Graham Stringer says Wales has been successful in its vaccination programme because it has been getting supplies "into people's arms" rather than holding stocks. He says England, Northern Ireland and Scotland don't seem to be doing that, and asks the health secretary whether that is a solution for places seeing increased infections.

Hancock smiles and says: "I'm grinning because I'm working out whether to give you the full answer, because I very much like my colleagues in Wales."

He says that England is holding stocks because, "whatever happens in terms of security of supply", there must be enough vaccine for people to have their second doses.

"Our colleagues in Wales decided to hold no such buffer and go ahead on the presumption that supply would come through," he says - but in the knowledge that if there were an interruption, they could use England's buffer.

"That is not a decision I could make for England because I can't draw on anyone else's buffer."

He says it is proof that the Union "saves lives".

Graham Stringer asks Hancock why the surge testing and increased vaccine supply in Bolton has not also been rolled out in Greater Manchester, which has also seen an increase in infections.

"We have to make sure we use the vaccines we've got as appropriately as we can," he answers.

"I've been speaking to the mayor of Manchester throughout this.

"It's had a good effect in Bolton and we're working on what we can do to get more vaccines into Greater Manchester.

"The immediate priority is to get as much testing done as we can."

Graham Stringer, Labour MP for Blackley and Broughton, asks Hancock if he will provide all the evidence asked for by the committee.

He responds: "My whole approach is to provide you with whatever evidence you need to reach your conclusions.

"I know that what I did, and what my team did, was the best thing we could with the information we had to save lives and get through this pandemic."

He goes on: "I know that I can face the mirror each morning and, despite my deep regret at the deaths that have occurred, I know I acted with the right motive, being straight with people throughout."

Stringer points out that members of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours (SPI-B) have apologised and expressed regret for giving extreme advice.

"Do you accept any responsibility for that advice?" he asks Hancock.

The health secretary responds that he thinks everyone in a position of authority in the "health family" was acting in what they thought was best interpretation of the information they had in trying to manage a pandemic.

Stringer adds that SPI-B admitted exaggerating and co-operated in creating a climate of fear.

"I don't think there was an overemphasis on the negative - there were thousands of people dying and we needed to stop that," responds Hancock.

Reality Check

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the UK did not close its borders, following advice from the World Health Organization (WHO).

In February 2020, the WHO advised that: “Travel bans to affected areas or denial of entry to passengers coming from affected areas are usually not effective in preventing the importation of cases but may have a significant economic and social impact."

But a number of countries ignored this advice. Australia, New Zealand and India almost entirely closed their borders – and they were comparatively well protected during the first wave of Covid.

Other countries brought in much more stringent restrictions than the UK, banning entry to all but their citizens or residents, including Singapore, Vietnam, Israel, the Philippines, Taiwan and Argentina.

Between January and March 2020, the UK introduced some measures including imposing quarantine on 273 people travelling from Wuhan in China.

Others from "high-risk countries" including China, Iran and Northern Italy were asked to voluntarily isolate for 14 days (though the self-isolation requirements were withdrawn on 13 March).

One study found, external the virus was introduced to the UK "well over a thousand times in early 2020", with a third of transmission chains brought in from Spain, followed by 29% from France, neither of which faced any restrictions. China accounted for just 0.4% of imported cases.

You can read more about UK borders during the pandemic here.

Image source, Getty Images

Barbara Keeley says social workers have not been listened to by Sage - the government's scientific advisers, who repeatedly warned of the dangers of discharging into care homes without testing.

Hancock says information reaches him "properly" is by the chief scientific adviser and the Sage group.

In the early stages of the pandemic, there was a view that the care sector was being treated as an "afterthought" says Keeley.

"We worked closely" with the care sector to "road test" ideas in advance, Hancock replies.

Keeley says there was "no input" from the care sector in the early stages, when Sage didn't account for care home staff working across multiple sites.

Hancock says "making sure that we got feedback" from MPs "was a critical part of the response, and it led to us strengthening the guidance throughout".

"We strengthened the guidance to care homes on the 15 April," he adds.

Low testing levels mean outbreaks were missedpublished at 12:22 British Summer Time 10 June 2021

12:22 BST 10 June 2021

Robert Cuffe
BBC head of statistics

Matt Hancock was asked whether failing to test people being discharged from hospital had contributed to the spread of coronavirus in care homes.

In response he cited evidence from Public Health England which he said showed that “1.6% of the transmission into care homes came through this route [from hospital discharges]”.

