Closing summary
Here is a roundup of the day’s events:
Messages sent by Matt Hancock said that Rishi Sunak would have put “enormous pressure” on Boris Johnson not to have an autumn lockdown in 2020 which would have meant not enough was being done to halt the spread of coronavirus, the Covid-19 inquiry has heard. The accusation was contained in a WhatsApp message which Hancock, then the health secretary, sent at a time when ministers and advisers were discussing the need for a second national lockdown. Hancock had been pressing Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, for information about a meeting on 30 October that he claims he was “blocked” from attending.
Johnson was “not willing” to go further in terms of national restrictions to ease the spread of Covid in the autumn of 2020. The UK Covid inquiry heard Hancock was pushing for more stringent measures to curb the spread of the virus in September and October of that year.
Hancock has accepted that “transgressions” in his personal life may have affected the public’s confidence in rules put in place to stop the spread of Covid. Hancock resigned as health secretary in June 2021 after footage emerged of him kissing his aide Gina Coladangelo, which broke social distancing guidelines.
If the government had acted more swiftly in the autumn of 2020 school closures could have been avoided in January 2021, the Covid inquiry heard. Hancock said that “on reflection and with hindsight” he thought “if we’d have taken action sooner, in September of 2020, then we might, for instance, have avoided the need to close schools, which in the end we had to as cases were so high by January”.
Hancock told the inquiry that “every decision was a choice between difficult options”, as he discussed the decision to discharge hospital patients to care homes. He said that leaving patients in hospital would have made them “more likely to have caught Covid because of the risks of nosocomial infection”, adding that “it was rational and reasonable to make sure that they were in the safest place that they could be”.
The former first minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon would communicate with the public “in a way that was unhelpful and confusing”, according to Hancock. The Covid inquiry was shown WhatsApp messages from Hancock from July 2020, regarding communications around travel from Spain and quarantine. When told that No 10 wanted to communicate the matter “ASAP”, Hancock replied: “Me too. It will leak anyway – and the Scots will try to get their announcement out first.”
Hancock has said he was “very worried” about “rearguard action” from other members of the government when pushing for more stringent measures to stop the spread of Covid in autumn 2020. A WhatsApp exchange between Hancock and Case was shown to the inquiry, which revealed Sunak was questioning the need to close all shops rather than taking action in secondary schools. Hancock replied he could “live with” those measures but was “very worried about a rearguard action that just screwed us all over too often”.
Meanwhile, Sunak said the government was “finalising” legislation to push through his “vital” Rwanda asylum plan as his “patience is worn thin” by delays. The prime minister met Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, on the sidelines of the Cop28 climate talks in Dubai, although Downing Street said it was a “brush-by” that lasted no more than 10 minutes. Sunak declined to say how much more money he would spend to get the scheme off the ground, PA reported.
Keir Starmer accused Sunak of “shrinking and retreating” from showcasing leadership on the global stage at Cop28 and over the climate crisis. The Labour leader said the transition to net zero could benefit millions of people in the UK who are struggling with the cost of living crisis. But instead, the “smallness” of Sunak’s politics was affecting his ability to show a “seriousness and a want to lead” on the issue.
The former home secretaries Priti Patel and Suella Braverman have been accused of operating a secret policy to deny 1,600 victims of trafficking leave to remain in the UK, despite a court ruling that they were entitled to stay. A landmark high court ruling in November 2021 concluded that confirmed victims of trafficking who had claimed asylum and were waiting for a decision should be automatically given permission to stay in the UK, known as discretionary leave.
A 24-hour strike by bus and train drivers in Northern Ireland has disrupted travel for school children and commuters and put renewed scrutiny on Westminster’s budget allocation for the region. Members of the Unite, GMB and SIPTU unions started the action at midnight to protest against what they termed a “pay freeze” and warned of possible further strikes over Christmas. Translink bus and train services – which included Ulsterbus, Metro and Glider services – were affected. The yellow school buses run by the Education Authority were suspended because of a separate strike by support staff.
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, and indeed the UK politics live blog for today. Thanks for following along.
Updated
The former home secretaries Priti Patel and Suella Braverman have been accused of operating a secret policy to deny 1,600 victims of trafficking leave to remain in the UK, despite a court ruling that they were entitled to stay.
A landmark high court ruling in November 2021 concluded that confirmed victims of trafficking who had claimed asylum and were waiting for a decision should be automatically given permission to stay in the UK, known as discretionary leave.
At a hearing on Wednesday, the Home Office was accused of unlawfully failing to issue these decisions, leaving them in limbo, unable to access the right to work, study or claim mainstream benefits.
The 22-year-old trafficking victim, known as XY, is being represented by the charity Asylum Aid, which brought the case that his human rights had been breached. He escaped traffickers in Albania who forced him to sell drugs for them when he was 16 and threatened to harm his family if he refused to comply. As a result of the policy he was denied leave to remain for almost 18 months, his lawyers claimed.
Updated
