Health minister plays down ‘selective’ leaked messages suggesting Hancock rejected advice on care home Covid testing – live

Good morning. Covid has soared backed to the top of the news agenda, after the Daily Telegraph published a front page story claiming Matt Hancock ignored medical advice on testing people going into care homes in the early days of the pandemic, when he was health secretary. Hancock says the story is “completely wrong”, based on a partial use of confidential material that is in effect stolen, and published to support the Telegraph’s anti-lockdown agenda.

Hancock is also considering suing the paper for libel.

Here is the key allegation from the Telegraph’s splash.

Matt Hancock rejected the chief medical officer’s advice to test for Covid all residents going into English care homes, leaked messages seen by The Telegraph reveal.

Prof Sir Chris Whitty told the then health secretary early in April 2020, about a month into the pandemic, that there should be testing for “all going into care homes”. But Mr Hancock did not follow that guidance, telling his advisers that it “muddies the waters”.

Instead, he introduced guidance that made testing mandatory for those entering care homes from hospital, but not for those coming from the community. Prior to the guidance, care homes had been told that negative tests were not required even for hospital patients. The guidance stating that those coming in from the community should be tested was eventually introduced on Aug 14.

In response, a spokesperson for Hancock said that the guidance only mandated testing for people entering care homes from hospital because the capacity was not available to test people entering care homes from the community as well at that point. The spokesperson said:

Having not been approached in advance by the Telegraph, we have reviewed the messages overnight.

The Telegraph intentionally excluded reference to a meeting with the testing team from the WhatsApp. This is critical, because Matt was supportive of Chris Whitty’s advice, held a meeting on its deliverability, told it wasn’t deliverable, and insisted on testing all those who came from hospitals.

The Telegraph have been informed that their headline is wrong, and Matt is considering all options available to him.

The spokesperson also accused the Telegraph of attacking him to promote the paper’s anti-lockdown agenda. The spokesperson said:

It is outrageous that this distorted account of the pandemic is being pushed with partial leaks, spun to fit an anti-lockdown agenda, which would have cost hundreds of thousands of lives if followed.

What the messages do show is a lot of people working hard to save lives.

The full documents have already all been made available to the inquiry, which is the proper place for an objective assessment, so true lessons can be learned.

Those who argue there shouldn’t have been a lockdown ignore the fact that half a million people would have died had we not locked down. And for those saying we should never lock down again, imagine if a disease killed half those infected, and half the population were going to get infected – as is happening right now with avian flu in birds. If that disease were in humans, of course we’d want to lockdown.

The story spun on care homes is completely wrong. What the messages show is that Mr Hancock pushed for testing of those going into care homes when that testing was available.

Instead of spinning and leaks we need the full, comprehensive inquiry, to ensure we are as well prepared as we can be for the next pandemic, whenever it comes.

The Telegraph story is wrong, based on partial, spun leaks – and they did not approach Matt before publication.

The Telegraph obtained its material from Isabel Oakeshott, the journalist who co-authored his Pandemic Diaries. She was shown his WhatsApp messages subject to a non-disclosure agreement, but she has said it is in the public interest for them to be be published. This is not the first time she has turned against someone having collaborated with them on a book; it happened to Arron Banks, the Ukip and Leave.EU donor whose Brexit memoirs she ghost wrote.

What makes this story particularly concerning, not just for Hancock but for the government as a whole, is that it is not a one-off. The Telegraph says that it has more than 100,000 WhatsApp messages from Hancock and that it will be publishing a series of revelations from them in the coming days. It has set up a dedicated web page to the story – always a worrying development, as those caught up in its MPs’ expenses investigation will recall.

I will post more on this through the day. But we have also got PMQs, and ongoing discussion about the Northern Ireland protocol deal.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10.15am: Dominic Raab, the justice secretary and deputy PM, gives evidence to the Lords constitutional affairs committee.

12pm: Rishi Sunak faces Keir Starmer at PMQs.

2.45pm: Kemi Badenoch gives evidence to the Commons women and equalities committee in her capacity as minister for women and equalities. (She is also business secretary.)

I’ll try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.

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