Dominic Cummings created ‘culture of fear’ in No10, Matt Hancock tells Covid inquiry
Matt Hancock has accused Dominic Cummings of creating a “culture of fear” in government that undermined the pandemic response, as he defended his record at the Covid-19 inquiry.
The former health secretary painted Boris Johnson’s ex-chief adviser as a “malign actor” who subjected Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) staff to abuse as they grappled with the Covid-19 response.
Cummings sought to grab power from the then-prime minister while shutting out ministers from key meetings, Hancock claimed.
Hancock played a key role in the pandemic response but his performance was repeatedly criticised by other witnesses including Cummings, who branded him a “proven liar”.
Hitting back as he gave evidence to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry today, the ex-minister said Cummings attempted to exert influence in a way that was “inappropriate in a democracy”.
“As the Cobra system was running in February, the prime minister’s chief adviser decided that he didn’t like the Cobra system – that’s on the record,” Hancock said.
“He decided instead to take all of the major daily decisions into his office and he invited a subset of the people who needed to be there to these meetings.
“He didn’t invite any ministers. He didn’t regard ministers as a valuable contribution to any decision-making as far as I could see in the crisis or, indeed, any other time.”
Hancock added: “In one of these early meetings the chief adviser said decisions don’t need to go to the prime minister. Now that is inappropriate in a democracy.
“I saw it simply as essentially a power-grab but it definitely got in the way of organising the response for the period it was in operation.”
Hancock rejected claims he lied to colleagues about ways in which the pandemic was being dealt with, describing these as “false allegations”.
He pointed the finger at Cummings for, he claimed, presiding over an atmosphere in which blame was assigned rather than allow people to “spend all of their effort solving problems”.
“It was deeply, deeply frustrating… there was also effectively a cultural problem which is that there was a culture of fear inculcated by the behaviour of this particular individual.”
Critics have questioned the former health secretary’s record on Covid testing, nursing homes and asymptomatic testing, which Cummings said he claimed would not work.
Also known for his appearance last year on ITV’s I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!, Hancock’s political career was torpedoed after footage emerged in 2021 of his embrace with aide Gina Coladangelo which broke social distancing guidelines.
But in Thursday’s evidence he insisted that he had taken “precautionary” measures, in some cases overriding the scientific advice he had been given, and described himself as in the “pro-let’s worry about asymptomatic transmission camp”.
Guidance from Public Health England (PHE) during early 2020 was that there was not a need to quarantine people arriving from Wuhan, China, which he overruled, Hancock said.
He denied there had been an “absence of a plan” and insisted his department “rose to the challenge” of responding to the biggest public health crisis in a century.
Reacting to Mr Hancock’s evidence in a lengthy broadside on X, formerly Twitter, Cummings said he was “outright lying” and “talking rubbish” to the inquiry.
The former aide was among a number of senior figures who questioned Hancock’s approach in their evidence, with the inquiry hearing that the country’s most senior civil servant at the time, Lord Sedwill, wanted the minister sacked.
In one WhatsApp exchange with the No10 permanent secretary Simon Case – currently Cabinet Secretary – Lord Sedwill joked it was necessary to remove Hancock to “save lives and protect the NHS”.
WhatsApp messages shared with the inquiry also revealed that Cummings repeatedly pushed Mr Johnson to fire the former minister.
At one stage, Cummings claimed Hancock had “lied his way through this and killed people and dozens and dozens of people have seen it”.
Helen MacNamara, who served as deputy cabinet secretary, also claimed in her evidence that Hancock displayed “nuclear levels” of overconfidence and a pattern of reassuring colleagues the pandemic was being dealt with in ways that were not true.
Sir Christopher Wormald, a senior civil servant in the Department of Health, suggested it was a “very small number of people” claiming that the minister was “actually telling untruths”.
But he added that there were a lot who thought he was “overoptimistic” and “over promised” on what could be delivered.
Press Association – Nina Lloyd, Christopher McKeon, Jonathan Bunn and Storm Newton