PARLIAMENT: ALBA MP PUTS THE BOOT INTO WAFFLING HEALTH SECRETARY MATT HANCOCK

By Bill Heaney

One of Alex Salmond’s miniband of ALBA Members of the Westminster parliament put a stop – even if it was only for a few moments – to Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s waffling explanation of Boris Johnston’s special adviser Dominic Cummings’ condemnation of him as a cheat and a liar.

Hancock, whose arrogant behaviour may have been responsible for the deaths of thousands of people during the Covid pandemic, lied frequently to the press and public more than 20 times over the past year, Neale Hanvey told the House of Commons..

He said: “Yesterday’s revelations have only served to reinforce what many have suspected: a tale of chaos, deception, dishonesty and failure, including the reckless suggestion of herd immunity and chickenpox parties.

“While so many watched aghast, the Secretary of State chose to respond to these very serious allegations by claiming he had been too busy saving lives to even bother.

“My enduring memory of the Secretary of State yesterday will be of him quite literally running away from his responsibilities.

“I want to focus on one vitally important matter that emerged yesterday regarding deaths in care homes.

“Did the Secretary of State [Hancock], as alleged, categorically tell Mr Cummings and unspecified others that people would be tested before being transferred into care homes?

“If he did not, why then was transfer without testing the adopted policy across England and the devolved Governments, including Scotland?

“On 17 October last year, I asked the Secretary of State to consider tendering his resignation. Surely if all these allegations are substantiated, he must do so.”

Health Secretary Hancock replied that so many of Cummings’s allegations the allegations yesterday were unsubstantiated.

He claimed: “His most important point was that the Scottish Government, with their responsibilities for social care, had to respond to the same challenges and dilemmas as we did, as did other countries across Europe and across the world.

“We were driving incredibly hard as one United Kingdom to increase testing volumes. We successfully increased testing volumes, including through the important use of the 100,000 testing target, which had a material impact on accelerating the increase in testing, and because of this increased testing we were able to spread the use of tests more broadly.

“It was the same challenge for the Administration in Edinburgh as it was here in Westminster, and the best way to rise to these challenges is to do so working together.”

Dominic Cummings evidence was described as “a grotesque pantomime”.

Green Party MP Caroline Lucas maintained: “The families of the bereaved deserve better than the grotesque pantomime of the Cummings evidence session yesterday.

“At the very least, they deserve the publication of the internal lessons learned review. A constituent of mine whose father died from covid acquired in hospital wrote to me to say that the refusal to release it is ‘an insult to bereaved family members, who, in the midst of our own suffering, are determined to prevent other families from experiencing the loss we have’.

“She is right because the big question is not just about mistakes the Government made last March, but why Ministers never learn from those errors and continue on a path that risks lives and livelihoods.

“The Secretary of State [Hancock] says he is being straight with the public and this House, so as continued Government negligence risks a third wave of the pandemic, will he finally publish that review urgently, not least so that it can be scrutinised before restrictions are due to be lifted next month?”

Matt Hancock’s response was tame. He said: “Of course, we learn lessons all the way through and we follow the scientific developments that teach us more about this virus all the way through, and then we will also have a full inquiry afterwards to make sure that we can learn further lessons for the future.

“The thing I did not quite understand about the hon. Lady’s question is why she did not refer to the single most important programme that is saving lives, which is the vaccination programme.

“She should be urging her constituents and others to come forward and get the jab because that is our way out of this pandemic.”