Former UK health secretary Matt Hancock has defended his record as minister, hitting out at a "toxic culture" and "deep unpleasantness" at the heart of government during the coronavirus pandemic.
He denied that there had been "absence of a plan" and insisted his department did "rise to the challenge" of responding to the biggest public health crisis in a century as he gave evidence to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry.
Extracts from former chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance's diaries read out by lead counsel Hugo Keith complained of a "massive internal mess inside DHSC (Department of Health and Social Care) and PHE (Public Health England)".
They recorded that then-cabinet secretary Mark Sedwill said there was a "clear lack of grip in DHSC".
In response, Mr Hancock told the inquiry: "It’s normal for the centre, the Cabinet Office, to be sceptical of departments."
"I think that the toxic culture that you’ve seen at the centre of government, that’s been the subject of much discussion, was unhelpful in assuming that when anything was difficult or a challenge, therefore there was somehow fault and blame.
"That’s a part of the toxic culture that we have seen and some of these exhibits that you’ve just shown demonstrate a lack of generosity or empathy and understanding the difficulty of rising to such a big challenge."
While he accepted that DHSC had not got everything right, he said his department had risen to "the challenge overall of responding to the biggest public health challenge in a century".
Mr Hancock insisted that even if there had been the "perfect" plan in place, his department would still have had to strengthen its operation to respond to the crisis.
Questioned about the preparedness before the pandemic struck, he said: "I take issue with 'absence of a plan’. There wasn’t absence of a plan, there were plans. I’ve critiqued the plans, I’ve said that they weren’t adequate but there were plans in place."
He cited the 2011 pandemic plan and the sickness exercise carried out while Jeremy Hunt was health secretary as examples.
Mr Hancock later told the inquiry that "many, many lives" would have been saved if the country had gone into the first coronavirus lockdown three weeks before it actually did.
The former health secretary said that with the benefit of hindsight, the UK should have gone into lockdown on 2 March 2020, instead of three weeks later on 23 March 2020.
However, he defended the British government's decision at the time, saying that there was still "enormous uncertainty" and only 12 cases had been identified in the country by this point.
Mr Hancock said that he regarded 28 February 2020 as the "moment that the centre of government, led by the prime minister, really started to come into action".
But he also described how he felt that Downing Street was stopping then-prime minister Boris Johnson from saying anything publicly about the virus in February 2020.
He also claimed he was not allowed to give radio interviews on the subject.
Referencing Mr Hancock's witness statement inquiry, counsel Hugo Keith KC asked if he believed No 10 was stopping Mr Johnson from speaking about Covid-19 due to "a concern that it would be seen to be overreacting".
Mr Hancock confirmed this, adding that he was told on the evening of 27 February that based on figures at the time there was a "reasonable worst-case scenario of just over half a million people dying".
28 February an 'important day' - Hancock
He said 28 February "was an important day" in the pandemic response.
At the time, he said, he was "still not being allowed to communicate" and was "not able to go on...certain radio shows including the Today programme, which is a very important part of the national debate".
Mr Hancock told the probe he spoke to Mr Johnson on the phone.
He said: "It was quite a moment. I came out and I said; 'Prime Minister, you need to chair a Cobra and we need to be able to communicate properly, including on all of the programmes instead of having this political boycott.'
"And that led to - I wanted a Cobra that day, and I told him he should chair a Cobra immediately. In the end, we had the Cobra on the Monday, which I think was 2 March.
"Over that weekend, I went out and communicated in public about all the things that we might have to do. We might have to close some schools. We might have to shut down whole cities. 'I don't rule anything out,' I said."
Meanwhile, he told the UK Covid-19 public inquiry that "fewer than a tenth of the number of people would have died in the first wave" had the nation gone into lockdown on 2 March.
Figures show that there were 57,896 deaths involving Covid-19 which occurred in the UK during the first wave of the pandemic, from the start of the crisis to the end of August 2020.
He said: "With hindsight... if at that moment, we'd realised that it was definitely coming and the reasonable worst-case scenario was as awful as it was, that is the moment that we should, with hindsight, have acted.
"And we had the doctrine that I proposed, which is as soon as you know you have got to lock down, you lock down as soon as possible, then we would have got the lockdown done over that weekend on 2 March, three weeks earlier.
"There's a doubling rate at this point estimated every three to four days, we would have been six doublings ahead of where we were, which means that fewer than a tenth of the number of people would have died in the first wave.
"At the time, there was still enormous uncertainty, the number of cases was still very low - in fact, there were only 12 cases reported on 1 March - and the costs of what I'm proposing were known and huge.
"So I defend the actions that were taken by the Government at the time, knowing what we did, but with hindsight, that's the moment we should have done it, three weeks earlier, and it would have been, would have saved, many, many lives.
"Having obviously thought about this and reflected on this a huge deal over the last few years, the first moment we realistically could have really cracked it was on 2 March, three weeks earlier than we did."
The former Conservative Party MP, who sits as an independent after losing the whip for appearing on reality TV show I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, played a key role in the UK's pandemic response.
Boris Johnson to appear at inquiry
But various witnesses have expressed concern about his approach, with the inquiry hearing that the country’s most senior civil servant at the time, Mark Sedwill, wanted Mr Hancock sacked.
The inquiry heard that in one WhatsApp exchange with Downing Street permanent secretary Simon Case, who is the current Cabinet Secretary, Mr Sedwill joked that it was necessary to remove Mr Hancock to "save lives and protect the NHS (National Health Service)".
WhatsApp messages shared with the inquiry also revealed that former top Downing Street adviser Dominic Cummings repeatedly pushed then prime minister Boris Johnson to fire Mr Hancock.
At one stage, Mr Cummings claimed Mr Hancock had "lied his way through this and killed people and dozens and dozens of people have seen it".
Meanwhile, the inquiry confirmed that Mr Johnson will give evidence next week.
He will appear on Wednesday and Thursday and is expected to face detailed questioning over the way his government handled the pandemic, following a series of criticisms from witnesses - not least from Mr Cummings.
