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Matt Hancock will be asked about claims he lied about testing in nursing homes at the start of the pandemic on Thursday, despite Dominic Cummings’ failure to submit evidence against him.
Boris Johnson’s most trusted former adviser has missed the deadline to provide written support for his accusations to the House of Commons health and science committees.
But Jeremy Hunt, who chairs the health committee, said Mr Hancock would face questions about all of the allegations against him.
Earlier this month, Mr Cummings told MPs the Health Secretary has lied repeatedly as the government strives to get the coronavirus crisis under control.
In particular, he alleged that Mr Hancock had told senior government officials, including the Prime Minister, that all patients would be tested before being referred from hospitals to care homes. They were not.
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Over the weekend Mr Hancock attacked what he said were “completely false” claims that he lied to the Prime Minister about testing in nursing homes.
When asked if he had been honest, he replied, “Yes in private and in public. These allegations (by Mr. Cummings) are completely untrue.”
Mr Hunt told Times Radio that Mr Cummings has passed the deadline to submit written evidence against Mr Hancock.
When asked if his committee had received anything this morning, he replied: No Dominic Cummings made very serious allegations against[Matt Hancock]in particular, saying that he had lied several times. We will therefore submit these allegations to him. [Hancock].
He added: We have not received the written evidence to support these claims that we expected. But put well [..] all these allegations to him to give him his legitimate chance to respond.
Mr Hancock is expected to endure hours of questioning in a joint committee session on Thursday.
Mr. Cummings testified for seven hours when he appeared before the same MPs earlier this month.
Mr Hunt also suggested that any delay in England’s roadmap to lifting the lockdown would only last for a few weeks, due to the vaccination schedule.
Mr Hunt said he “felt quite optimistic that we will see the restrictions lifted” because “being double-bitten” works against the Delta variant of the coronavirus first identified in India.
“So if Freedom Day ends up being postponed for a few weeks so that we can get more people to double down, I think it will only be a temporary setback,” he said.
His comments came hours after a darker environment secretary, George Eustice, suggested people take their summer vacation to the UK this year.
He told Sky News he will be on vacation in Cornwall this year, adding: “Our advice has been not to travel unless absolutely necessary.
“Obviously we had hoped, with these three categories that we had, we had hoped that the situation would improve in other parts of the world, that we could gradually add other countries to the green list.
“Unfortunately, that is not the case. We have this new variant of concern first identified in India that is now appearing in other countries, and we just need to take a very careful approach.”
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