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.
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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.
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Rishi Sunak also said he discussed the Middle East “very briefly” with the former prime minister Tony Blair at the Cop28 summit in Dubai.
The prime minister told a press conference at the event:
It was nice to see Tony Blair, who’s obviously got an enormous amount of experience of the Middle East, so it was good to catch up with him very briefly on that.
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Rishi 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.
He stressed he was eager to “finish the job” after the plan to send some asylum seekers on a one-way trip to the African nation was dealt a blow when the supreme court ruled it unlawful.
His plan to save the policy involves the signing of a new treaty with Kigali and the introduction of emergency legislation allowing parliament to deem the scheme safe, but this has been delayed.
The prime minister insisted that Kagame remained committed to the deal and it would soon be finalised.
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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.
“Rishi is in the room – contrary to the stupid rules – so the PM will be under enormous pressure to not do enough once again,” Hancock wrote in the message, which is part of evidence that Sunak could be questioned on when he appears at the inquiry.
The reply from Case, who was also not physically at the meeting, suggested that Sunak – who was then chancellor – was in favour of tighter controls when it came to schools rather than the closure of all shops.
“He thinks better to do something in secondary schools (where we know transmission takes place) instead of closing all shops (where we know it doesn’t seem to),” replied Case, who has yet to appear at the inquiry.
A spokesperson for the prime minister said Sunak would not be drawn on the claims because he did not want to get into “piecemeal evidence” to the inquiry.
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Keir Starmer has accused Rishi 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.
Starmer made his comments on the first day of the Cop28 summit, which he attended with the shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, and the shadow net zero secretary, Ed Miliband.
Officials believe the first day of the summit got off to a positive start for the UK given Sunak’s financial pledges on loss and damage funding.
Rishi Sunak say 'climate politics is close to breaking point'
Rishi Sunak is addressing the Cop28 climate conference, where he is speaking about the UK’s climate policies – potentially embarrassing the country on the world stage.
As other world leaders ask for more action to be taken on the climate emergency, the prime minister continued his environment rhetoric – which has been condemned as damaging by environmental charities.
“Climate politics is close to breaking point,” he said, adding: “The costs of inaction are intolerable but we have choices in how we act.”
Sunak said net zero would only be delivered in a way that “benefits the British people”, adding “we have scrapped plans on heat pumps and energy efficiency that would have cost people thousands of pounds”.
He also highlighted his new nature plan – which has been panned by critics.
Despite this, he did tell other countries that “the mounting science and evidence of climate-related disasters prove we are not moving fast enough”, and added that “everyone can do more”.
He called on major emitters to cut faster and said “the UK is leading the charge”.
Follow our Cop28 coverage in our liveblog here:
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Rishi Sunak, who is in the UAE for Cop28, is about to hold a press conference. You can watch that live here:
And you can also follow it live with our colleagues on the Cop28 blog.
Meanwhile, away from the UK, the veteran climate reporter Roger Harrabin, who used to work for the BBC and is now freelance – sometimes writing for us – points out that only political journalists, not environmental specialists, have been allowed into a Cop28 event with Rishi Sunak.
Harrabin says he was “kicked out”.
I’ve just been kicked out of this ‘private event’ - a lobby conference with @rishisunak about to start. I’ve been reporting on climate for 35 years so it’s possible I know more than most Pollcorrs. That’s why the environment corrs are left outside. @fionaharvey pic.twitter.com/IZ4aNBPBfh
— Roger Harrabin (@RHarrabin) December 1, 2023
We have a brilliant reporter in there and will bring you the news from the press conference in our Cop28 live blog, but it is true that this government often hides from scrutiny and one of the ways it does that is by barring specialist reporters from its briefings.
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Lunchtime summary
As we break for lunch at the Covid inquiry in London, here is a roundup of the latest headlines from Friday’s proceedings so far:
The former prime minister Boris 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 the former health secretary Matt 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 UK Covid inquiry has 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 feared Johnson would be under “enormous pressure” from the then chancellor, Rishi Sunak, to “not do enough” to stop the spread of Covid in autumn 2020. In a WhatsApp exchange shown to the inquiry between the former health secretary and Simon Case, Hancock was pressing for information from a meeting on 30 October that he claims he had been “blocked” from attending.
Hancock told the UK Covid 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. It comes after 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”.
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Matt Hancock was warned in April 2020 that there was a lack of testing in care homes, the UK Covid inquiry has been told.
A WhatsApp message, sent on 4 April 2020, to Hancock by his adviser Jamie Njoku-Goodwin, was read out at the inquiry.
It stated:
On testing, do we need to have a specific strand/push on testing in care homes? We are testing hospital admissions and clinical patients at risk.
Do we also need a push on testing people in care? Or at least have some sort of focused effort on testing people in care.
I know it is complex and the people dying in care homes are often people who were near the end regardless, but I worry that if a load of people in care start dying, there will be front pages demanding why we weren’t testing people in care homes. Do we need to get ahead of this now?
Hancock’s WhatsApp response to the message was then read out. It stated:
Let’s have rapid advice on this tying together all the angles.
