Hugo Keith KC, who is the inquiry's barrister, continues to push Matt Hancock on the matter of Exercise Cygnus - the government's three-day pandemic influenza test run.

Hancock says the inquiry would be wrong to conclude that if every lesson from Cygnus had been implemented, the UK response would have been 'that much better."

"This is because Cygnus was flawed in its central assumption about how best to respond to a pandemic," he asserts.

Laura Foster
Health reporter, at the Covid Inquiry

We are two weeks into the public hearings but this is the first time that I’ve seen the lead counsel to the inquiry have to assert his authority.

Hugo Keith KC was asking Matt Hancock to focus on a strategy document rather than discussions about lockdown but Hancock wanted to make a point that was "vital for planning" and was interrupting him.

Keith said “Mr Hancock, will you allow me please? In this forum – I ask the questions.”

“Of course,” Matt Hancock replied as he reached for his water glass and took a sip.

Hancock confirms strategy work by the Pandemic Flu Readiness Board was paused because of the diversion of resources to preparing for a possible no-deal Brexit.

Hugo Keith KC asks if he was told whether the strategy was regarded as "inaccurate and not up to date".

"No, not that I'm aware - not that I recall. On the contrary, we were told we were one of the best places in terms of preparation," he says.

Matt Hancock says pandemic plans focusing on flu was not the central flaw and it was a doctrinal failure across the Western world.

He says: "We've got to be ready to hit a pandemic hard.

"We've got to be able to take lockdown action if necessary that is wider, earlier and more stringent than feels comfortable at the time.

"The failure to plan for that was a much bigger flaw in the strategy than the fact it was targeted at the wrong disease."

Laura Foster
Health reporter, at the Covid Inquiry

As Matt Hancock apologised for the impact the pandemic has had, he stopped looking at Hugo Keith KC and instead addressed the families who are sat in the inquiry room in the public seating.

That wasn’t a brief glance.

He looked them right in the eyes and said he was "profoundly sorry for each death that has occurred."

But his next sentence suggested this isn’t an apology that those gathered here today can accept.

“I also understand why for some it will be hard to take that apology from me. I understand that and I get it. But it is honest and heartfelt."

Pandemic planning wasn't regarded as a number one problem that needed to be fixed, as it competed with issues such as curbing obesity, Hancock says

"This was because they were regarded as one of the best in the world on pandemic planning," he tells the inquiry.

Hancock says: "I am profoundly sorry for the impact that [the UK's attitude to pandemic preparedness] had.

"I'm profoundly sorry for each death that has occurred.

"I also understand why for some that would be hard to take that apology from me."

Focus on body bags and burying dead was 'completely wrong'published at 10:52 British Summer Time 27 June 2023

10:52 BST 27 June 2023

Jim Reed
Health reporter, BBC News

Hancock seems to be moving quickly to his central point: the government was far too focused on how to deal with the consequences a pandemic not on how to stop it in the first place.

He gives the example of planning for "enough body bags" and "enough space to bury the dead".

He says that kind of focus or "doctrine" was "completely wrong".

As a result of this bias in the system, he says large scale testing and contact tracing needed to be "built from scratch" when Covid hit.

Other witnesses, including Hancock's predecessor Jeremy Hunt, have made similar criticisms in their evidence.

Hunt gave the example of countries such as South Korea and Taiwan which had a far better record in the first wave of Covid.

Those nations, with experience of previous viruses like Sars and Mers, better contained the spread of Covid through fast quarantine rather than accepting it would spread through the population.

Hancock, speaking on the the attitude and doctrine of the UK to pandemic preparedness, said: "To plan for the consequences of a disaster. Can we buy enough body bags, where are we going to bury the dead and that was completely wrong."

He says central to pandemic planning needs to be: "How do you stop the disaster from happening in the first place? How do you supress the virus?"

Jim Reed
Health reporter, BBC News

This first set of questions from Hugo Keith KC, counsel to the inquiry, focuses on how well briefed Matt Hancock was on the threat of a pandemic when he became health secretary in July 2018.

Interesting that Hancock said, after reading the "day one" briefing pack he was given on his first day in the job, he specifically asked for more information on emergency preparedness and health protection.

He says he scrawled "more details please" on the paperwork.

He then says he "pushed hard on" the lack of UK vaccine manufacturing given its importance in a pandemic.

He said he was assured the UK was one of the best countries in the world to respond to a pandemic, and in some categories "the best place in the world".

"That turned out to be wrong," he says.

Some quickfire questions on pandemic preparedness now. Here are Hancock's responses:

Personal protective equipment (PPE): Hancock says he was told by officials in his department the UK had a "very significant stockpile of PPE, and we knew the problem was it was extremely hard to get it out fast enough when the crisis hit."

