Matt Hancock did the right thing in resigning and proper investigations need to get to the bottom of which rules he broke, the Mayor of London says.

Sadiq Khan tells the BBC's Andrew Marr it was "surprising" the PM thought the matter was closed because Hancock had given an apology.

He says Hancock was not sacked but resigned due to media coverage.

He says what's important now is that investigations start into which rules were broken over claims that Hancock used a private email address to carry out government work, the appointment of senior staff to the department of health and the breaching of scoial distancing rules.

He says he welcomes the appointment of Sajid Javid as heath secretary.

"It's always good to see this small club of children of bus drivers doing really well and I wish him all the best," he says.

Was PM's refusal to sack Hancock loyalty or weakness?published at 09:28 British Summer Time 27 June 2021

09:28 BST 27 June 2021

Helen Catt
Political correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

It was pretty clear from Friday that as soon as Matt Hancock admitted breaking those social distancing rules it would have been extremely difficult for him to carry on in the role of health secretary.

However, he did have the prime minister's backing so this was his decision to go.

I think it's fair to say, though, that he was helped to the conclusion by other Conservative MPs behind the scenes saying to him that the situation just isn't tenable.

And if we think back to all those times we've seen Matt Hancock at the podium in Downing Street, at the dispatch box in the House of Commons telling people about the importance of observing restrictions.

The thought of him doing that in the future, he just wouldn't have the credibility to be able to do that, and that's why he had to step down.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer says Hancock was right to resign but that Boris Johnson should have sacked him.

And it has raised questions over Boris Johnson's judgement: On the one hand, some people will view this as loyalty to people that he has appointed and has an unwillingness to sack them.

Others will see this as a weakness in leadership and a lack of political judgement.

Salma Shah, sacked by the PM's aide Dominic Cummings when she was Sajid Javid's special adviser at the Treasury, is on Marr.

She says Mr Javid's appointment will mark a "change of direction" at the Department for Health, albeit a "nuanced shift".

"His view could be defined as a lot more liberal when it comes to Covid restrictions" she says.

She thinks his appointment will also mark a shift of stance in the Cabinet.

Boris Johnson's former aide Dominic Cummings claims he "tricked" the prime minister into "firing" Sajid Javid 16 months ago. He also says Johnson's wife Carrie has reappointed him.

Javid was six months into his role as chancellor, and less than a month away from delivering his first Budget, when he quit after being told to sack all his advisers if he wanted to keep his job.

His departure in February last year came after a Whitehall power struggle with Johnson's then chief adviser Cummings. Cummings left Downing Street following controversy over him making a trip to the north of England when non-essential travel was banned at the height of the coronavirus lockdown.

Nicholas Watt
Political editor, BBC Newsnight

The problem for Matt Hancock was this fundamental point: you cannot say one thing and do another.

Tory MPs were talking about the vehemence with which he condemned people who broke Covid rules.

Another senior Tory MP said: "We have - not literally - but we have been sitting there with our arms folded for the last 48 hours."

It was that silence from colleagues that really was his undoing.

Labour says it will push for Matt Hancock to be stripped of the £16,000 of severance pay he is entitled to by law.

Shadow housing secretary Lucy Powell told Sky's Trevor Phillips On Sunday people would be "appalled to think that there's going to be a severance payment to Matt Hancock in this circumstance".

She contrasted this with the pay offer for NHS staff, and says people would be "pretty disgusted".

"We will certainly be calling that out and asking the prime minister not to give him that," she says.

It has not been confirmed whether Hancock will take the payment.

The fact that Boris Johnson did not sack Hancock shows the prime minister "has a very dangerous blind spot when it comes to issues of integrity and conduct in public life", she says.

"And that's a really big problem, it's a bigger problem when you're in the middle of a pandemic and you're asking the public to also have integrity and conduct in the way that they go about their own lives."

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) will be investigating how the footage from Matt Hancock's office was leaked, Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis has said.

Appearing on Trevor Phillips On Sunday on Sky News, he was asked about the security concerns around the footage.

"It's something we need to get to the bottom of," he says. "Quite rightly what happens in government departments can be sensitive and important."

He added: "So yes, I do know that is something the Department of Health will be taking forward as an internal investigation."