Responding to the WhatsApps, the former health secretary told the inquiry:
The reason that we did not at that point have as much testing in care homes as many would have wanted, was that we didn’t have enough tests and the clinical prioritisation of who got tests in what order was absolutely something that I wouldn’t have interfered with.
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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.
Unite’s deputy regional secretary, David Thompson, said it was the first such strike in eight years. “This is a big decision,” he told the BBC. “Unfortunately, it has come to this crunch point. People need to get a living.”
Translink said the budget allocation to the infrastructure department from the secretary of state, Chris Heaton-Harris, did not include money for a pay offer.
The Democratic Unionist party (DUP) has accused Heaton-Harris seeking to “punish” the region for the party’s boycott of power-sharing, which has paralysed Stormont. He has denied the claim.
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The former first minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon would communicate with the public “in a way that was unhelpful and confusing”, according to the former health secretary Matt 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.
Asked by a representative of the Scottish Covid bereaved: “What is the issue with the first minister communicating that to the people of Scotland first?”
Hancock said:
There were a number of moments when the first minister of Scotland would communicate in a way that was unhelpful and confusing to the public.
And sometimes, [she] would leave a meeting and begin communication of a decision, for instance, sooner than agreed.
He added:
We found it much more difficult when decisions went up to first minister level, particularly with Nicola Sturgeon.
Because we would find that sometimes some kind of spin was put on what was essentially substantively the same decision. So it was a frustration, I’ve got to be honest about that.
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Matt 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.
It comes after a WhatsApp exchange between the former health secretary and Simon Case was shown to the inquiry, which revealed the then chancellor, Rishi 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”.
Asked by inquiry counsel Hugo Keith what he meant, Hancock said:
I was referring to the prime minister making a decision in principle to take action that was necessary to save lives and then others arguing strongly against it afterwards.
He added that he did not know who the “others” were because he “wouldn’t have been party to those conversations”.
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Matt Hancock feared Boris Johnson would be under “enormous pressure” from the then chancellor, Rishi Sunak, to “not do enough” to stop the spread of Covid in autumn 2020.
In a WhatsApp exchange shown to the inquiry between the former health secretary and Simon Case, Hancock was pressing for information from a meeting on 30 October that he claims he had been “blocked” from attending.
Hancock wrote:
When then? Rishi is in the room – contrary to the stupid rules – so the PM will be under enormous pressure to not do enough once again.
Case replied:
I don’t know what is happening in the room – I am 90 miles away.
Rishi has already resigned himself to the choice ahead – I spoke to him earlier. He is relatively open on regional or national (not least because regional is so wide that impact is pretty similar to national now).
His only question (and a fair one) is about non-essential retail – where obviously we have no evidence of transmission. He thinks better to do something in secondary schools (where we know transmission takes place) instead of closing all shops (where we know it doesn’t seem to).
Updated
Matt Hancock told the UK Covid inquiry that “every decision was a choice between difficult options”, as he discussed the decision to discharge hospital patients to care homes.
The former health secretary 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”.
Hancock said:
I fear that if we had left those patients in hospital – those who were medically fit to discharge – there is a high likelihood that more would have caught Covid and the problem could have been bigger.
He added that he had not heard of a solution to the problem of discharging patients that in hindsight would have “resulted in more lives saved”.
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Matt Hancock has told the UK Covid inquiry that long Covid is an issue “close to his heart”.
Inquiry counsel Hugo Keith said Hancock’s witness statement to the inquiry “makes plain” that “from an early stage” he asked NHS England to consider the issue of long Covid.
He said:
I was alive to it from before the infection reached our shores.
Chris Whitty raised the concern about the potential of some kind of post-viral fatigue syndrome, which happens with other viruses as well.
And then, after the first peak, I was acutely aware of it, not least because members of my family were affected by long Covid, including my mother who still attends a long Covid clinic.
So this was very close to my heart.
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'Trangressions' in personal life may have affected public's confidence in Covid rules, Hancock accepts
Matt 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.
The inquiry counsel Hugo Keith said:
I’m sure you acknowledge the incredible offence and upset that was caused by that revelation.
Keith asked if he thought it affected the “public’s propensity to adhere to rules”, Hancock replied:
Well, what I’d say is that the lesson for the future is very clear. And it is important that those who make the rules abide by them, and I resigned in order to take accountability for my failure to do.
Keith said the resignation “must have been a reflection of the fact that you understood the importance of, or the deleterious consequences of, rule-breaking or guidance-breaking on public confidence in the public at large”.
Hancock replied:
Yes.
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If the government had acted more swiftly in the autumn of 2020 school closures could have been avoided in January 2021, the UK Covid Inquiry has heard.
Former health secretary Matt 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”.
He added:
In the November lockdown we didn’t shut schools, and other than the emergence of the Kent variant, it did get R below one.
So it shows the argument I was making then, sadly, turned out to be accurate, which is if you don’t lock down early, you have a tougher lockdown with more economic damage.
Measures such as the rule of six and tiers, which were introduced to help stop the spread of Covid in the autumn of 2020, “didn’t go far enough”, according to Matt Hancock.
