Matt Hancock says ‘many lives’ would have been saved if UK locked down three weeks earlier – and blasts ‘toxic culture’

MANY lives would have been saved from Covid if Britain locked down three weeks earlier, Matt Hancock insisted today.

The ex-Health Secretary said “in hindsight” imposing restrictions on March 2, 2020 would have spared 90 per cent of the first wave deaths.

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But he slammed the “toxic culture” in Downing Street created by “malign actor” Dominic Cummings.

He hit back at the maverick aide’s claims he was a “proven liar” and said it was actually the maverick adviser who told fibs while creating a “culture of fear”.

After weeks of taking flak from numerous people at the Covid inquiry – including a blistering attack by Mr Cummings – Mr Hancock used his own grilling yesterday to defend his record.

But he did say “many, many lives” would have been saved if Britain had locked down three weeks earlier.

He said: “That’s the moment we should have done it, three weeks earlier, and it would have saved many, many lives.”

And he admitted his claims in May 2020 of throwing a “protective ring” around care homes did not mean they were safe from Covid.

Mr Hancock was quizzed on a WhatsApp from Mr Cummings to then PM Boris Johnson which said: “We are negligently killing the most vulnerable and I’m extremely worried.”

Rubbishing the claims, he said the scruffy top aide actively “provided misinformation to the prime minister.”

He told the inquiry: “The point is they are false so you can’t actually take anything he wrote in that [witness statement] as true, as in that case it didn’t accord with the fact.”

Mr Hancock also denied fiddling the testing numbers to hit his memorable 100,000-a-day target.

During his own session this month, Mr Cummings said the former Health Secretary was a “proven liar” and should have been sacked much earlier.

Mr Hancock – who memorably resigned in the summer of 2021 after The Sun revealed his lockdown-busting affair – yesterday shot back: “I was not.”

Instead he took aim at a “toxic culture” in government and said Mr Cummings was a “malign actor” who tried to seize power by cutting ministers out of key meetings.

The politician – who has since forged a reality career on I’m A Celebrity and SAS: Who Dares Wins –  said he tried to “wake up” Whitehall in the early days.

He named his “biggest regret” as not overruling the scientific advice and going with his gut that Covid spread via asymptomatic transmission.

Mr Hancock said the “gathering storm” of Covid was overlooked with health officials still being pulled into other meetings while the disease spread in China.

He said a 2011 flu plan was still the blueprint for dealing with coronavirus as late as February 2020.

Mr Hancock will continue giving evidence tomorrow, while Mr Johnson will appear next Wednesday and Thursday.