The leader of the UK’s successful Covid-19 vaccination program has accused Matt Hancock of an aggressive political stance during the pandemic that left her “glued to the ceiling with fury”.
Dame Kate Bingham, the head of the UK’s vaccine taskforce, said the former health secretary staged an “extraordinary ambush” at a meeting in June 2020 and questioned his competence in front of colleagues. leagues from the cabinet and officials, despite having a “friendly” conversation beforehand. .
The former vaccine czar claimed Hancock had swapped “Dr Jekyll for Mr Hyde” because he was sorry that responsibility for vaccines had been taken from him and given to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy ( beige).
Hancock, who resigned as health secretary last year after flouting Covid restrictions by kissing and hugging his then aide Gina Coladangelo, is expected to challenge Bingham’s criticism in a book to be published at the end of ‘this year.
The claims were made by Bingham in an article for the Mail on Sunday and revolve around a virtual meeting held in June 2020, which was chaired by then-cabinet minister Michael Gove.
He was leading a team of experts who would find working Covid vaccines, make sure they could be manufactured at scale and then get them into people’s arms by the end of the year.
“Before the meeting, I had asked Matt Hancock for advice on the questions that might arise and how I should conduct myself. The tone of our conversation was friendly.
“But when it came to the committee discussion, the health secretary had changed Dr Jekyll to Mr Hyde.
“He started by saying out of the blue that he couldn’t understand why he thought people of his age, that is mid-40s, wouldn’t want, or indeed demand, a Covid vaccine for themselves.” he wrote.
Hancock went on “a second rant” at the meeting, Bingham said, this time saying he “couldn’t believe” that he had only ordered 30 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine for delivery in September 2020.
“When I observed that it would be a miracle if we received 30m doses from AstraZeneca for Christmas, Matt simply broke down. Experts told him things were impossible, he said, only to discover later that they were perfectly possible if I made enough effort.
“I could hardly believe my ears. The health secretary was openly accusing me of a lack of ambition, questioning my competence and doing it in front of his cabinet colleagues and key officials,” said Bingham, who told he said he was wrong.
She said other cabinet members who attended the meeting approached her after the meeting. “Gove couldn’t have looked more embarrassed. The business secretary, Alok Sharma, called me immediately afterwards to apologise. Others sent messages of support,” he said.
Hancock appeared to have intervened because the task force was overseen by Beis, whose secretary of state, Sharma, was not “shrewd enough” to take it on, Bingham wrote.
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“I thought maybe he [Hancock] he was determined to resume that battle, and if that involved throwing stones at me, so be it.
“I also knew I would always win in a verbal sparring with mild-mannered Alok Sharma, who was nowhere near as aggressive and certainly not shrewd enough to take on the health secretary,” he wrote.
As a result of Hancock’s criticism, Bingham said he invited Sir Richard Sykes, the former chairman of GlaxoSmithKline, to oversee the task force’s work.
“I knew if he [Sykes] he didn’t think much of any aspect of our operation, then he said so, out loud. Conversely, a stamp of approval from him would be as close as you could get to acquiring body armor,” he wrote. Sykes’ review approved the task force’s work in July 2020.
Managing partner of venture capital firm SV Health Investors, Bingham was hailed for her work to ensure the UK was quickly supplied with large doses of Covid vaccines amid the pandemic.
A spokesman for Mr Hancock said he would publish his version of events in a book to be published later this year, royalties from which would be donated to NHS charities.
“The vaccine effort was a massive success and a huge team effort from the NHS to the Vaccine Taskforce, from Oxford University to AstraZeneca. Matt is proud to have insisted that everyone at the UK had access to a vaccine and is delighted that the vaccine program got the UK out of the pandemic ahead of almost anywhere else in the world.
“You’ll have to read Matt’s book to find out what really happened,” the spokesperson said.