Dominic Raab says he was given just five minutes' notice to stand in for his boss Boris Johnson when the then-PM was ill with Covid in April 2020
Speaking to the UK Covid inquiry, Raab has also insisted "the best decisions" were made during the pandemic with the "fluid" information available at the time
He's also denied claims there was a "puppet regime" in No 10 - appearing to contradict Sajid Javid, who worked in government himself during the pandemic
Javid told the inquiry earlier that many key decisions at the start of the outbreak were made by Johnson's top aide Dominic Cummings - not by Johnson himself
He also said NHS capacity was an issue, and repeated his call for a Royal Commission to reach political agreement on the future funding of the health service
Boris Johnson is due to give his own evidence to the Covid inquiry in due course, as is Rishi Sunak
Thank you for joining our live coverage of today's Covid inquiry hearing.
Join us tomorrow when it's the turn of former health secretary Matt Hancock to give evidence to the inquiry.
Questions will begin at 10:00 GMT and will continue into Friday morning.
You can read more about today's evidence here.
Three key figures from the pandemic provided evidence in the Covid inquiry today. Here's a look back at what we learned from each of them:
Dominic Raab:
Sajid Javid:
Prof Dame Jenny Harries:
Hannah Miller
Political correspondent
Two former Cabinet ministers - two very different perspectives on the way the government handled itself in early 2020.
As chancellor in the months leading up to the lockdown, Sajid Javid was one of the most experienced ministers - until he resigned as a result of a row with Dominic Cummings.
Their animosity has long been no secret. In his evidence today, he said Cummings "sought to act as the prime minister in all but name".
But that allegation was flatly rejected by another senior minister at the time, the then Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.
He suggested Cummings was "well-suited" to his role, and "right" in a lot of his judgements.
Meanwhile, at Prime Minister’s Questions, Rishi Sunak was forced to deny a suggestion that emerged from the inquiry last week, where it was claimed he had said it was "OK" to let people die of coronavirus.
He is due to give evidence to the inquiry in the coming weeks, when questions about how the government balanced economic and health concerns are bound to emerge.
But today’s evidence makes clear the tensions in the heart of government - around both policy and personality.
Jim Reed
Health reporter
The Covid inquiry earlier heard that the deputy chief medical officer said in March 2020 that it would be "entirely clinically appropriate" to discharge infected patients from hospitals into care homes.
Prof Dame Jenny Harries told the inquiry it sounded awful but it was "a bleak picture" of what would need to happen if there was an "enormous explosion of cases".
During that first part of the pandemic, Matt Hancock - then England's health secretary - said a protective ring had been thrown around care homes. In reality the virus tore through residential care causing nearly one in three deaths in that first wave.
The inquiry was shown emails between health officials in March 2020 about the need to move some elderly patients with Covid symptoms out of hospital and back into care homes. Responding at the time, Harries appeared to agree - although she wrote that it was a "prospect none of us would wish for".
In questioning today she told the inquiry her email might "sound awful" but it was a "top line prospect" of what might be needed if hospitals were overflowing rather than a deliberate policy.
Some bereaved families have already started legal action against the government, claiming the state failed to protect elderly care home residents in the pandemic. At the time, though, the number of Covid tests in the UK was still very limited.
And some doctors have argued that keeping frail and vulnerable patients in hospital when they could be discharged would have carried its own risks.
Claire Mitchell KC, representing Scottish Covid Bereaved, also asked Raab about a passage in his witness statement - in which he wrote about a "high" threshold for devolved administrations to take charge of decision-making being politically controversial.
"My overriding experience is that, actually, 'Team UK' work very well together," Raab said.
He praised Westminster's work with the devolved administrations on test and trace, PPE procurement and the vaccine rollout.
Image source, UK Covid inquiryRaab faced his final questions from Claire Mitchell KC
More now on the issue of domestic abuse during the pandemic - which came up just before the end of today's session.
After Raab said typically "middle class families" enjoyed having more time together in lockdown, Liz Davies KC stepped in to clarify that domestic abuse happens in middle class families as well.
Raab acknowledged this, adding that his own constituency in Surrey has "high" levels of domestic abuse.
Davies asked him about an address to the nation on 16 April 2020 where he announced lockdown would be extended, and whether he should have made it clearer to victims of domestic abuse that they were able to leave home.
Due to "limited time", Raab said, he "couldn't contain every caveat" and he felt the home secretary had spelled it out clearly enough separately.
Image source, UK Covid inquiryBefore today's hearing closed, Liz Davies KC - who is focusing on domestic abuse during the pandemic - asked Raab about discussions around the policy to make those arriving from foreign countries isolate at home or in a hotel for 14 days.
"Was an equality impact assessment carried out and was there consideration of the possibility of domestic abuse?" asked Davies, on behalf of Solace Women's Aid and Southall Black Sisters.
Raab said he couldn't remember specifically but that "lockdown has varying effects on family harmony".
"You had quite a few families, typically middle class... for whom lockdown was an epiphany moment because they spent more time as a family," he said.
For other communities, "in different parts of the country", the "combustible" nature of what was going on, coupled with mental health issues could have led to issues including domestic abuse, he added.
Inquiry chair Baroness Heather Hallet announces the end of Dominic Raab's evidence - and with it, the end of today's hearing.
That's all for the UK Covid inquiry until 10:00 tomorrow morning.
There are a few more Raab quotes for us still to bring you on this page, though.
Image source, UK Covid inquiryPhilip Dayle from Fehmo, an organisation focused on healthcare outcomes for ethnic groups, asks Raab about the disproportionate impact of Covid on ethnic minorities.
Raab says the data and evidence was "too fluid for us to be able to come to any definitive conclusions" let alone make polices about it.
