Just before the break, the KC continued probing Hancock about whether lockdown could have been imposed earlier.

He puts it to Hancock that given "dramatic" measures were put in place on 20 March - closing schools, stopping non-essential travel, retail etc - the government could have waited to see if these had the desired effect on the R number instead of implementing a full lockdown so soon after.

Hancock replies that "exponential growth" was happening over the weekend and the government had "greater confidence" that the country was on track for the reasonable worst case scenario.

He also says that assessments had suggested reduction of human interaction - which Sage said would need to be down by 75% to slow down the spread of the virus - was not going to be enough.

Pressed again on this question, Hancock adds that the government believed compliance would start at a maximum and then degrade (i.e. people would soon stop following the advice to limit interaction) - although he admits this did not happen.

From his seat, he says he was in favour of "all the action you could possibly take".

Image source, Crown Copyright

Hugo Keith KC asks Hancock now about the rationale for the lockdown. It is vital, the lawyer says, to examine the reasoning for and against.

It is Hancock's position it should've been done earlier but it was the right decision to do, Keith sets out.

However Keith highlights the counter argument. He says material suggested to the relevant bodies that if a mandatory lockdown wasn't enforced, there "will be many more deaths than there would otherwise be" and that the NHS would suffer a "devastating impact".

On 23 March, when lockdown was imposed, Keith says, there was little debate on data from 20 March relating to the likely impact on the NHS and how many more deaths would be incurred if steps were not taken.

Keith now asks Hancock how clear the data was to him.

Hancock says the trajectory of this data was "unknowable" and they continued to look at data from 16 March.

This, Hancock says, continued to go towards the reasonable worst case scenario.

This is when they pulled "every lever available" which was Hancock's goal at the time, to stop the NHS being overwhelmed, he tells the inquiry.

Nick Triggle
Health Correspondent

In early March 2020, the government and what was then known as Public Health England announced testing in the community and contact tracing were to stop.

That was despite the World Health Organization recommending "test, test, test" as the world battled Covid in those early days.

So it is interesting to hear Matt Hancock say he was not fully convinced by the decision, saying he was "sceptical".

The logic at the time was that the UK had limited testing capacity.

This decision, Hancock said, prompted him to set in motion what became the NHS Test and Trace programme, underpinned by a national network of giant labs that was put together over the following months.

But there was another option. The testing capacity the government was relying on was the largely provided by the facilities controlled by PHE.

There were also hundreds of smaller labs, run by universities, private companies and research bodies.

Some have argued these should have been used, at least until the government could expand its network.

Image source, Crown Copyright

The Inquiry is now taking a break.

Stay with us as we catch you up on the latest lines.

Matt Hancock insists the UK government was planning a response based on what was happening in Italy.

"The timing of the lockdown matters," Hancock tells the inquiry. "Watching the Italian curve was the best way of thinking what would happen here."

Data from Italy was important in that sense, he adds as he references comparing the UK's epidemiological curve with the same measurement in Italy.

Hugo Keith KC pushes Hancock to clarify that UK policy was not based on what was occurring in Italy.

Hancock agrees Italy was only an example.

The inquiry lawyer returns to Hancock's statement that lockdown should have been three weeks sooner that it was.

Is the only reason this did not happen because of the advice from Spi-B (the government's behavioural science advisers) and the lack of data, the lawyer asks?

Hancock stresses that the information was still "sparse" - the first UK death from Covid was on 1 March 2020 and the case numbers were still "very low".

The former health secretary says that "concern over timing lockdown correctly" was the "main reason" it was not put in place sooner.

The government scientific advisory group, Sage, did change its advice about where we were epidemiologically on the curve, as new evidence came to light that suggested we were no longer four weeks behind Italy as previously thought.

Image source, Crown Copyright

He says the government thought Italy had acted early with their lockdown, but that he was told by his Italian counterpart that they wished they'd done it sooner.

Hancock tells the inquiry he was impacted significantly by this and started "actively agitating for very firm action for a lockdown".

