Families who lost loved ones during the Covid pandemic are calling for former health secretary Matt Hancock to be stripped of his lifelong appointment to the Privy Council, following a scathing inquiry report that found his actions led to thousands of avoidable deaths in care homes.
Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK, a group representing 7,000 people, has launched a petition urging the Prime Minister to remove Hancock from the body of senior advisers to the Monarch, which grants access to top secret information.
Group demands accountability
A spokesman for the group said: “It is indefensible that Matt Hancock remains a member of the Privy Council. We will pursue every available route to accountability. This is just the start. We urge the Prime Minister to take this important step.”
The former health secretary was criticised this week in a Covid-19 Inquiry report about how untested hospital patients were discharged into care homes where tens of thousands of residents died. Hancock had claimed to have thrown a “protective ring” around care homes, but inquiry chair Baroness Heather Hallett concluded: “Quite the opposite was true.”
Inquiry findings
A spokesperson for the families group said: “The inquiry found Hancock knew how vulnerable the care sector was to a pandemic. He had been warned years before, yet did nothing to prepare for it. He then decided to discharge untested patients into the care homes he had left unprotected. His actions led to thousands of avoidable deaths.”
The spokesperson added: “He abandoned care homes and lied to families about their loved ones’ safety. His ‘protective ring’ claim was a lie. Bereaved families live with the consequences of that callous incompetence every day. His removal would publicly acknowledge his responsibility for those deaths.”
Privy Council membership
All Cabinet ministers are appointed to the Privy Council, which dates back to the 13th century. Members are given the lifelong title “The Right Honourable” and take a binding, historic oath of secrecy that allows the government to brief them on highly sensitive, classified state intelligence or national security matters under “Privy Council terms”.
Though there are more than 700 current Privy Counsellors, the vast majority play no part in its daily business. As health secretary, Hancock attended meetings to get the monarch’s approval on Covid-related legislation. Now no longer an MP, his membership is largely an honorary status.
A member is only removed if they choose to resign – usually in disgrace – or if the Prime Minister recommends that the King expel them. New Labour minister Elliot Morley was expelled in 2011 after being convicted of offences relating to the MPs’ expenses scandal, the first expulsion since Edgar Speyer in 1921 for trading with the enemy during the First World War. Earlier this year, former PM Keir Starmer brought about the expulsion of Lord Mandelson over his financial ties and relationship with the US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Care home deaths
The Covid-19 Inquiry’s sixth report on the care sector this week told how 43,000 people died with the virus in care homes during the pandemic. It concluded failures such as lack of Covid tests and PPE were the result of a lack of pandemic planning. A pandemic preparedness exercise conducted in 2016, Exercise Cygnus, recommended developing social care surge capacity but it was not carried out.
The report said: “Decision makers faced an unenviable choice. They could keep patients in hospital pending tests becoming available and risk of running out of hospital beds for Covid-19 patients and increasing the risk to vulnerable patients fit for discharge. Alternatively, to free up capacity, they could discharge patients who were potentially Covid-19-positive and run the risk of Covid-19 being introduced to vulnerable residents in care homes.”
Hancock told the inquiry it “was a question of what is the least worst solution”. He resigned as health secretary in June 2021 after being found to have broken social distancing restrictions while having an affair with aide Gina Coladangelo. The Mirror contacted Hancock for comment.
