Covid inquiry live: Priti Patel admits policing of Sarah Everard vigil was ‘totally inappropriate’

Today, the Covid inquiry is set to hear from former NHS England chief executive officer Sir Simon Stevens, former Public Health England medical director Professor Yvonne Doyle, and the permanent secretary at the Department of Health and Social Care, Sir Christopher Wormald.

Proceedings are due to start at 10am.

It follows several days of explosive and expletive-laden testimony from former No 10 advisers Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain, and former deputy cabinet secretary Helen MacNamara.

SNP MP John Nicolson, whose mother died during the pandemic, has described Boris Johnson as “ghoulish” and said he found the inquiry “deeply painful”.

Ultraviolet (UV) rays were at one stage thought could be “very helpful” to minimise the spread of Covid, according to a former civil servant, in a revelation reminiscent of similar claims by then US president Donald Trump.

Helen MacNamara, who served as deputy cabinet secretary, recalled a conversation she had with Professor Sir Chris Whitty – England’s chief medical officer (CMO) – during the early weeks of the pandemic.

In her written statement to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, Ms MacNamara wrote under a section called “winter planning”: “I remember standing in the No 10 garden with the CMO at some time in the late spring and him saying that it looked like UV rays were very helpful to minimise the spread of Covid.

“Although this was undoubtedly good news, Chris did not want to overstate the impact and the potential benefit at a point when we still needed people to follow the guidance and not to socialise.

“He was worried that if the prime minister was told he would be too enthusiastic about reducing restrictions too quickly.

“We discussed how hard the winter 2020/21 might be; especially given that people would not have been exposed to the usual flu bugs circulating so we could be in for both a hard winter if Covid continued to circulate plus a hard flu winter with an NHS that had not had a break.”

One of Britain’s most senior civil servants during the pandemic has revealed a cringe-inducing exchange with Matt Hancock in which he pretended to be a cricketer after she offered to help him with his role.

At the official Covid inquiry, counsel Andrew O’Connor KC asked about Helen MacNamara’s attempts to support Mr Hancock’s return to work after suffering from Covid.

Archie Mitchell reports:

Boris Johnson oversaw a “toxic” culture of sexism and complacency at No 10 during the Covid crisis, according to scathing evidence given by a former top civil servant to the public inquiry.

Helen MacNamara, former deputy cabinet secretary, said she could not recall “one day” when Covid rules were followed at No 10 or the Cabinet Office – claiming “hundreds” of officials and ministers broke the guidelines.

Adam Forrest and Archie Mitchell report:

Former Boris Johnson aide Martin Reynolds struggled to answer questions at the Covid inquiry today. But with Dominic Cummings about to give evidence, it could be Johnson and Rishi Sunak who will soon be doing the squirming, writes Sean O’Grady.

Read Sean’s full piece below:

Dominic Cummings, the former chief adviser to then-prime minister Boris Johnson, is giving evidence to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry.

Mr Cummings was one of Mr Johnson’s first appointments when he succeeded Theresa May as Conservative Party leader and PM in the summer 2019.

His hiring was a signal to the hard-line Brexiteers who had ushered Mr Johnson to power that he was serious about delivering the withdrawal agreement from the European Union that his successor had failed to secure over months of tortuous negotiations.

Joe Sommerlad reports:

Scathing WhatsApp messages sent between Boris Johnson’s top team accused the former PM of creating chaos during the Covid crisis – complaining that he “flip-flopped” every day on direction and made it “impossible” to tackle the pandemic.

A series of startling new revelations emerged at the Covid inquiry, as messages shared between cabinet secretary Simon Case, chief scientific officer Sir Patrick Vallance and top adviser Dominic Cummings exposed the disdain they held for Mr Johnson.

Adam Forrest and Archie Mitchell report:

Dominic Cummings’ expletive-filled rant about the Cabinet Office has been shown in today’s Covid Inquiry sitting (31 October), where he revealed he had grown tired of Boris Johnson going ‘Jaws mode’.

‘We got big problems coming. CABOFF [sic] is terrifyingly s***’, he wrote in messages to the then-prime minister.

In the texts, it appeared that Cummings was putting pressure on Johnson to announce stricter legislation surrounding Covid, but insisted the Cabinet was delaying it as they ‘hadn’t done the work’ and ‘don’t work weekends’.

Watch the messages being read out here:

The Scottish government is to share more than 14,000 messages with the UK Covid-19 Inquiry – with first minister Humza Yousaf to hand over unredacted WhatsApp messages, MSPs have been told.

In a statement at Holyrood, deputy first minister Shona Robison confirmed the Scottish Government had received a legal notice permitting it to hand over the messages on Monday.