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Matt Hancock last night attacked \u201cabsolutely outrageous\u201d claims made about his handling of the pandemic after 100,000 of his private messages were leaked. The ex-health secretary told the Daily Express that the WhatsApp exchanges do not tell \u201chalf the story\u201d and should not be treated as gospel.<\/p>\n
Mr Hancock is considering legal action after he was accused of rejecting advice to give coronavirus tests to all residents going into English care homes.<\/p>\n
Allies alleged the messages leaked by journalist Isabel Oakeshott after she was handed them by Mr Hancock while working on his Pandemic Diaries memoir have been \u201cspun to fit an anti-lockdown agenda\u201d.<\/p>\n
Health minister Helen Whately said reports of the messages gave a \u201climited\u201d and misleading view of the Government\u2019s decision-making around care homes during the pandemic.<\/p>\n
Mr Hancock said: \u201cI am surprised the Telegraph should take the WhatsApp messages as gospel … surely they don’t tell the full story let alone half the story …<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s absolutely outrageous – and the Minister has just confirmed too that the advice was what we did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Hancock\u2019s spokesman said claims he rejected clinical advice on care home testing was \u201cflat wrong\u201d because he was told it was \u201cnot currently possible\u201d to carry out the tests.<\/p>\n
But the latest furore involving the ex-Cabinet minister led to fresh calls for him to quit as an MP.<\/p>\n
Councillor Ian Houlder, a Conservative councillor in Mr Hancock’s West Suffolk constituency, told LBC: \u201cMatt Hancock should now resign as an MP, the local party has moved on from him, and he has moved on from his constituents.<\/p>\n
\u201cMatt Hancock our local MP is there in the papers again… the Conservatives could do without it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that his spokesperson – I don’t know why he needs a spokesperson nowadays – says that it’s a load of nonsense, well that’s to be expected.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rishi Sunak defended the official coronavirus inquiry as the \u201cright way\u201d to scrutinise the handling of the pandemic following expose of the messages.<\/p>\n
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The Prime Minister urged people not to focus on \u201cpiecemeal bits of information\u201d.<\/p>\n
Downing Street insisted leaks are taken \u201cseriously\u201d and said it was for the Information Commissioner\u2019s Office (ICO) to investigate data protection issues.<\/p>\n
At Prime Minister\u2019s Questions, Sir Keir Starmer called for Mr Sunak to ensure the inquiry had all the support it needed \u201cto report by the end of this year\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Labour leader added: \u201cFamilies across the country will look at this, and the sight of politicians writing books portraying them as heroes will be an insulting and ghoulish spectacle for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Sunak responded: \u201cRather than comment on piecemeal bits of information, I\u2019m sure the honourable gentleman will agree with me the right way for these things to be looked at is the Covid inquiry.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a proper process to these things, it is an independent inquiry, it has the resources it needs, it has the powers it needs, and what we should do in this House is to let them get on and do their job.\u201d<\/p>\n
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More revelations are expected in the coming days including messages from Mr Sunak.<\/p>\n
The Telegraph\u2019s investigation suggested England\u2019s chief medical officer Professor Sir Chris Whitty told Mr Hancock in April 2020 that there should be testing for \u201call going into care homes\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mr Hancock described it as \u201cobviously a good, positive step\u201d.<\/p>\n
But the newspaper reported that the exchanges, from April 14 2020, suggested Mr Hancock ultimately rejected the guidance, telling an aide the move just \u201cmuddies the waters\u201d, and introduced mandatory testing only for those coming from hospitals rather than the community.<\/p>\n
Allies of Mr Hancock said that was because a lack of testing capacity meant it was not possible to check everyone entering a care home.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for Mr Hancock said: \u201cThese stolen messages have been doctored to create a false story that Matt rejected clinical advice on care home testing. This is flat wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cMatt concluded that the testing of people leaving hospital for care homes should be prioritised because of the higher risks of transmission, as it wasn\u2019t possible to mandate everyone going into care homes got tested.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe went as far as was possible, as fast as possible, to expand testing and save lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
An inquiry into the government\u2019s handling of the pandemic is being carried out by Baroness Hallett.<\/p>\n
The inquiry chair insisted it \u201cwill not drag on for decades\u201d and \u201cthere will be no whitewash\u201d at the start of Wednesday\u2019s proceedings.<\/p>\n
Ms Oakeshott, who has described lockdowns as an \u201cunmitigated disaster\u201d, said she was releasing the messages because it would take \u201cmany years\u201d before the end of the official Covid inquiry, which she claimed could be a \u201ccolossal whitewash\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why I\u2019ve decided to release this sensational cache of private communications \u2013 because we absolutely cannot wait any longer for answers,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Lord Bethell, a health minister during the pandemic, said the Government had been \u201cdesperately\u201d trying to scale up testing at that point of the crisis but that it was necessary to prioritise who was swabbed due to the available capacity.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe reality was there was a very, very limited number of those tests,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
People who were coming out of hospitals had the highest rates of transmission, therefore \u201cit was sensible and right to prioritise those\u201d first, he said.<\/p>\n
Among other claims made in the Telegraph were that in September 2020, during a severe backlog in testing, an adviser to Mr Hancock helped get a test sent to senior Conservative Jacob Rees-Mogg\u2019s home.<\/p>\n
The aide messaged Mr Hancock to say the lab had \u201clost\u201d the original test for one of the then-Commons leader\u2019s children, \u201cso we\u2019ve got a courier going to their family home tonight\u201d.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cJacob\u2019s spad (special adviser) is aware and has helped line it all up, but you might want to text Jacob.\u201d<\/p>\n