Piers Morgan has demanded to know why the health secretary has not handed in his resignation over a ‘constant series of failings’ during the pandemic.
Appearing on Good Morning Britain for the first time following Downing Street’s so-called 202-day boycott of the show, Matt Hancock was grilled on a ‘charge sheet’ of failings.
When asked if the health secretary ‘supported the boycott’, Mr Hancock refused to acknowledge the claim and insisted he came on ‘as soon as diaries would allow’.
The presenter pressed that viewers want to know why no Downing Street official would appear on the popular morning show for six months in the middle of a pandemic, Mr Hancock insisted he has been ‘working incredibly hard’.
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Having been denied the opportunity interrogate a No 10 official for months, Mr Morgan went on to read a list of all of the Government’s ‘failings’, including the care home crisis, the delay to implement a national lockdown, the decision to keep borders open and the ‘complete shambles’ of test and trace.
He concluded: ‘Given that we now have over 50,000 deaths in this country which is the worst death toll in the whole of Europe, why are you still health secretary and why haven’t you offered your resignation?’
Mr Hancock said: ‘Well because we have been building our response to all of these enormous challenges of this unprecedented pandemic.’
During the interview, the health secretary announced the Government is aiming to introduce testing in every care home across the country as it launched a pilot scheme today.
Susanna Reid pressed why the scheme is only being introduced into 20 care homes, when there are at least 16,000 in the country, and why not introduce them into all homes.
He said: ‘That’s what we’re going to do and I hope to have that done by Christmas. But the reason we’re doing this carefully is because we have to protect people in care homes as well.
‘So we’re doing the pilot to understand what the rules should be around the use of testing, how we can do it safely, and then we will roll it out over the next few weeks.
The health secretary said he’d rather take ‘a couple of weeks now to get these protocol right’ so he does not have to make a choice between keeping elderly residents safe from Covid-19 and allowing visits.
‘There isn’t a delay it’s about how to do it safely in about 16,000 care homes… and making sure we can do so in all different settings,’ he added.
‘It’s so important and we’ve got to get it right otherwise you would also, quite rightly lambast me if we have more cases in care homes.’
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