Developing tests: "I was told we were good at developing tests, and indeed we were, we developed a test in the first few days after the genetic code of Covid-19 was published.

"The problem was there was no plan in place to scale testing."

Antivirals: "We had a stockpile of antivirals for a flu, but not coronavirus".

Vaccines: "I was concerned that we weren't in a strong enough position because we were manufacturing them overseas.

"I insisted we pushed on domestic manufacture and sought the funding to deliver on that."

Hancock concludes: "In each of these cases there was a plan, but the absolutely central problem with the planning in the UK was the doctrine was wrong."

Keith now asks what "further briefings" and what concerns Hancock requested to be addressed after getting that "day one high level briefing".

Hancock says he wanted to know about the DHSC's preparation and planning processes.

In 2018, he said he began pushing hard on the lack of domestic vaccine manufacturing in the UK "given the importance of a vaccine in responding to any pandemic".

"That was an area I worked on intensively up until the pandemic struck and then, obviously, thereafter," he adds.

Matt Hancock says he was assured the "UK was one of the best countries in the world for responding to a pandemic" and in some areas categorized by the World Health Organization as the best in the world.

He says his three priorities as health secretary was better NHS technology, more people in the NHS and being better at preventing ill health.

"I took those as my three priorities," he continued.

"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, that turned out to be wrong,"

As we continue to bring you the latest evidence from the former health secretary, here is the moment earlier when widow Lorelei King confronted him with images of her late husband. After Hancock entered the building she was comforted by supporters.

Is government properly set up to tackle a pandemic?published at 10:40 British Summer Time 27 June 2023

10:40 BST 27 June 2023

Matt Cole
Senior political reporter at the Covid Inquiry

Some careful, caveated, language from Matt Hancock about his duties as Health and Social Care Secretary.

He's told the inquiry that oversight of being prepared for a pandemic was part of the "day-to-day" job of being health secretary.

But moments later he said it was "my responsibility to ensure as much as possible - given all the other pressures - that there was adequate oversight".

He's also told the inquiry that the role of Health and Social Care Secretary is "so broad".

The former cabinet minister made clear he "took his responsibility as the principle responder to a pandemic very seriously", but these references to the wider scale of the job made me think of the remarks of previous political witness Sir Oliver Letwin - who suggested the need for a dedicated senior minister to have responsibility for pandemic preparation and resilience.

This could be a question for the Inquiry - is the set-up of government - where responsibilities lie - currently as good as it could be?

Hugo Keith asks Matt Hancock about a first day briefing he received when he became health secretary in July 2018.

Keith highlights a section on emergency preparedness and health protection.

The inquiry's barrister says there is no reference to the level of risk pandemic flu posed and asks if he was given more detail.

Hancock replies he remembers reading it and wrote on that section "more details please".

"This was an area I knew I needed to be across," he added.

The former health secretary is still being pushed about the Department of Health's risk assessment for pandemics.

"The inquiry has already discussed the focus on an influenza pandemic vs other infectious diseases," Matt Hancock says.

Hancock says the different iterations of this assessment over the years featured language that was "essentially the same" - which was that the "category one top risk was of pandemic influenza".

"There was also a consdieration of other infectious diseases and external threats," he says

Hancock says he was told the reason influenza was billed as the top risk was because it was the most likely pandemic.

"But of course we were aware of other infectious diseases," he adds. "Not least because we were actively involved in responding to Ebola and to a lesser extent Mpox [monkeypox]."

Hugo Keith KC asks why in the risk register there is no mitigation set out in relation to the risk of a major national infectious disease outbreak and pandemic flu.

Matt Hancock says he does not know why those boxes are empty, but knows there was "significant activity" under way in the health department and Public Health England to make sure they were as prepared as possible.

Image source, PA Media

Attention now turns to the Department of Health (DHSC) high level risk register from 2019-20.

As the inquiry's barrister Hugo Keith KC speaks, the document is scrolled through, down to a section on the risk of a "major national infectious disease outbreak and pandemic flu".

So the risk was identified of an emerging infectious disease outbreak, Keith puts to Hancock.

Hancock says the "red rating" of this risk shows how significant this risk could be should it strike.

"This was not a theoretical exercise, it was part of the day-to-day job of being health secretary," he explains to the inquiry.

Former Health Secretary Matt Hancock is now asked whether an influenza pandemic was prioritised as a tier one risk to the public, to which he replies yes.

He says on his first day as health secretary in July 2018 he was given a briefing document which made it clear he was responsible for working on pandemic flu and infectious diseases.