The former health secretary told the UK Covid Inquiry:
In September we introduced the rule of six - there was a debate about whether it should be a rule of eight or rule of six. I’m glad that we introduced it as rule of six, but it didn’t go far enough.
He added that the tiers proposal was first suggested in early September and was still not in place by 9 October.
The top tier within the tiering system “wasn’t strong enough,” Hancock said.
He added that, at the time, he had argued that the government needed to “act now” because “if we don’t lock down there will be more deaths and we will have to have a tougher lockdown in the future”.
Updated
Boris Johnson was 'not willing' to go further over restrictions to ease spread of Covid in autumn 2020
Former prime minister Boris 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 former health secretary Matt Hancock was pushing for more stringent measures to curb the spread of the virus in September and October of that year.
It was shown a WhatsApp exchange between the former health secretary and cabinet secretary Simon Case from 9 October 2020.
He wrote:
We can’t just give up in fighting the virus. We have to stop it regionally now or we will be in full national lockdown in a fortnight.
Case replied:
PM not willing to go further in terms of national mandation. Happy to go further if local leaders want to go further. But PM feels your cabinet colleagues and party won’t support more as national imposition.
Hancock replied:
It’s not national imposition it’s local. What’s changed overnight? When can I make the case for action - this won’t work and we will massively regret it.
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Regional mayors were under “political pressure” to reject the government’s lockdown measures, Matt Hancock told the Covid inquiry.
He said:
Local leadership had up to that point largely demonstrated they were under significant political pressure not to accept measures.
There were exceptions to this, for instance the mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, who unfortunately is not longer with us, was incredible supportive.
We ended up, in Liverpool, with a package of measures that was effective after a very constructive negotiation and discussion.
He added:
Others were not constructive and in some cases actively unhelpful and I felt put politics ahead of public health.
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Matt Hancock's evidence to the Covid inquiry resumes
The second day of the former health secretary Matt Hancock’s evidence to the Covid inquiry in London is under way.
It begins with questions about the tiered system during the second lockdown, when regions were subject to different restrictions.
He says:
My goal was to get R below 1 but I didn’t think the circuit breaker would work in practice.
He adds that it would have risked losing parliamentary and public support. He says those MPs campaigning against lockdown were “coordinating” and gaining momentum.
With hindsight, would it have been better to sit down with the scientists … that wasn’t how it progressed.
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Rishi Sunak said he would issue renewed calls for “sustained humanitarian pauses” in Gaza as it emerged fighting had resumed there.
The prime minister said he would discuss the issue in meetings with regional leaders on the sidelines of the Cop28 climate talks when he was asked to react to news that the Israeli military had restarted fighting against Hamas.
He told broadcasters in Dubai:
Obviously this is news that has just broken in the past few minutes so I need to get into the details of it. It wouldn’t be right to speculate so early.
But I am having meetings with leaders from around the region in a matter of hours to discuss the situation.
We’ve been consistent that we want to see sustained humanitarian pauses so that more aid can get into the people of Gaza but also the hostages can come out. Those are critical ingredients. And, as we’ve said, everyone needs to adhere to the terms of these agreements.
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Gordon Brown has said political briefings against Alistair Darling in 2008 were “completely unfair”, as he paid tribute to his former chancellor following his death aged 70.
In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the former prime minister said Darling was a “compassionate politician who wanted to get things done” but was “always very quiet in the way he did it”.
Darling remarked in 2010 that Brown’s No 10 had unleashed “the forces of hell” against him through negative briefings after he warned of a severe recession in 2008.
The former prime minister said one of the problems of government was that “you have lots of people said to be briefing on your behalf who you don’t even know the names of”.
Asked if he had apologised to Darling afterwards, Mr Brown said: “If there had been a briefing against him that was attributed to me, yes, of course. I mean that was completely unfair.”
Matt Hancock to give evidence for second day at Covid inquiry
Good morning and welcome to the UK politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you all the latest news from Westminster on this bitterly cold first day of December.
Stay tuned for the second day of Matt Hancock’s evidence to the Covid inquiry here in London. He began yesterday by saying that tens of thousands of lives could have been saved if the UK had locked down three weeks earlier.
The former health secretary said his staff were abused by Dominic Cummings and that Johnson’s then chief adviser attempted to exclude ministers and even Johnson himself from key decisions at the start of the pandemic, hampering the government’s response.
“It inculcated a culture of fear, whereas what we needed was a culture where everybody was brought to the table and given their heads to do their level best in a once-in-a-generation crisis,” said Hancock. “The way to lead in a crisis like this is to give people the confidence to do what they think needs to happen. And it caused the opposite of that.”
Hancock argued that in retrospect the ideal date for a first lockdown would have been three weeks earlier than the eventual date of 23 March 2020, saying this could have prevented about 90% of the death toll in the first Covid wave, or more than 30,000 lives.
His next round of evidence giving is due to begin at 10am and I will be bringing you all the latest from that – and any other breaking news stories from the world of UK politics – as it happens.
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