But this figure can't be taken to mean there was enough testing in hospitals or care homes. In fact, the figure is only that low because we weren’t testing enough.

The analysis doesn’t include any people who were never tested. It misses some outbreaks and misses people who spread the virus but hadn’t been tested because they didn’t show symptoms, or because there weren’t enough tests.

It also misses outbreaks triggered when someone passed it on to a care worker who then did a shift in another home and brought the virus there.

As Hancock explained, discharges may not have been the main source of care home spread.

There were far fewer hospital discharges going into care homes each day than there were staff or visitors, each of whom could have brought in the virus.

But he was told it is a “stretch of the imagination” to say that the figure is as vanishingly small as 1.6% when the data can’t properly spot all the seeding events by Science and Technology committee chairman Greg Clark.

Labour's Barbara Keeley says the NHS is still using Do Not Resuscitate orders for the mentally ill with Covid, and is still not accepting some care home residents into hospitals.

Hancock replies: "I totally agree with you of the inexcusable nature of attempting to use Do Not Resuscitate orders without consent".

Keeley says a constituent of hers was told she would not be accepted from a care home to hospital to treat her Covid.

She says this shows a mindset of denying the vulnerable patients.

"This approach is completely unacceptable, it's never been acceptable, it's never been policy," replies Hancock.

He says when he heard that this was happening he "immediately took action".

DNR notices "must be made on an individual basis," he states.

"It's certainly happened in parts of the North West," Keeley says, "it kept happening".

"The idea that a DNR notice should be put on" without consent "is completely unacceptable". He says it is important that these issues are raised in a system as large as the NHS.

"I've sought to use every power at my disposal to stop the use of these DNRs."

Matt Hancock says public trust in the government has "increased significantly" when quizzed by Anum Qaisar-Javed.

He says there is "better communication" and more "teamwork" inside government "and the public have undoubtedly noticed this improvement in the past six months or so".

Asked whether he thinks the public trusts him, he laughs and says: "You can judge that for yourself.

"All I can say is that the approach I've taken throughout this is to answer questions as directly and straight as possible. I'm a big team player, I'm willing to say difficult things if necessary."

Image source, Getty Images

James Davies asks the health secretary why there was a delay in implementing Sage advice on masks and face coverings.

"There was rigorous international debate on use of masks," says Hancock.

"It comes down to disagreements about the most likely route of personal transmission."

There were also practical considerations at the time, he says, due to concerns over PPE shortages in hospitals.

"We now have huge stockpiles of PPE - but it was a problem at the time."

Hancock goes onto say that it is harder in a democracy take some of steps that other countries were able to take and said that while Britain is an island, "we are highly interconnected" - other countries were able to be more absolute in terms of shutting their borders."

He said there was a debate in government about how much British people would accept coronavirus measures and insisted: "I was also always of the view they would go for it because it was so important and the justification was so clear."

Hancock says over 95% of people are willing to give their iris scan to the home office (for biometric passports) in order to have a faster at the airport when going on holiday - "my experience is people are very enthusiastic so long as there is a proper mission", he adds.

James Davies, Conservative MP for Vale of Clywd, returns to the success of countries in south and south-east Asia in dealing with the pandemic.

Speaking via videolink, he asks Hancock if he was given advice not to follow their strategies.

Hancock says no but adds that "we did have discussions with them".

He says there was a "huge amount of focus" on what was going on in China but says there was a lack of transparency from China, adding it is vital this changes in the future.

"I think we'd benefit a lot from learning from different strategies used around the world," he adds.

He said countries with experience of Mers and Sars were better prepared.

"Here it was not heeded in 2009 as much as it should have been."

Earlier, we heard Matt Hancock say he knew Dominic Cummings wanted him to be fired as health secretary last year.

Appearing before MPs, Hancock accused the PM's former aide of briefing journalists against him.

Greg Clark asks Hancock about his assertion that transmission into care homes was predominantly from staff, rather than from people coming out of hospitals.

He asks the health secretary whether it is, "to put it politely, a stretch of the imagination" to suggest that fewer than 2% of cases were attributable to hospital transmission "when we simply don't have the data because people weren't tested in care homes".

Hancock says the government was having to make decisions based on "imperfect information" and "it's always a challenge" to measure such things.

Clark goes further and says it is "impossible" to put forward such a figure.

Hancock says: "This isn't based on no data, it's based on the data that we have."

He also says he disagrees with "the idea" that that 2% - or thereabouts - "shouldn't matter".

