Covid Inquiry: Hancock in the hot seat - but for grieving families, this was just a warm-up

Matt Hancock was described today at the Covid Inquiry as "the man in the hot seat when the pandemic struck" - and the expectation was that he would get a grilling.

The West Suffolk MP was Health Secretary from June 2018 until June 2021 when he resigned due to breaking his own Covid rules. Since then despite remaining as an MP, writing a book and a couple of weeks in the Australian jungle, he has probably spent a lot of time and thought preparing for today , his first appearance at the Covid inquiry.

For him this will be a moment he will have been anticipating as - in his view - a chance to tell his side of the story.

Ahead of the hearing he has made it known he feels very strongly that full transparency is vital so lessons can be learned.

He's made all his records and materials available to the inquiry unredacted - in contrast perhaps to the ongoing legal row about his former colleague Boris Johnson's records.

He arrived early enough at the inquiry on Tuesday that he wasn't heckled on the way in.

Those representing bereaved families were there but protested silently.

He spoke directly to those who lost loved ones when he said he was profoundly sorry for the impact and the deaths during the pandemic, arguing that the whole approach to pandemic planning had been wrong.

The country had been planning for the consequences of a disaster rather than preparing to stop a novel virus spreading, he said.

So why, as the person responsible, did he not change that approach? As health secretary there were "many bad things to prepare for", he said, citing health inequalities and obesity as some of the issues focused on during 2019. 

On the issue of care homes, he said that though his title at the time was Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, responsibility for pandemic preparations in care homes lay with local authorities and the plans were either non existent or "wholly inadequate".

And he said lessons must be learned, warning that in a future pandemic a government might need to be prepared to lockdown quicker and more harshly.

For those listening in, particularly those bereaved during the pandemic, his appearance might not have provided many answers - and there will be many more questions to come.

This is only the first module of the inquiry, with the next in the Autumn when Matt Hancock is due to appear again.

That section will be about government decisions after the pandemic hit - meaning Matt Hancock will be in the hot seat once again.

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