Health service was ‘within 6 to 7 hours’ of running out of gowns at one point during pandemic, Hancock tells inquiry
Back at the Covid inquiry, Matt Hancock, the former health secretary, is being asked about PPE. He has just said that at one point the country was “within six or seven hours” of running out of gowns.
Hancock was being asked about this chart, showing how long stocks of various types of PPE were expected to last before they ran out.
Earlier in his evidence this afternoon Hancock said that, although individual hospitals may have run out of PPE, the country as a whole never ran out.
Jacqueline Carey KC, counsel for the inquiry, put it to him that that was not any consolation to health staff who went without PPE.
Key events
Afternoon summary
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Matt Hancock, the former health secretary, has told the Covid inquiry that England’s hospitals were within “hours” of running out of some items of personal protective equipment (PPE) in the early months of the pandemic. (See 5.08pm.)
This is what PA Media has filed from the Covid inquiry hearing this afternoon.
England’s hospitals were within “hours” of running out of some items of personal protective equipment (PPE) in the early months of Covid, Matt Hancock has said.
The former health secretary told the Covid inquiry some PPE was in very short supply during the first wave of the pandemic.
He also said he believes vaccines should be mandatory for NHS and social care staff in any future pandemic, while masks should be worn in hospitals from day one.
Lead counsel to the inquiry, Jacqueline Carey KC, asked Hancock: “Do you accept that entering the coronavirus pandemic as we did, without a single gown, severely hampered the ability to provide safe and appropriate PPE for healthcare workers?”
Hancock replied: “The stockpile that we had was not as good as it needs to be in the future, absolutely.”
Asked if England ever ran out of PPE, he said: “As a whole? No, but individual locations did.
“We came extremely close. We came within small numbers of items on a regular basis during April and May 2020 – by the second wave, we were in better shape.”
Asked about no more stock of gowns in April 2020, he said: “Gowns I think at one point we got to within six or seven hours of running out.
“We were working incredibly hard to make sure that we didn’t (run out). We nearly did.”
On the question of whether facemasks should be worn by hospital staff, visitors and workers in a future pandemic, he said: “It should be brought in immediately, and supplies need to be ready, preferably in each hospital, to make that possible.”
Furthermore, Hancock said, ensuring health and social care workers are fully vaccinated is a “reasonable step that should be expected” and should be brought in to the NHS and social care at the same time.
Vaccination as a condition of deployment came into effect in November 2021 and required Care Quality Commission-registered care home staff to be fully vaccinated in order to be deployed in care homes unless medically exempt from April 2022.
Hancock said he regretted that decision as social care and the NHS should have had the rule at the same time, adding: “If you are employed to care for others, then you should take reasonable steps to ensure you are not harming those in your care.
“A clinically proven vaccine is a reasonable step that should be expected.”
King pays tribute to John Prescott, saying he remembers ‘with great fondness his unique and indomitable character’
King Charles has paid tribute to John Prescott. It is unusual for the monarch to issue a statement after the death of a politician, and this is a sign quite what an impact Prescott made during his long career. The king said:
I am deeply saddened to learn of the death of Lord Prescott. I remember with great fondness his unique and indomitable character, as well as his infectious sense of humour.
My thoughts and greatest sympathy are with Lord Prescott’s wife, family and loved ones at such a difficult time, and I am sure that very many people will recognise and greatly appreciate Lord Prescott’s decades of public service in front line politics, not least as the United Kingdom’s longest serving deputy prime minister.
Here is our obituary of John Prescott by Stephen Bates.
Swinney says he does not want Stephen Flynn ‘double jobbing’ row to become distraction for SNP
Libby Brooks
The ongoing row about the prospect of SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn “double jobbing” risks becoming a distraction for the party, first minister John Swinney has warned.
Flynn has faced a furious backlash amongst MSPs after he announced that he was planning to stand for the Holyrood seat of Aberdeen South and North Kincardine, currently held by his SNP colleague Audrey Nicoll, in the 2026 Holyrood elections. Flynn also confirmed he would aim to hold his Westminster seat until the next general election, due in 2029, but would not accept two salaries.
The SNP has previously been highly critical of previous Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross for holding seats in both parliaments, and Flynn’s colleagues are privately angry at the implication that a Holyrood position does not amount to a full-time job, as well as what many see as the high-handed way he’s attempting to oust a respected female colleague.