Image source, PA Media

Greg Clark says "care home providers are all very clear" that there was limited testing in care homes.

Hancock says there are "some things about that first peak that we'll never know, because we didn't have the information gathering facilities that we have now".

"The search for perfect information in a pandemic is a vain one," he states.

"The weekly testing of [care home] staff was not announced until July," says Clark.

He asks why this was not possible to be done earlier. "This comes down to the prioritisation of tests," states Hancock.

"This question of infections within care homes comes from a combination" of avoiding a problem for the NHS and inadequate testing capacity, asks Clark.

"And the assumption that testing those without symptoms would lead to false negatives," replies Hancock.

Greg Clark says the PM's former chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, gave evidence that when the PM returned from his own Covid illness in April, he was "alarmed" at what was going on in care homes.

He asks Hancock if Boris Johnson had a conversation with him that indicated he was surprised to find out what happening.

"Not that I can remember," says the health secretary.

Greg Clark says Matt Hancock's motivation was to protect the NHS. He asks if he had a discussion with the prime minister on the lack of testing capacity to test people leaving hospital and going into care homes.

"The testing capacity at that time... was around 1,000 a day," Hancock replies.

"You knew that there wasn't the capacity there to do it, but did you communicate that to others?" asks Clark.

"I'd be amazed if that wasn't the case," replies Hancock, "I haven't seen the minutes of that meeting recently".

"The clear clinical advice at the time was that testing people asymptomatically may lead to false negatives," Hancock states.

Clark says the evidence from Dominic Cummings says others in government felt assured that the testing capacity would be enough.

Hancock says "you've got to remember we were taking huge decisions" with limited information.

"The recollection I have is that at that time, the clinical advice was clear," he states, "the clinical advice was against asymptomatic testing".

Hancock gives insight into social care reformspublished at 11:30 British Summer Time 10 June 2021

11:30 BST 10 June 2021

Ben Wright
BBC political correspondent

The Committee is again probing the approach to care homes.

Matt Hancock says the early weeks of the crisis showed him how limited government grip on care homes was - no levers to pull and very little data.

Reform of social care system in England is years overdue and it is clear Matt Hancock thinks the care sector needs to be more integrated with the NHS.

He said more people should be discharged from hospital to their home with a care package and not to care homes. This doesn’t begin to answer the funding question but it’s a revealing insight into his thinking.

Greg Clark asks Hancock whether a letter from NHS England to NHS trusts in 17 March 2020 ordering them to urgently discharge all inpatients who were medically fit was a joint decision with ministers.

Hancock says the decision was discussed with him and the PM before it was executed.

"There were some things that this country got right and the provision of care at all times to Covid patients was one of them," he says.

He adds that more people were discharged to their own homes with care packages, so the result of the letter "was a reduction in the proportion of people who were discharged into care homes".

Image source, Getty Images

Everyone agrees if we'd known more or acted earlier, that would have been better, Greg Clark tells Matt Hancock, adding: "We've also established that we had inadequate testing capacity."

Hancock agrees it would have been better to have greater testing capacity at the beginning of the pandemic.

He adds: "But I'm a practical man - we had to just get on with it."

Clark suggests another lesson should be learned, saying the discharging of infected patients into care homes was "one of the major faults in the first attempts to handle the pandemic".

He asks Hancock what he meant when he said previously "we tried to throw a protective ring around our care homes".

The health secretary responds: "I think the most important words in that sentence are that 'we tried to'.

"Every death in a care home weighs heavily on me, and always will.

"We knew very early on the impact was greatest on the elderly - this was a problem we had across the whole of the UK."

He says the government put in funding and set out guidance for care homes from 25 February and brought in weekly testing for staff in July.

He says that at the start of the pandemic "the powers I had over care homes was limited".

"We didn't have the data. I asked for a list of all care homes - we didn't have one, which is an extraordinary thing for me to be saying."

He says while the government now has "far better data but we still need to reform social care".

"There are a whole series of things that have been improved - and things that we still need to do," he says.

Jeremy Hunt says some people are of the view that "you'd need some national contact tracing for surge capacity" but local tracing should be standard.

Matt Hancock says "speed matters here" and a "national call centre system can be much faster".

"If you can't reach somebody after a number of calls, you can pass it on to the local system and they can send somebody round to the front door."

"It's about optimising a joint system," Hancock says.

Hunt asks if the real target in a pandemic should be making sure that people do isolate.

Hancock says "we absolutely" had targets for making sure enough people isolated.