Image source, Sky

Sky's Trevor Phillips, who buried his daughter last month at a Covid restricted funeral, asked the Northern Ireland secretary why he should follow any further rules after Matt Hancock breached them.

Philips told Brandon Lewis: "I wouldn't normally do something like this but I want to put a private personal question to you."

He says over the past two days every cabinet minister has come out to defend the prime minister and Hancock.

He says the photographs of Hancock kissing his aide Gina Coladangelo were reportedly captured on 6 May.

Phillips says: "On May 11 my family buried my daughter who had died, not of Covid, but during the lockdown.

"Three hundred of our family and friends turned up online but most of them were not allowed to be at the graveside, even though it was in the open air, because of the rule of 30 - because of the instruction by Mr Hancock.

"Now the next time one of you tells me what to do in my private life, explain to me why I shouldn't just tell you where to get off?"

Lewis says he understands the anger of those who had lost loved ones during the pandemic.

"That is such a tragic situation for any of us to be in. That's why it's so important for all of us to keep ourselves, our family, our friends, our wider community safe," he says.

He says there is no getting away from what Hancock did was wrong and that is why he acknowledged this, apologised and resigned.

Matt Hancock made the right decision to resign and had his country, government and family's interests at heart, the Northern Ireland Secretary says.

Brandon Lewis told Sky's Trevor Phillips that Hancock does not want the situation in his private life to distract from the key focus of the pandemic.

He says Hancock accepted what he did was wrong and has apologised and resigned.

Lewis says the vaccine rollout is a "phenomenal success" and something Hancock and his department "should be rightly proud of".

He says: "It's credit to Matt that his first thought is around making sure the country and the goverment can continue to do the work we need to do as we are moving out of the Covid pandemic."

The number of new cases in the UK is rising, with Saturday's figures the highest since early February.

A further 18,270 coronavirus cases in the UK were recorded on Saturday, and there were a further 23 deaths within 28 days of a positive test.

More than 1,500 people are currently in hospital being treated for Covid-19.

As of Friday, some 44 million people had received their first vaccine (about 83.7% of the population) and 32 million their second dose (61.2%) in the UK, according to government figures, external.

On the bright side, half of all adults aged under 30 in England will have received a first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine by Sunday, the NHS has said.

More than 4.2 million people aged between the ages 18 and 29 have received a jab just three weeks after the coronavirus vaccination programme was opened up to those in their 20s.

Hundreds of walk-in vaccination sites, including at stadiums and shopping centres, have opened in England this weekend in a bid to boost vaccine numbers.

The government plans to vaccinate all over-18s with a first dose and two-thirds of adults with a second dose by 19 July.

Labour's shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth is very critical of his new counterpart, Sajid Javid, on BBC Breakfast.

It's "like putting a fox in charge of the chicken coup" he says, because the NHS entered the pandemic "on the back of 10 years of underfunding" and "Sajid Javid was responsible for that".

He says as a former Treasury minister and then as former chancellor, Mr Javid was "a leading architect" of austerity measures that he says have weakened the NHS.

Sajid Javid faces immediate challengespublished at 08:47 British Summer Time 27 June 2021

08:47 BST 27 June 2021

Helen Catt
Political correspondent

In his letter to Matt Hancock, the prime minister thanked him for dealing with a challenge greater than any of his predecessors had to deal with.

That is the challenge Sajid Javid will now have to pick up.

Javid is pretty widely liked in Westminster and he has immediate decisions to make on the lifting of restrictions - or not - in England on 19 July, the review point for that is coming up very fast.

But he's also got bigger things to look at like NHS reforms, coming up with a plan to pay for the social care that elderly people need - and the issue of nurses' pay.

There's an awful lot coming down the line for Sajid Javid.

Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood, who heads the Defence Select Committee, has welcomed Sajid Javid's return to the cabinet as health secretary.

Mr Ellwood originally backed Matt Hancock in the Tory leadership race in 2019 before switching to Rory Stewart.

Labour's shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, tells BBC Breakfast that it's a "personal tragedy" for Mr Hancock, but he says the PM "should have had the guts" to sack him on Friday.