In the first two weeks of March, Hancock says they continued to work on health-specific measures and his time was focussed on how to handle the impact that was coming to the health and social care sectors.

Hugo Keith KC starts to reference minutes from the emergency Cobra on 12 March 2020 - which which was chaired by Boris Johnson and attended by Matt Hancock.

"At this stage there is debate about the nature about infection control interventions," Keith says.

Keith asks to what extent did a debate in that meeting lead to a slowing down of practical action as they talked about "flattening" and suppressing the first wave of the virus.

"Hardly at all," Hancock replies.

Keith picks up: "When did the debate about flattening vs suppressing first find its way into the WhatsApps, meetings etc?"

"13, 14 and 15 of March," Hancock answers as he says that was the weekend the government changed direction in its approach to Covid countermeasures.

Keith and Hancock are discussing plans for the care sector during the early months of the pandemic.

Hancock explains that the early position of the care sector, which he described as "anachronistic" and needing "reform," was that the homes themselves were legally responsible for what happened inside them.

He confirms that the Social Care Minister Helen Whately messaged him in February to say that she had only been provided with two pandemic contingency plans for the whole of the care sector.

Continuing to discuss the Covid action plan commissioned by Hancock, the former health secretary tells the inquiry its aim was to explain to the public what might come next.

Publishing this, he says, helped drive action within the government.

However, Hugo Keith KC reminds Hancock that it took 21 days from the time it was commissioned for the document to be published.

"So it wasn't terribly quick," the lawyer says.

Hancock rejects this, and tells the inquiry that, in the grand scheme of things, "that's unbelievably fast, they normally take months".

He praises the civil servants who worked on it, but says it slowed down when going to clearance and wishes it had come out sooner.

Image source, Crown Copyright

Did a debate about what to do slow down the UK's response to Covid? asks Keith.

Hancock says it did – for "two weeks". He says a plan was finally published on 3 March 2020.

Hancock recalls being asked at the time about the possibility of locking down cities, on the BBC's Andrew Marr programme, and says he did not rule it out.

But the former health secretary adds: "We couldn't go too early [into lockdown], we all knew that." He explains there were other things to consider, such as the impact of a lockdown on the wider society.

As we've been telling you, Matt Hancock has told the inquiry that - with the benefit of hindsight – the UK should have gone into lockdown earlier.

He suggests locking down "three weeks earlier" – at the beginning of March, would have meant that overall fewer than a tenth of people who died in the first wave would have done so, given the rate at which the virus was spreading.

But Hancock reminds us of the "enormous uncertainty" at the time, adding: "I defend the actions of the government but in hindsight that's when we should have done it - it would have saved many lives."

Hancock concedes UK lockdown should have happened earlierpublished at 14:37 Greenwich Mean Time 30 November 2023

14:37 GMT 30 November 2023

Hugh Pym
Health editor

A highly significant comment from Matt Hancock – he told the inquiry that with hindsight the government could and should have locked down three weeks earlier than it did on 23 March 2020.

He said it was clear at the end of February that action would be needed followed by a Cobra meeting on 2 March.

Hancock said by late February, after some areas in northern Italy had locked down, it was the “moment we had realised what was coming”.

But subsequent to that he said the official advice to ministers was not to go too early.

He said this was entirely understandable at the time but it had contributed to the government not acting earlier.

Still focusing on mid-February 2020, Hugo Keith KC mentions school half-term.

During this time:

• Italy locked down 11 municipalities
• Reports were prepared on the significance of a cruise ship outbreak
• Nervetag reported that 40% of cases during that time were asymptomatic

Hancock is asked if any work was done on infection control between the Cobra meeting on 18 February and 28 February.

Hancock confidently says yes.

"There was scientific work being done by Sage on the consideration of NPIs (non-pharmaceutical interventions)," he adds.

But Keith pushes on this, and asks again if "pen was put to paper" by the government?

Hancock says the department was drafting the "action plan" which was published on 3 March.

He also says there was work being done on the legal framework.

