UK Covid: Hancock refuses to deny telling No 10 patients would be tested before discharge into care homes – as it happened

• Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has refused to deny a claim from Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s former chief adviser, that Hancock told No 10 in the early days of the pandemic that patients would be tested before being discharged into care homes. At a press conference where his evasiveness led to him facing repeated questions on this topic, he said:

Of course we committed, and I committed, to getting the policy in place but it took time to build the testing.

We didn’t start with a big testing system in the UK and then we built that testing system, and that’s why the 100,000 target was so important because it really accelerated the availability of testing because when you don’t have much testing we had to prioritise it according to clinical need.

When pressed on whether he had told the PM in March 2020 that all patients would be tested when being discharged to care homes, as Cummings said he did, Hancock replied:

My recollection of events is that I committed to delivering that testing for people going from hospital into care comes when we could do it. I then went away and built the testing capacity for all sorts of reasons and all sorts of uses, including this one, and then delivered on the commitment that I made.

Earlier Hancock faced a much happier outing in the Commons where Conservative MPs ignored his failure to answer this particular question and gave him their full support. (See 12.09pm.) At the press conference Hancock also received some support from Dr Jenny Harries, chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency. She said that hospital discharges were only responsible for “a very, very tiny proportion” of Covid cases in care homes. A report from Public Health England (pdf) out today makes the same point. It says:

The findings of this report suggest hospital associated seeding accounted for a small proportion of all care home outbreaks.

But it also says:

Policies on systematic testing prior to hospital discharge for patients discharged to care homes were introduced on 15 April 2020. This may have supported the decline seen in these types of outbreaks, contributing to an overall reduction in care home cases.

• Boris Johnson has rejected the claim made by Cummings that tens of thousands of people died unnecessarily because of mistakes made by the government. (See 1.19pm.)

• Up to three-quarters of new UK Covid cases are thought to be caused by the variant first detected in India, Hancock said.

• Cases of the Indian variant have doubled within a week, a Public Health England report has revealed. PHE says:

PHE’s latest weekly variant cases data shows that cases of VOC-21APR-02 [the Indian variant] have risen by 3,535 to 6,959 since last week.

The most affected areas continue to be Bolton, Bedford and Blackburn with Darwen, which have seen 1,354, 366 and 361 confirmed cases, respectively. There are small numbers of cases of VOC-21APR-02 in most parts of the country. PHE have published a full breakdown of VOC-21APR-02 cases by lower-tier local authority.

In some affected areas, hospitalisations are rising. Hospital attendances and admissions are predominantly in unvaccinated individuals, highlighting how crucial it is that people in these areas come forward to receive vaccination.

• Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, has said the decision about whether to introduce “Covid certificates” to allow events and venues to open up this summer remains “finely balanced”.

• The government has restarted the recruitment process for a new chair of Ofcom after the prime minister’s favoured candidate, the former Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre, had his application rejected by an interview board.

That’s all from me for today. But our coronavirus coverage continues on our global live blog. It’s here.

These are from Newsnight’s Lewis Goodall on what Matt Hancock said at the press conference about one of the most damaging allegations Dominic Cummings made about him.

This is from the Daily Mirror’s Pippa Crerar.

And these are from Torsten Bell from the Resolution Foundation, addressing Crerar’s question.

Hancock says there are some “early signs” that the case numbers in Bolton are starting to flatten, after rising sharply because of the Indian variant.

Harries also says it looks as though cases are starting to plateau in Bolton. But she says there may be a spill-over into other areas.

And that’s it. The press conference is over.

Q: Have you spoken to the PM about Cummings’ evidence? And has he told you you have his confidence?

Hancock says he and the PM speak all the time. They focus on getting the country out of the pandemic.

This isn’t over yet, he says. The rise in case rates shows that. There is a race between the variant and the vaccine.

Q: Do you agree with Prof Ferguson that it is “in the balance” as to whether step 4 of the roadmap can go ahead? (See 9.52am.)

Harries says she absolutely agrees with Ferguson.

She says we are “on the cusp” as to whether step 4 can go ahead as planned.

Q: Why did you sign off the discharge plan when there was not sufficient testing capacity?

Hancock says they took clinical advice on what to do. And they had to build testing capacity. That is what they did.

Q: Is it the case that you made this promise, but then found you could not deliver it because the testing capacity was not in place?

Hancock says there will be a time to go over this in great detail.

But his recollection is that he committed to delivering the testing capacity. He went away and built it, he says. That is what you do in government, he says.

He repeats the point about how there will be a time to go through this in great detail.

(If Hancock did not tell No 10 that testing for patients being discharged was already in place at the start of the pandemic, as Dominic Cummings alleges he did, you would expect him to deny it directly. But he hasn’t. So although he is claiming to have said something different, his account does not undermine the key Cummings claim.)

Q: Did you tell the PM that everyone going from hospital to care home would be tested? Or is Cummings not telling the truth?

Hancock repeats what he said before. Of course he committed to putting the policy in place, he says. But it took time. They did not start with a testing system in place.

Q: It was common knowledge last year there were problems with care homes. Did you protect them? And did you or did you not tell Downing Street people would be tested before being discharged into care homes?

Hancock says they committed to building the testing capacity to allow people to be tested. But that took time. And he needed to use targets to build that up. (Dominic Cummings criticised his use of the 100,000 tests per day target.) This is a matter of public record, he says.

(Hancock has not specifically addressed Cummings’ claim that he said that patients were being tested before they were discharged.)

• Hancock sidesteps question about whether he told No 10 patients would be tested before being discharged.

Q: With each new variant the effectiveness of new vaccines becomes less and less. So why is lockdown relaxation continuing when most of those who spread the virus have not yet had a single vaccination?

Hancock says they are working as fast as they can to get people vaccinated.

And they are monitoring new variants carefully. He says the effectiveness of the vaccine after two jabs is effectively the same against the Indian variant as it is against the Kent variant.

Harries says Public Health Report published a report at the weekend showing both main vaccines are effective against the Indian variant after two doses.

But it is important to be vigilant, she says.

And here are the recent figures for the number of people in hospital.

Unlike with cases, there is no rise, Harries says.

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But deaths are rising, she says.

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Harries is now presenting the slides.

This one shows rising cases. She says some of this is due to surge testing, and more people being tested. But it is also a consequence of the Indian variant she says.

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Hancock says Eddie Gray from GSK will chair the antivirals taskforce set up by the PM.

Hancock says 500,000 people have signed up for the vaccine research registry - which means they are willing to take part in vaccine trials.

He says the government is funding the expansion of another Oxford study, looking at whether vaccines can be mixed.

If it shows they can, that would speed up vaccination programmes around the world.

Hancock says the vaccine is severing the link between Covid cases and hospitalisations.

He says the latest ONS data shows that three out of our people have anti-Covid antibodies, and for the over-50s it is over 90%.

He says it is estimated that the vaccination programme has now prevented 13,200 deaths and 39,700 hospitalisations.

Hancock says the latest data shows Covid cases rising. (See 4.42pm.)

He says the latest estimates are that more than half of new cases are the Indian variant, and it could be up to three quarters, he says.