Covid: Delta variant now accounts for 91% of new cases in the UK, Matt Hancock reveals

Matt Hancock said he cannot recall Boris Johnson expressing surprise about the care home situation when he returned from hospital in April.

“Not that I can remember,” the Health Secretary said when asked about Dominic Cummings’ testimony.

Matt Hancock said payments for people on low incomes who need to self-isolate have been strengthened since February so everyone earning below a certain threshold in targeted areas can receive support.

Jeremy Hunt said some people believe one of the reasons some did not self-isolate was because the Government did not make a “simple promise” to make up people’s salaries.

Mr Hancock replied: “Well, the challenge that we had with that proposal is the extent to which it might be gamed.”

Asked if the Government should have been more open to giving this reassurance, Mr Hancock replied: “Well, I think it’s fair to say that I’m glad that we’ve made the change now.”

Matt Hancock has said the early response to the pandemic was hampered by the lack of information coming out of China.

“One of the things that hindered our early response was a lack of transparency from China. That must be put right in terms of future preparedness for future pandemics,” he said.

“It is absolutely vital for the world that China is more transparent about its health information as soon it understands there are problems.”

He said that some south-east Asian countries which were better prepared when the pandemic broke have suffered from previous outbreaks of Sars and Mers.

“Here that shock in around 2009 was not heeded as much as it should have been,” he said.

He added: “It is harder in a democracy to take some of the steps that some of the authoritarian countries took.”

Matt Hancock said Wales has been able to move faster on the vaccine rollout because Welsh ministers know they can draw on England’s “buffer” for second doses if required.

The Health Secretary said he would be contacting his Welsh counterpart, Eluned Morgan, after revealing the information.

Mr Hancock told MPs: “We need to ensure that whatever happens in terms of security of supply there is enough vaccine for people to get their second doses.

“So we ensure that there is enough of a buffer that we can be confident that people will get their second doses. It’s a judgment how big that buffer needs to be.

“Our colleagues in Wales decided to hold no such buffer and go ahead on presumption supply would come through. But they also knew if there was an interruption to supply England’s buffer would be used to ensure nobody in Wales would miss their second vaccination.

“That’s not a decision I could make for England because I can’t draw on anybody else’s buffer.”

Matt Hancock said he has received no evidence to suggest any medics died due to a failure to provide them with personal protective equipment (PPE) during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Health Secretary told MPs: “We’ve looked into this and there is no evidence that I have seen that a shortage of PPE provision led to anyone dying of Covid. That’s from the evidence I have seen.

“What I do know though is PPE provision was tight, and it was difficult, and it was difficult throughout the world, but we did manage – it was pretty close sometimes – but we did manage to ensure that there was… at a national level we had the PPE and then distribution was a challenge to all areas.”

Matt Hancock has said that he made the decision to increase the purchase of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

“The advice was to buy 30 million doses,” he said.

“I said that we needed to make sure that we had enough to protect the whole adult population even if other vaccines came off. So I decided we needed 100 million then got agreement on that across that.

“I was determined that we would have UK manufacture with a UK provider and, critically, that we made sure we had an exclusive contract to those critical early does.”