Matt Hancock ‘was not told about eat out to help out scheme until day it was announced’ – as it happened

5.30pm GMT

Afternoon summary

• Dominic Cummings created a “culture of fear” inside Downing Street and attempted to exclude ministers and even Boris Johnson from key decisions at the start of the pandemic, hampering the government’s response, Matt Hancock has told the Covid inquiry.

• The former chancellor Alistair Darling has died aged 70, a spokesperson for the veteran Labour politician’s family has said.

• Rishi Sunak has said he is “not in hock to ideological zealots” pressing for more urgent action on the climate emergency, as he prepares to fly to the Cop28 summit.

Matt Hancock leaving the Covid inquiry this afternoon. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/EPA

4.45pm GMT

Q: Did you back calls for a circuit breaker lockdown in September 2020?

Hancock says he favoured tougher measures at the time. But he was not in favour of the circuit breaker plan.

Repeat circuit breakers would have undermined public confidence, he says.

Covid rates would just have shot up afterwards. That is what happened in Wales, he says.

Q: Why did you not back the scientists?

Hancock says at that point the scientists were not unanimous.

Q: Sage called for a circuit breaker on 17 September.

Hancock says the chief medical officer’s view at the time was “subtly different”.

Circuit breakers would not have worked in practice, he says.

Q: On 17 September you could not have known the Welsh lockdown did not work, because it had not been tried. Weren’t you meant to be following the science?

No, says Hancock. He says guided by the science, which was different.

And that’s the end of the hearing for the day.