Keir Starmer has attacked Matt Hancock for “portraying himself as a hero” during the Covid crisis, as the former Tory health secretary battles claims he rejected advice to tests care homes residents.
The Labour leader urged Rishi Sunak to end the “insulting and ghoulish spectacle” which has seen Mr Hancock make his case in a book and leaked Whatsapp messages about his handling of care homes.
Sir Keir used PMQs to demand that the Covid Inquiry properly assesses the conduct of ministers and concludes by the end of 2023 to give closure to grieving families.
“We don’t know the truth of what happened yet. There are too many messages and too many unknowns,” Sir Keir said on the claims about Mr Hancock which appeared in The Telegraph.
The Labour leader said: “But families across the country will look at this and the sight of politicians writing books portraying themselves as heroes, or selectively leaking messages will be an insulting and ghoulish spectacle for them.”
He added: “The Covid inquiry has already cost the taxpayer £85m and hasn’t heard from a single government yet. Can the prime minister assure the House no more delays – that the inquiry will have whatever support it needs to report by the end of this year.”
Mr Sunak has insisted the official coronavirus inquiry is the “right way” to investigate the government’s handling of the pandemic rather than relying on “piecemeal bits of information” after the leak of Mr Hancock’s messages.
Mr Sunak has insisted the official coronavirus inquiry is the “right way” to investigate the government’s handling of the pandemic rather than relying on “piecemeal bits of information” after the leak of Mr Hancock’s messages.
The PM said “there is a proper process to these things. It is an independent inquiry, it had the resources it needs, it had the powers it needs. And what we should do in this house is let them get on and do their job”.
Mr Hancock has disputed a report in The Telegraph that he rejected expert advice on Covid tests for people going into England’s care homes at the height of the pandemic and claimed his text messages have been “doctored”.
The 100,000 messages were leaked by journalist Isabel Oakeshott after she collaborated with Mr Hancock of his controversial Pandemic Diaries memoir.
The messages show England’s chief medical officer Professor Sir Chris Whitty told the then health secretary in April 2020 there should be testing for “all going into care homes”.
But the messages suggest Mr Hancock decided against the initial guidance, telling an aide the move just “muddies the waters”, before introducing mandatory testing for only those coming from hospitals.
The spokesman for Mr Hancock said “the Telegraph story is wrong” because he held meetings with officials on the deliverability of care home testing and was told it “wasn’t deliverable”.
He said Mr Hancock had also convened an operational meeting on delivering testing for care homes on 14 April “where he was advised it was not currently possible to test everyone entering care homes, which he also accepted”.
Answering an urgent question from Labour, health minister Helen Whately told MPs the “importance of testing was never in doubt”, but added “tough decisions about prioritisation had to be made”.
Ms Whately added: “I should mention that selective snippets of WhatsApp conversations give a limited and at times misleading insight into the machinery of government at the time. That is why the Covid inquiry is so important.”
Ms Whately also quoted from a government email, sent soon after the WhatsApp exchanges reported by The Telegraph, which stated that the government “should aspire” to testing everyone going into care homes “as soon as capacity allows”.
Meanwhile, Sir Keir used PMQs to focus on housebuilding and called on Mr Sunak to “bring back targets and planning reforms” or “duck that fight and let a generation down”.
Mr Sunak spoke of the “high numbers” of housebuilding, claiming: “The highest number of first-time buyers in around 20 years under this government.”
Mr Starmer called on the PM to scrap non-dom tax status and use it to fund better childcare provision. “Seems a pretty simple choice to me. So what is he going to choose? Wealthy tax avoiders or hardworking parents?”
The PM replied: “He has already spent the money he has claimed he would raise from that policy on five different things. It is the same old Labour Party, always running out of other people’s money.”
