The hearing has now paused for a lunch break and will resume at 13:50. We'll have more to bring you from the evidence former Home Secretary Priti Patel gave the inquiry in the last 15 minutes.

We'll also provide a recap of the key things we heard this morning.

Patel says there was a clear structure when working with the police but she said the regulations themselves were drafted by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).

She says that her department was there to bring to light practical realties of what was working and what wasn't, rather than to create the restrictions.

Patel says the Cabinet Office would have been pivotal for going through clearing process but the department that held the "pen" for creating rules was the DHSC.

Inquiry lawyer Hugo Keith KC asks Patel whether the Home Office was involved in the drafting of Covid regulations.

She says that was "solely" the Department for Health and Social Care throughout the pandemic.

As home secretary at the time, Patel says she set up a "clear structure" for working with the police, and spoke with law enforcement "nearly every day".

During these meetings, she says she would "listen to questions and concerns" but says they were "learning all the time".

Former Home Secretary Priti Patel has just been sworn in and will be the next witness giving evidence to the inquiry.

We'll bring you the key lines from what she says.

Asked about the increase in Covid rule breaches as the pandemic continued, Hewitt notes how there was a rise in illegal music events and parties. He says this was linked to a "fatigue" that everyone - but especially the young - were feeling, particularly in urban areas, about Covid rules.

Asked by inquiry lawyer Andrew O'Connor KC if there were lessons to be learned for future pandemics, Hewitt says he hopes that there would be an ability to anticipate where challenges would come from, particularly in terms of people moving around the country.

He also suggests the inquiry should look at the work being done in the Police Race Action Plan, which will produce recommendations relevant to policing minority communities in any future pandemic.

Hewitt is still being questioned on the NPCC's report, which also showed that Asian and black people were 1.8 times more likely to receive a fixed penalty notice than white people.

He says this was of "great concern" and that the "key point" was to share this information "immediately" with police forces across the country.

Hewitt points out that, as each police force was responsible for enforcing regulations locally, there were disparities between where ethnic minority communities were worse affected.

The next step, he says, was for the forces to "address the issue themselves".

The lawyer asks Hewitt whether he had a role in tackling this, beyond just alerting forces to the problem.

Hewitt answers that he did not, but that national forces were "always responding" back to him and that he chaired a number of groups that looked at issues in policing, including those on race and equality.

Inquiry lawyer Andrew O'Connor KC then moves on to asking about the "disproportionate" impact of fixed penalty notices for some ethnic groups.

A report published by the NPCC in July 2020 said that those from minority ethnic groups were 1.6 times more likely to be fined than white people.

At the time, Hewitt said it was “a concern to see disparity” but added that it was a “complex picture”.

Speaking at the inquiry now, Hewitt says that it was "clear" from the start that there would be an issue over how policing was done in a "fair way" across communities - particularly those where the relationship with police is "more challenged".

He adds that the first issue brought to an independent ethics committee that had been set up to deal with issues surrounding policing and the pandemic was the disproportionality of fixed penalty notices.

Hewitt then goes on to say that the national system for fixed penalty notices had to be created from scratch "in 36 hours".

Hewitt is asked about the Covid regulations and how they applied to children - and whether it was clear whether or not they could go out to play, either with or without their carers.

Hewitt says that lockdown was a very different experience for families depending on their circumstances, such as living in a flat or having access to a garden.

He said officers did their best but there wasn't enough clarity on how the rules worked, which he said put officers "on the ground in an invidious position" when it came to enforcing rules.

The inquiry is back from a break now and inquiry lawyer Andrew O'Connor KC is asking Hewitt about the policing of protests and large gatherings.

In his witness statement, Hewitt writes that protest activity during the pandemic was originally not identified as a reasonable excuse to be outside, but that this later changed to allow protesting under certain regulations.

In any situation, policing protests is "challenging", Hewitt says, but against the backdrop of a pandemic it is "even further challenging".

He identifies the first main challenge to these regulations as the murder of George Floyd in America in May 2020 and the subsequent Black Lives Matter protests across the world, including in the UK.

The inquiry lawyer then talks about the protests and vigil in response to the murder of Sarah Everard in March 2021.

The lawyer mentions a WhatsApp exchange sent on the evening of the vigil between a number of people at No 10, including the former PM Boris Johnson.

In a message, former Brexit minister Lord Frost said the rules on outside gatherings were practically "unenforceable" and were being ignored "in all kinds of contexts".

Image source, Getty Images

The way rules were applied differently across various parts of the UK put extra pressure on the police, says Hewitt.

