Covid inquiry live: Priti Patel admits policing of Sarah Everard vigil was ‘totally inappropriate’
Ex-home secretary says police generally struck right balance between protest and Covid restrictions
Dame Priti Patel has admitted to the Covid inquiry that the policing of a vigil for murdered marketing executive Sarah Everard was “totally inappropriate”.
The former home secretary said she was “dismayed” by the policing of the vigil in early 2021. The Metropolitan Police have since apologised and paid damages to two of those who were arrested.
However, Dame Priti said she felt the police generally struck the right balance between enforcing coronavirus restrictions and upholding people’s right to protest – despite such matters feeling “uncomfortable” at the time.
Earlier today, former top police chief Martin Hewitt criticised localised Covid rules, the speed at which they changed, and the tier system of different regulations for different areas of the country.
He told the inquiry that localised tiers made it “incredibly difficult for even a perfectly law-abiding and committed citizen to understand precisely what that meant for them in their own personal circumstances”, while having different regulations “on opposite sides of the same road” made policing more difficult.
Jun Pang, the policy and campaigns officer at Liberty, is also giving evidence to the inquiry.
Watch: PPE stockpile was not sufficient, says ex-NHS boss
Cummings accuses ‘lying c***’ Hancock of ‘killing people’
Dominic Cummings has launched another blistering attack on former health secretary Matt Hancock, after the former No 10 official faced a grilling over his expletive-laden WhatsApp messages during the pandemic.
Following his testimony earlier this week, Mr Cummings asked on Twitter whether the true problem was either him “calling Hancock ‘a lying c*** killing people’” or “Hancock actually being a lying c*** killing people”.
Watch: Boris Johnson wrong to blame lockdown on ‘bed-blockers’, says Simon Stevens
Matt Hancock’s permanent secretary told him he was considered a liar
Matt Hancock’s permanent secretary Sir Christopher Wormald said he had “one conversation” with the then health secretary about colleagues believing he regularly said things that were untrue.
But Sir Christopher said the conversation was “mainly about the views of Dominic Cummings”.
“What I was seeing at the time was a very small number of people who were not Mr Hancock’s friends, saying this,” Sir Christopher added.
Matt Hancock was overpromising, not lying, former permanent secretary
The former permanent secretary in the Department of Health has said Matt Hancock often said things that could be considered “overpromising as opposed to untruths”.
Sir Christopher Wormald is being grilled by the Covid inquiry’s lead counsel Hugo Keith KC about why so many people have told the inquiry Mr Hancock was untrustworthy,
“I don’t think there was any doubt that some people thought that about him,” Sir Christopher said.
“I suspect he will be surprised by how widespread it was,” he added, citing evidence given by former top civil servant Helen MacNamara.
But Sir Christopher stuck to the line that he never witnessed Mr Hancock saying things which proved to be untrue.
‘I did not witness Matt Hancock saying something untrue,’ former permanent secretary
The former permanent secretary in the Department of Health said there were “a very small” number of instances in which officials complained about Matt Hancock not telling the truth, reports our political correspondent Archie Mitchell.
But Sir Christopher Wormald said he “did not witness or come across” Mr Hancock having said anything “actually untrue”.
“There were a lot of people who said the secretary of state was over-optimistic,” however, he admitted.
It comes after days of allegations about Mr Hancock being a liar during the Covid inquiry.
Top health department official takes the stage
That's all for Lord Simon Stevens ... up now is Sir Christopher Wormald, the Department of Health’s former permanent secretary.
Watch: Matt Hancock believed he should decide ‘who should live and die’
Racial disparities in Covid death rate spotted in spring 2020, NHS boss says
The former boss of the NHS said in “early spring” 2020, the NHS became aware of the higher death rate among Black, Asian and minority ethnic Covid patients.
Then, at the beginning of April, the health service’s medical director Prof Stephen Powis raised the issue with Public Health England and chief medical officer Chris Whitty, Lord Simon Stevens told the Covid inquiry.
Warning people about long-Covid could have restricted spread of Covid overall
Our political correspondent Archie Mitchell reports:
The former boss of the NHS said warning people about the existence of long-Covid could have reduced the spread of the disease altogether.
Simon Stevens was asked whether a public information campaign about long Covid, which leaves patients with symptoms that can last weeks, months, or even years after infection, would assisted the NHS.
“Possibly, yes,” he said.
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