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Reality Check

Labour leader Keir Starmer pressed the prime minister on why he hadn’t sacked Matt Hancock from his role as health secretary on Friday, when the news of his affair broke in the Sun.

Hancock apologised later that day, saying he had “let people down”.

Boris Johnson’s official spokesman then said the prime minister had accepted Hancock’s apology and “considers the matter closed”. The spokesman confirmed that the prime minister had confidence in the health secretary.

The next day, Hancock resigned as health secretary.

In a letter to Hancock, external, the prime minister said: “You should be immensely proud of your service. I am grateful for your support and believe that your contribution to public service is far from over.“

Boris Johnson’s spokesman said: “The prime minister spoke to the former health secretary on Saturday, Matt Hancock offered his resignation and the PM thought it was right decision.”

On Monday, the prime minister spoke to the press in West Yorkshire. He said: “When I saw the story on Friday, we had a new secretary of state for health in on Saturday.”

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Reality Check

At PMQs Labour leader Keir Starmer criticised the government over its border policy, arguing that adding India to the travel restrictions red list on 23 April 2020, had allowed the Delta variant (which was first identified in India) to spread in the UK.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “We put India on the red list on 23 April and the Delta variant was not so identified until 28 April.”

Public Health England declared the Delta variant to be a “variant under investigation” on 28 April, categorising it as a “variant of concern” on 6 May.

It’s worth noting that it had already been designated as a “variant of interest” by the World Health Organisation on 4 April, external.

And it was first sequenced in the UK in the week beginning 8 March.

You can read more here about the decision to add India to the red list on 23 April.

Hancock changes his line on Bangladeshpublished at 17:10 British Summer Time 15 June 2021

17:10 BST 15 June 2021

Reality Check

Image source, Getty Images

As England's decision yesterday to delay ending coronavirus restrictions sinks in, there is increasing focus on how the Delta variant was able to gain such a foothold in the UK.

Labour has been blaming the government’s “lax border measures” – in particular the “fortnight of failure” when it delayed adding India to its travel-ban red list.

India is where the Delta variant, which is being blamed for the recent increase in cases in the UK, was first identified.

It was added to the government’s red list (with the highest level of travel restrictions) on 23 April 2021 – two weeks after neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh.

The government has said this delay was based on the proportion of people arriving in the UK from the three countries who tested positive for coronavirus - the positivity rate.

Mr Hancock told Parliament on 17 May:"The truth is that when we put Pakistan and Bangladesh on the red list, positivity among those arriving from those countries was three times higher than it was among those arriving from India."

The government has not published all the figures that it said supported that claim, but Reality Check said at the time that there was no evidence that Bangladesh had three times the positivity rate of India.

In the Commons last night, Mr Hancock had changed his line, saying: "As I have said to this House before, when the decision was taken on 2 April to put Pakistan and Bangladesh on the red list, test positivity of travellers returning from Pakistan was 4.6%—three times the 1.6% positivity of returning travellers from India."

But this time he did not mention Bangladesh. The figures for Pakistan and India are close to the ones that have been published by Mr Hancock’s department, although we cannot be sure because it has not published the figures for the exact date he was talking about.

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