"We were mindful that there was clearly more examination of this that was required," Raab says, but the science "wasn't firm enough" to take it further.
Raab says he sees his role in government as someone to "test and challenge", which he says was done "quite a lot" on the issue of disproportionate outcomes for ethnic groups.
"It was not the absence of asking the question, but the evidence had not firmed up," he says.
Image source, UK Covid inquiryRaab is asked about how well joined up Westminster was with the devolved administrations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales during the pandemic.
Kirsten Heaven, representing Covid-19 Bereaved Families For Justice Cymru, notes that Raab wrote in his witness statement that the interactions worked "reasonably well".
But Heaven also points out that Raab wrote in his statement that he found it "irritating" when Scotland and Wales "wanted to do things differently" - although he admitted these differences were "minor".
Now, Raab tells the inquiry he thinks the devolved administrations were "fully locked-in" to the developments of pandemic measures, and they "all had the opportunity to feed in".
Raab says there's "always an element of politics between the devolved administrations and Westminster" but he believes they both demonstrated their ability to come together.
Asked about an apparent lack of Cobra meetings for a four-month period over the summer in 2020, he suggests there's a need for "fewer of the very high-level meetings" when things are working smoothly.
Continuing to discuss the second lockdown, Raab is interrupted by the inquiry lawyer, as he mentions a fatigue regarding lockdowns.
"You talk about national exhaustion, there's also the question of mortality and the national number of people who are dying," Andrew O'Connor KC says, adding the inquiry has heard plenty of scientific evidence that a circuit breaker was needed.
Raab replies: "We relied on the evidence as we had it at the time. Of course we are mindful of that."
He adds that the four key things he was "constantly focussed on" were Covid deaths, NHS capacity and non-Covid health, social impacts and the economic impact.
Image source, UK Covid inquiryThe inquiry is now looking at the second lockdown.
In his witness statement, Raab says the Cabinet was discussing a tiering system for lockdowns - where communities with higher rates of infection would be subject to lockdowns, rather than the whole country being simply "in or out".
"We had been looking for something more nuanced," his statement says.
In his evidence, Raab says the government regretted there had been insufficient opportunity to verify whether that system had worked.
Hannah Miller
Political correspondent
Dominic Raab has been praised by civil servants over the course of this inquiry for the way in which he handled government business during the time that Boris Johnson was in hospital with Covid.
Now it emerges he found out with only five minutes notice – after emerging from hosting one of the government press conferences.
Boris Johnson’s hospitalisation was a huge moment of crisis for the government – so perhaps natural that he saw his role as being to "steady the ship".
It speaks to the gravity of the moment that he was conscious he "didn’t want anyone saying Dominic Raab is enjoying this too much".
Inquiry lawyer Andrew O'Connor KC asks Raab about a review undertaken by Helen McNamara and Martin Reynolds in May 2020 into the culture in No 10 and cabinet.
The review highlights a number of problems, including plans not being drawn together properly - as well as a lack of sufficient scrutiny of meetings and functions.
O'Connor highlights the fact that junior women are reported to have been talked over.
Referring to the time he deputised for the PM, Raab says he does not agree with all of the review's findings but says "any crisis is not going to be a manicured operation".
He suggests it is inevitable for some people to "feel bruised by the pressure of it" - "sometimes because someone behaves inappropriately" but also because the "tensions" of crisis can result in "combustibility".
He admits that there were "endless" meetings without an agenda, though, and these would be better with clear senior reporting officers and earlier notice.
Asked whether there should be more of a plan in place in case a deputy needs to stand in for a PM again, Raab acknowledges that this "probably would be worth doing".
But he says "we actually did a reasonable job during that four, five weeks", thanks to "British pragmatism".
Image source, UK Covid inquiryRaab is now asked about the period early in the pandemic when he stood in for then-PM Boris Johnson when his boss was severely ill with Covid.
He says there are some aspects of the conversation he can't recount for security reasons - but the key thing is that "you make sure you've got cover" in such an emergency situation.
Raab says when Johnson appointed him first secretary of state, his boss told him: "You've got my back". But he says the planning around such a situation was "pretty sparse".
He adds: "I was effectively told on five minutes' notice."
Asked by O'Connor whether the UK locked down too late, Raab says this is an easy view to come to "in retrospect".
He goes on to say that this is a matter "for the committee to decide", but reiterates that there was a lot that was "fluid" early in the pandemic. He insists that "the best decisions" were made using the information available at the time.
And he acknowledges arguments that the UK locked down "too much" - though clarifies that this isn't his view.
The inquiry has turned to hear about the former PM Boris Johnson and his style of decision-making at the time of the first lockdown.
Dominic Raab defends his former boss and insists the first lockdown was the result of an "incremental series of steps" rather than a "cliff-edge decision".
O'Connor suggests the decision wasn't very cool or calm.
Raab says Johnson was "much more open to hearing contrary views" than other PMs he had worked with.
He uses more colourful language and insists Johnson took a "Hegelian" philosophy - "thesis, antithesis, synthesis".
That "doesn't necessarily mean he was wavering or vacillating", Raab says.
Instead Johnson believed in giving a plan a "stress test" - making sure you "kick the tyres".
Dominic Raab is back in his seat - and we'll keep you abreast of the latest.
Image source, UK Covid inquiryInquiry lawyer Andrew O'Connor KC suggested Raab was using jargon - something Raab denied
Just before the break, Raab was asked if enough had been done by the government in February 2020.
Raab acknowledged that it had been a “decisive month” with “actionable evidence” at the time. All of which is said with the “benefit of hindsight”.
He added that Whitehall – another name for the British civil service and government – needed to get better at working in what he called "perpetual beta" - meaning that it was open to constantly refining a plan.
The inquiry lawyer then told Raab that his response was “management speak” but Raab argued that it is actually “science”.