Asked about the escalating conflict after FMQs, Swinney said that Flynn was a “great star” but added:
What I want to make sure is that the SNP is in no way distracted by internal issues. It’s been a mantra of mine that I want us to look outwards not inwards.
At the last Scottish parliament election, the SNP’s national executive committee made a ruling that any MP standing for Holyrood would have to resign their Westminster seat. The NEC has until next spring to decide its candidates’ rules, so this row could go on and on.
Pluralism campaigner Neal Lawson avoids expulson from Labour after 17-month probe into tweet backing tactical voting
Neal Lawson, a prominent Labour activist, has been told that he won’t be expelled from the party over a tweet that backed tactical voting.
Lawson is director of Compass, a leftwing group that campaigns for more pluralism in progressive politics. He has been cleared by Labour after a 17-month investigation into something he retweeted in May 2021, from the Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urging people to vote Green in a council ward where the Lib Dems weren’t standing. Moran said pointed out that she had only won her parliamentary seat in 2017 as a result of the Greens standing aside.
In a comment Lawson described this as “proper grown up progressive politics” from both Moran and the Greens. But Labour launched an investigation on the basis that he may have broken rules saying members should not support rival parties.
The decision to launch disciplinary action against Lawson was seen by many in the party as an example of excessive control freakery. Even Keir Starmer was said to be surprised by the move. Under Starmer many leftwing Corbynites have been ruthlessly thrown out of the party, or blocked from standing as candidates, but Lawson is not part of that faction.
At the time Lawson wrote an article for the Guardian saying he hoped “Labour’s persecutors and witchfinders” would fail and that “pluralism, that ugly but powerful word, is the force that will shape anything that is progressive”.
Today, in a news release, Compass said Lawson has been told he did not break party rules. The organisation said:
Compass has long argued for tactical voting, closer cooperation between progressive parties and for a voting system that better reflects the latent progressive majority in this country.
At the last election, Labour showed it also recognised the importance of tactical campaigning by ruthlessly targeting its resources in seats it could win and actively discouraging campaigning elsewhere. Thus they were inviting voters to do exactly what Mr Lawson was advocating – supporting the best placed progressive to win.
A Compass spokesperson said:
We welcome this decision and hope Labour can begin to recognise what Compass has been arguing for years: that no single faction or party can navigate the chaos of the 21st century alone.
Labour must be an open tribe if it has any chance of tackling the turbulent challenges of the 21st century – if it fails, the far right is waiting in the wings.
Supporters of assisted dying should abandon vote next week, and push for government review instead, Ed Balls suggests
Supporters of assisted dying should give up trying to get Kim Leadbeater’s private member’s bill through the Commons, and instead get the government to commission a proper review into how legislation should work, Ed Balls, the former Labour cabinet minister has suggested.
Speaking on his Political Currency podcast, Balls said legislation this significant should be introduced by the government, following proper consultation.
MPs are due to vote on the bill at second reading a week tomorrow. Increasingly it looks as if the Commons will vote against. Even if it passes, experts say it will never become law unless ministers allocate extra time for it – which so far they have declined to promise.
Explaining his stance, Balls said:
I would vote against this bill if I was in parliament now at the second reading, but not because I’m opposed to action on assisted dying at all.
But I don’t think parliament can cross the massive threshold of conceding the principle that it is acceptable for doctors and the courts to cooperate in the taking of somebody’s life – unless you are absolutely sure you know how it will work in practice, legally, and in terms of resources and in terms of the difficult cases. And I just don’t feel that that’s where we are. There isn’t yet enough solidity, and the government has to kind of engage in this more.
What should happen is after the opening speeches, there should be a statement in the house or publicly or from Downing Street to say ‘We think Kim Leadbeater has done a brilliant job of raising this issue, we don’t think yet we’ve got to a place where we can see a way forward. What the government is now going to do is start some kind of review process.’
Could be a Royal Commission, could be judge-led, it could be a small panel expert-led to report with a fixed date, next year.
At that point, Kim Leadbeater says, ‘Look, you know, I’ve got as far as I can with this bill.’ She withdraws, the bill drops, the private members bill. We have that process, and then we come back, if it can be made to work with government legislation next year. That is the best way, and I think it may be the only way.
