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Knives out for Hancock over Cobra failings

Matt Hancock
Matt Hancock

Health secretary Matt Hancock is being blamed in Whitehall for a series of poorly focused Cobra meetings at the start of the pandemic which hampered early attempts to fight the virus.

He has been accused by senior government figures of failing to get a grip on the crisis when he chaired a series of Cobra meetings before the Covid-19 crisis took hold - a claim strongly denied by Mr Hancock's friends.

The Telegraph understands that ministers have now informally decided that future Cobra meetings must be chaired by a senior independent government minister not involved with the decision-making process.

Cobra meetings are organised in the Cabinet Office to help ministers and officials get to grips with crises and ensure there is a cross-Whitehall response. Traditionally they are held in 'Cabinet Office Briefing Room A', hence 'Cobra'.

Cabinet Office guidance says that on these occasions "a designated LGD [lead government department] will be made responsible for the overall management of the government response. In the most serious circumstances, this could involve the activation of COBR to facilitate rapid coordination and collective decision-making."

The guidance continues: "The Prime Minister, Home Secretary or another senior Minister will normally chair key meetings involving Ministers and officials from relevant departments, as appropriate."

However Mr Johnson has faced criticism for asking Mr Hancock to chair a series of Cobra meetings to set out the Government's response to the emerging coronavirus pandemic, only chairing his first meeting on Feb 28.

One source said Mr Hancock's meetings failed to get a grip on the necessary response because there was not enough "challenge" of the department's response.

Future Cobra meetings are now likely to be chaired by an independent senior minister such as Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary, or the Prime Minister himself, The Sunday Telegraph understands.

Britain has suffered one of the highest rates of excess deaths in the pandemic after waiting to lock the nation down, failing to protect care homes and not forcing people to wear face coverings sooner.

Former civil servants were supportive of the apparent rethink. Alex Thomas, a former civil servant for 17 years who worked for the late Cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood from 2016 to 2018, said the most productive meetings in Whitehall were "when the responsible secretary of state was not holding themselves to account". He said: "Cobra-wise it is a sensible thing. In functional terms not a bad thing to have a separate chair."

At a glance: Cobra
At a glance: Cobra

Jill Rutter, a research fellow at the Institute for Government, added: "Cobra is a 'getting things done' meeting ... Somebody testing 'will this really work' - I think that is useful."

Lord Kerslake, a former head of the Civil Service, said: "It is good that they are learning lessons. We need a short sharp independent inquiry in case we get a second spike in the Autumn."

Mr Hancock was not available for comment. However, a source said: "At the time we were having multiple sessions of Cobra a week - some of which Matt chaired and some of which the Prime Minister chaired.

"The other secretaries of state were in the room or the relevant ministers. The vast majority were quite robust discussions. There was quite a lot of challenge - is this the right thing to do, what is the data to back this up, what are other countries doing.

"Some of them were quite challenging and long meetings. To say that Matt went in and said 'here is my view what I have decided and here's what we are going to do' would not be a fair reflection of those meetings."

However a government spokesman insisted that there had been no formal change to the rules on who chairs Cobra meetings: “There are no plans to change the arrangements. The attendance and chairmanship of Cobr is determined by the Prime Minister based on the nature of the emergency.”

The rethink of how Cobra meetings are run could form part of the upcoming official inquiry into the handling of the crisis.

Last week a senior official told the Politico website: "“Obviously the blame game has been going on almost as long as the virus and has been gathering force. "As the epidemic wanes, the blame game is going to get more intense. I think the civil service is absolutely expecting that.”