Matt Hancock booed as he arrives to give evidence at Covid inquiry

21 November 2024, 11:17 | Updated: 21 November 2024, 11:22

Former health secretary Matt Hancock has been booed as he arrived at the UK Covid-19 Inquiry where he is due to give evidence.

Mandy Phillips, who booed at Matt Hancock as he walked into Dorland House in London, said she believes he "should never have been health secretary".

Ms Phillips, who is a member of the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group from Thames Ditton in Surrey, said "we didn't learn enough from the first (Coronavirus) wave".

The 63-year-old told the PA news agency she would be "intrigued to see if he says anything different from last time".

She added: "So I want to come and I want to hold him to account, basically. And I think it is important that we just sit there, and in my case, I will just sit at the back and glare at him basically."

The former Health Secretary will face a number of questions about his work before the pandemic and the Government's response to the crisis.

It will be the third time Mr Hancock has given evidence to the inquiry in person.

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'Falling off a cliff'

Sarah Steven, a member of the group Clinically Vulnerable Families, said "today is really key for us but we're not expecting to hear anything we don't already know".

The 52-year-old, who was clinically vulnerable during the pandemic, described the end of lockdown rules in July 2021 as like "falling off a cliff edge" with "no support".

Another member of the group, Andrea Barrett, 30, said she caught Covid and it developed into long Covid and now she is not able to work.

At the inquiry, Hancock defended the 'Stay Home, Save Lives, Protect the NHS' messaging implemented during the pandemic.

Mr Hancock appeared in front of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry in London on Thursday.

Asked by inquiry counsel Jacqueline Carey if he thought the messaging "struck the right balance" Mr Hancock replied: "Yes."

"We needed to ensure that the public across the whole of the UK understood the importance of staying at home whenever possible in order to stop the spread of the virus," he added.

"The 'Protect the NHS' element was important for two reasons. The first is that it was a motivating factor to encourage people to follow that advice because belief in the NHS and support for the NHS is one of the strongest things that holds this country together.

"And the second reason is because it was literally true that if we didn't stop the spread of the virus, then the NHS would be overwhelmed, by which, I mean, the system as a whole would have been unable to cope with the demand on it, as we'd seen in other countries like Italy."