - and they did not approach Matt before publication."
What are others saying?
Labour’s Wes Streeting said: “The claim that the Government threw a ‘protective ring’ around care homes during Covid has proven to be a sham.
"They ignored the Chief Medical Officer and people died. How many lives could have been saved?”
Lindsay Jackson of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice said: "The failure to protect care homes led to thousands of unnecessary deaths, like my mum's and meant hospitals became even more overwhelmed and even longer lockdowns were required to prevent further loss of life.
"The consequences of this could not be more horrific and there needs to be an immediate and serious police investigation in parallel with the inquiry.”
