Matt Hancock says he is ‘profoundly sorry’ for Covid readiness failings | Covid inquiry

Matt Hancock has said he is “profoundly sorry” for his part in mistakes that ensured the UK was not properly prepared for Covid, telling the public inquiry into the pandemic that he had not properly challenged assurances that sufficient planning was in place.

Echoing the view of several earlier witnesses, Hancock, who was health secretary before the outbreak and during its height, said the UK had made a “huge error” in assuming a pandemic would be flu-based and could not be prevented from spreading.

It was, he told the hearing, “explicitly stating in the planning, that it would not be possible to stop a pandemic”.

“The doctrine of the UK was to plan for the consequences of a disaster,” Hancock said. “Can we buy enough body bags? Where are we going to bury the dead? And that was completely wrong.

“Of course, it’s important to have that in case you failed to stop a pandemic. But central to pandemic planning needs to be how do you stop that disaster from happening in the first place? How do you suppress the virus?”

Hugo Keith KC, the lead counsel for the inquiry, challenged Hancock as to why in the 18 months he served as health secretary before Covid he did not seek to change this, given what he said were worries he had over areas including vaccines and testing.

“Because I was assured that the UK planning was among the best and in some instances the best in the world,” Hancock said. “Of course, with hindsight, I wish I’d spent that short period of time as health secretary before the pandemic struck changing the entire attitude to how we respond to a pandemic.”

There had been, Hancock went on, a “huge error in the doctrine” ahead of the Covid. Sounding emotional, he added: “If I may say so, I am profoundly sorry, for the impact that had, I’m profoundly sorry for each death that has occurred. And I also understand why, for some, it will be hard to take that apology from me.

“I understand that, I get it. But it is honest and heartfelt. And I’m not very good at talking about my emotions on how I feel. But that is honest and true. And all I can do is ensure that this inquiry gets to the bottom of it, and that for the future we learn the right lessons, so that we stop a pandemic in its tracks much, much earlier.”

Hancock said that while he had concerns over both a lack of UK capacity to manufacture vaccines, and the inability to scale up testing, he had been told that outside bodies, including the World Health Organization, had said the UK’s pandemic preparedness was excellent overall.

“You can understand that when you’re assured by the leading global authority that the UK is the best prepared in the world, that is quite a significant reassurance,” he said. “That turned out to be wrong.”

He added: “Therefore, a huge amount of other things that need to happen when you’re trying to stop a pandemic didn’t happen, and we had to build them from scratch when the pandemic struck.”