George Osborne, who co-hosts the podcast with Balls, said that he was now in favour of assisted dying, having been opposed in the past, but that he also did not think Leadbeater bill would become law.
Minister says leasehold reform will take longer than expected because ‘serious flaws’ in Michael Gove’s bill need to be fixed
The government has indicated that its proposed new law “to bring the feudal leasehold system to an end” will take longer than expected.
The last government proposed leasehold reform, but it was accused of watering down its original plans and, by the time the election was called, its leasehold and freehold reform bill had not cleared parliament. A very basic version was rushed through parliament just before the dissolution.
In the king’s speech the government promised to publish a new, more extensive draft leasehold and commonhold reform bill that would implement Law Commission reform proposals that had been dropped by the Tories. The government said it wanted “to bring the feudal leasehold system to an end, reinvigorating commonhold through a comprehensive new legal framework and banning the sale of new leasehold flats so commonhold becomes the default tenure.”
But today, in a written ministerial statement, Matthew Pennycook, the housing minister said the draft bill is not expected to be published until the second half of 2025.
He said the process was more complicated than expected because he had been told that the Tory act, which was pushed through parliament by Michael Gove, contained “a small number of specific but serious flaws” that would have to be fixed by primary legislation.
Pennycook went on:
These serious flaws include a loophole which mean the act goes far beyond the intended reforms to valuation and that undermines the integrity of the amended scheme. In addition we must correct an omission that would deny tens of thousands of shared ownership leaseholders the right to extend their lease with their direct landlord given that the providers in question do not have sufficiently long leases to grant 990-year extensions.
This government will not make the same mistakes as the last when it comes to reforming what is, without question, an incredibly complicated area of property law. While we intend to continue to work at pace, we will take the time necessary to ensure the reforms we pass are fit for purpose.
Pennycook also said a white paper on commonhold reform would be published early next year.
Jessica Murray
In Birmingham, MP Jess Phillips and former West Midlands mayor Andy Street are among those who have gathered to pay tribute to the victims of the 1974 pub bombings in the city, on the 50th anniversary of the atrocity in which 21 were killed and 220 injured.
Survivors and families of the victims have today renewed their calls for a public inquiry into why no one has been brought to justice for the attacks, with Street saying he “deeply regrets that the previous government didn’t get to award it”. He told the BBC:
Twenty-one people lost their lives and we still to this day do not know exactly what happened and who the perpetrators were. One of the principles of British justice is that you should get to a closure. You might now not be able to hold those accountable for it but I do still feel that that needs to be done.
Following a one-minute silence at the memorial service outside New Street station, Phillips read out the names of the deceased and the Duchess of Edinburgh read out a message on behalf of King Charles.
The king’s message said:
My wife and I would like to take this opportunity to say that you and all those affected by this dreadful attack remain very much in our thoughts. What happened on this day 50 years ago was one of so many dreadful tragedies in a devastating period that touched us all, many of us very personally.
I must also express my sincere admiration for the people of Birmingham who have lived so courageously with the grief of that day and the days that followed.
Asked about racial disparities in Covid deaths, Hancock told the inquiry that this was an issue he was alert to because he had already taken an interest in institutional racism in the NHS. But he also said some the “hard left stuff” put out by NHS bodies to address this were not the right way forward.
Hancock tells Covid inquiry he does not accept NHS was ‘overwhelmed’ during pandemic
During evidence this morning Hancock was challenged when he claimed that the NHS was not overwhelmed during the pandemic.
Jacqueline Carey KC , counsel for the inquiry, put it to Hancock:
The fact that the nurses are being stretched to the ratios that we’ve looked at and the potential adverse consequences for those who are in ICU does not in fact demonstrate the NHS was, in fact, overwhelmed.
And Hancock replied:
No, because people could get treatment. The treatment was not as good as in the same way that the waiting times for a knee operation was not as good as pre-pandemic.
I’m not saying that the NHS was perfect in the pandemic, and I’m not saying that it wasn’t severely pressured in many areas and that that pressure had consequences. The point of saying that it would be overwhelmed is that the system as a whole, withstood the pressure.
As Martin Bagot reports in a story for the Mirror, Carey pushed back at this point, saying that if people were not getting the treatment they would normally get, they would think the system was overwhelmed. Bagot says the exchanges got testy, and that some relatives of people who died who were attending the hearing seemed to get distressed by what they were hearing.