He says it is not just about breaking the rules but about mistakes made over the last 12 months, including failing to protect care homes with "tragic consequences" and insufficient supplies of PPE at the start of the pandemic.

It's a "damning legacy" rather than a "record to be proud of" as the PM said when Mr Hancock resigned, Ashworth says.

Matt Hancock has resigned as health secretary after he breached social distancing guidance - he was pictured in the Sun newspaper kissing a colleague.

In a letter to the PM he said the government "owe it to people who have sacrificed so much in this pandemic to be honest when we have let them down".

And former chancellor Sajid Javid has said he is "honoured" to have been chosen as Mr Hancock's replacement.

Coming up, former health secretary Jeremy Hunt and Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis will be talking to Andrew Marr from 9am. Guests also include the London Mayor Sadiq Khan.

Image source, EPA

Meanwhile in Australia, an extended two-week coronavirus lockdown has taken effect in Sydney to contain a sharp rise in cases of the Delta variant.

Some 30 Covid cases have been reported in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW).

An expanded lockdown now covers five million people in Greater Sydney, as well as the Blue Mountains, Central Coast and Wollongong.

Cases of the highly infectious Delta variant now stand at 110.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said on Sunday that she expected that figure to rise.

Read more here.

The prime minister's loyalty to Matt Hancock was too early and misplaced, Tory MP Andrew Bridgen has told the BBC.

Bridgen says the Matt Hancock saga dominated conversations during a litter pick event with constituents and was raised on the doorsteps in Batley and Spen - there's a by election there to elect a new MP on Thursday.

"Clearly the media weren't going to let go of this story, it was going to grow and also dissatisfaction and lack of confidence in the secretary of state was going to increase," he says.

"That made his poistion completely untenable. The prime minister endorsed him on the Saturday morning but things have changed since then and loyalty is normally seen as a virtue - I think in this case it was probably a little early and slightly misplaced."

The prime minister's former aide Dominic Cummings took to Twitter last night when news of the health secretary's resignation broke.

He has been extremely critical of Hancock recently, telling a committee of MPs in a seven hour question session that he had urged Boris Johnson to sack him.

And earlier this mornth, he released WhatsApp messages in which Johnson apparently calls the former health secretary "hopeless".

He also told MPs that the PM's wife, Carrie Johnson, had tried to influence staffing at No 10 - and in this latest intervention, he claims she is behind Sajid Javid's appointment as Mr Hancock's replacement.

The prime minister should have taken a tougher line after Matt Hancock breached social distancing guidelines, a former adviser says.

Conservative commentator Tim Montgomerie told BBC Breakfast: "Boris Johnson should have asked for Matt Hancock's resignation as soon as it became clear what had happened in terms of his personal life.

"Why Boris Johnson didn't call for the resignation I'm not sure, but it was very obvious from the ominous silence of Conservative MPs.

"Only two may have called for him to go but there were very, very few people giving him their support. Grassroots Conservatives, overwhelming opinion polls from the public, it was absolutely clear that he had to go.

"And I think Boris Johnson got it wrong on this occasion and he needs to reflect on perhaps being a little bit too indulgent of his ministers and he needs to perhaps take a tougher line. Otherwise standards will drop, not just in relation to Covid but across his government."

Image source, PA Media

Before resigning his role, Matt Hancock had achieved an unusually high profile for a health secretary, with the coronavirus pandemic making him a household name.

Propelled into the limelight as Covid-19 gripped the country in spring 2020, Hancock regularly spoke for the government in the media and at the daily Downing Street press conferences.

He famously set a target to conduct 100,000 Covid tests a day by the end of April, a target which he said he met - with his method for calculating the target later coming in for criticism.

But his performance at the onset of the pandemic has recently come under renewed scrutiny, following a series of explosive allegations by Boris Johnson's ex-adviser Dominic Cummings.

Hancock has repeatedly denied Cummings' claims of lying to the prime minister about care home testing and the procurement of personal protective equipment during the first Covid wave.

A bitter war of words between Hancock and the PM's ex-aide has since ensued - with Cummings publishing expletive-laden WhatsApp messages, apparently from Johnson in March last year, in which the PM called the health secretary "hopeless".

Here are the career highs and lows of the former health secretary.