He said people were "travelling in some cases hundreds of miles" to visit parks and outdoor spaces which could anger those living nearby.

"People's preparedness to comply is eroded when I think that the other person over there is having an easier time than me.

"And this particularly became relevant when we started to get local lockdowns and in some places where you would have literally on opposite sides of the road different regulations for people."

Asked about the "confusion" between regulations and guidance, Hewitt says it "definitely" impacted people's compliance with the laws.

People "genuinely couldn't understand" where they fitted into the rules, he says.

This, combined with the regular changing of Covid regulations, "inevitably starts to erode people's commitment".

And when that happens, people start to think: "Why are we complying, when we can see other people aren't?" he says.

Hewitt explains that regulations were changing so rapidly that the notice period the NPCC was given before they were meant to be enforced was often not long enough.

On one occasion, he says a new regulation was due to come into force at one minute past midnight.

Hewitt says he received the signed-off regulation by then Health Secretary Matt Hancock at 23:45 the previous day.

He explains that he would need 24 to 36 hours from this point in order to "be confident police officers out there knew what they needed to do".

Hewitt adds that more involvement should also have come from the Home Office directly, saying it seemed "quite surprised" at the emergence of regulations on a number of occasions.

Asked by Covid inquiry lawyer Andrew O’Connor KC how different the processes for implementing new regulations were during the pandemic and "normal times", Hewitt says there should have been better communication with the Home Office.

He accepted that the situation was moving rapidly but told the inquiry that the police should have been consulted over any new restrictions for the public.

Image source, Covid Inquiry

Baroness Hallett makes a rare interjection to ask Hewitt about powers police were given to enforce testing people for Covid tests they suspected were infected with the virus.

She says she "shouldn't criticise, but that's a bad piece of legislation" - a power that was part of the Coronavirus Act 2020.

The emergency bill, passed in March 2020, gave the government wide-ranging powers, which also included enabling police to shut down events.

In reply, Hewitt says "how on earth one forms a reasonable ground" to judge if someone is infected with a virus you cannot see seems to be "quite a challenge" in a practical sense.

Reverting back to the goals of the inquiry, Hallett says that, if we were to have another pandemic, it would be important to have "legislation better than this".

Hewitt moves to discussing the rationale behind "the 4 Es" approach.

He says senior leaders all agreed that the pandemic should be policed "in a way that was consistent with our policing style", which he described as a "consensual" style.

Knowing that they were going into "unusual territory" where restrictions on people's liberties would be "incredibly severe", Hewitt says police focused on "explanation".

He says that, at various stages, there was "a lack of clarity" about what individual regulations meant.

Hewitt goes on to explain how the police used "the 4 Es" to try to police effectively during the pandemic:

• Engage
• Explain
• Encourage
• Enforce

He says officers tried to make enforcement a last resort and encouraged people to comply with the rules by other means.

The inquiry lawyer is questioning Hewitt on the NPCC's response to the pandemic, which was designated Operation Talla.

In his witness statement, Hewitt describes the pandemic as an "unprecedented situation" that needed an "unprecedented response".

He says the kind of measures being taken in other countries in 2020 - where the virus had spread ahead of the UK - were unlike anything that had happened "since the second world war".

"We were going to be in positions where we were going to be imposing on people's liberty and movement and their lives in a way that was totally out of our experience at that point in time," he said.

Talking about the early days of the pandemic, Martin Hewitt talks about the challenges of policing shifting to enforce Covid rules, describing it as "largely uncharted territory".

In his witness statement, he recalls how in the early days of the pandemic a police chief said "you can't police a 2-metre distance" - a reference to the social distancing guidelines in force at the time.

Police were trying to "achieve compliance" with rules that were "there to keep people safe", Hewitt says, but doing this would "clash" with officers' normal way of operating.

"We would be imposing restrictions totally out of our experience", he says.

Image source, PA Media

At the moment, Covid inquiry lawyer Andrew O’Connor KC and Martin Hewitt are talking about the former chairman of the National Police Chiefs' Council's career and the remit of his role during the pandemic.

While they do that, here's a reminder on who is leading the inquiry.

Although established and funded by the government, the Covid inquiry is being led by an independent chair, Baroness Heather Hallett.

She’s a retired judge and crossbench peer in the House of Lords.

Baroness Hallett previously led the inquests into the 7 July bombings in 2005. Listen to a 15-minute profile on her here.

Hewitt has just been sworn in, and with it today's inquiry session has begun.

Stay with us for updates. You can also watch by clicking the play button above.