Moving to 18 February 2020 and Hugo Keith KC refers to Matt Hancock's witness statement.

He reads out an extract where Hancock says he was told by Public Health England (PHE) that the UK's approach to tracing all contacts of infected people was "unsustainable".

"Did you know that by the time you chaired the Cobra meeting on 18 February?" Keith asks.

"I don't know," replies Hancock.

The inquiry lawyer is questioning Hancock on how he received information from Sage - the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, a body of experts which advises ministers - and whether he received minutes from its meetings.

He says, in the early days of the pandemic up to February the minutes from Sage were reported to him via England's chief medical officer Prof Sir Chris Whitty.

Pressed on his answer, he says that later in the pandemic he would take his own notes and that "at some point in February" he asked for the minutes to be regularly given to him.

"With hindsight I think I should have gone and listened directly [to Sage debates]," he adds.

Hancock and Keith go back and forth on whether Sage was the sole body providing emergency advice on the virus to the government.

Keith says it was. Hancock claims Nervtag [New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group] and Sage sub-committees also carried out this role.

More now on the government meeting on 14 February.

The lawyer for the inquiry says it appears Hancock did not say to the prime minister and colleagues that "containment has been lost, China has given up... we have no practical measures for infection control, there is no test and trace system... and there are still no plans in existence".

Why did he not say these things, Hugo Keith KC asks.

Hancock says that is not how he'd "characterise the situation", adding he was not confident that by this meeting that Sage had concluded that China's containment of coronavirus was lost.

"At this point in the department... we were working extremely hard to prepare for the pandemic," he adds.

Again he mentions he was pushing for a testing system and had commissioned an action plan.

Hugo Keith KC moves to press Matt Hancock on what plans there were for infection control by the middle of February.

What in hard copy, emails, or other written formats, were the plans for infection control, he asks the former health secretary.

Hancock says the plan was not focused on slowing the spread of coronavirus.

"Was enough going on?" Keith asks to which Hancock answers: "Absolutely not."

Hugo Keith KC, lawyer for the inquiry, is getting straight back into evidence.

They are picking up where they left off before lunch, looking into the plans in place to stop the spread of the virus.

He looks at the witness statement provided by Hancock.

On 13 February, the statement shows that Sage (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) came to the view that China had "failed to contain coronavirus".

Keith asks if Hancock can recall his reaction to this.

Hancock says "no", he doesn't recall being told that "as early as that".

The government's chief medical officer (CMO) [Prof Sir Chris Whitty] said there were infection control plans in place at a meeting in February 2020 but Hancock tells the inquiry he doesn't "specifically know what the CMO was referring to".

He says they were starting, at that point, to consider NPI [non-pharmaceutical intervention] measures.

He says he remembers thinking there was a lot of work that was not to do with his health department.

What I learned from this morning at the Covid inquirypublished at 13:55 Greenwich Mean Time 30 November 2023

13:55 GMT 30 November 2023

Chris Mason
Political editor, reporting from the Covid inquiry

I have spent the morning in the Covid inquiry testimony room – where reporters aren’t able to use their phones.

Here are a few reflections from being in there.

As has happened on my earlier visits here to listen to others giving evidence, sitting listening attentively are those bereaved by Covid.

Each have orange "visitor" lanyards on, and many hold laminated A4 or A5 photographs of the relatives they lost in the pandemic.

Hancock has faced about two and a half hours of questions so far, with more to come this afternoon and tomorrow.

The crux of his argument is that the lesson the country needs to learn from Covid is governing systems and structures need to be sufficiently well put together that it doesn’t matter who the individual personalities are in the various important jobs.

Or, to put it another way, he found Dominic Cummings, the then-prime minister’s chief adviser, a nightmare – and, he alleges, the culture Cummings created had real-world consequences for how the pandemic was managed.

He has repeatedly sought to take on and refute claims from a collection of earlier witnesses that he was either a liar or at the very least not always believable.

There is plenty more to come – not least the huge question of care homes, and how well – or inadequately – residents of care homes were protected when the pandemic hit the UK.