Downing Street said the prime minister had accepted Matt Hancock’s apology for breaching social distancing guidelines after he was accused of having an affair with an adviser to his department. But others have called the health secretary a hypocrite for his actions, with the Liberal Democrats’ spokesperson for health and social care, Munira Wilson MP, saying: “This latest episode of hypocrisy will break the trust with the British public. He was telling families not to hug loved ones, while doing whatever he liked in the workplace.” Below is a list of examples of when the health secretary has told others to stick by the coronavirus rules in place at various points during the pandemic. 30 March 2021 Hancock warned Britons: “don’t blow it” as the weather heated up earlier in the year, amid concerns about the virus spreading.
23 February 2021 Hancock said it was vital that “everybody plays their part” to make sure that England’s restrictions could be eased after the most recent lockdown. He said: It depends on people’s circumstances. We will be changing the rules to be far more about people taking personal responsibility, exercising common sense according to their circumstances. We will set out really clearly the risks. People understand the risks – we know that – and we’ll make that very, very plain and then people can exercise their own personal responsibility.
10 January 2021 A month earlier Hancock said that flexing the rules could be “fatal”. Speaking on the BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show, Hancock was asked whether the rules at the time may need to be tightened. I don’t want to speculate because the most important message is not whether the government will further strengthen the rules … The most important thing is that people stay at home and follow the rules that we have got.Every time you try to flex the rules that could be fatal … [he said staying at home was the] most important thing we can do collectively as a society. People need to not just follow the letter of the rules but follow the spirit as well and play their part. 8 September 2020 In September last year, Hancock blamed the “concerning” UK surge in Covid cases on people having “problems with social distancing”. He told LBC: The rise in the number of cases we have seen in the last few days is concerning. It just reinforces the point that people must follow the social distancing rules, they are so important … The whole country needs to following social distancing. We can only do this as a whole society – everybody has a role to play. May 2020 Hancock said he had been left “speechless” by Prof Neil Ferguson’s “extraordinary” behaviour, and said it had been right for him to resign as a government Sage adviser after he was caught breaking social distancing rules with a lover. Prof Ferguson is a very eminent and impressive scientist and the science that he has done has been an important part of what we’ve listened to. I think he took the right decision to resign. I think the social distancing rules are very important and people should follow them. 24 March 2020 At the start of the pandemic, the health secretary strictly set out that there were only four reasons for people to leave their homes. He stressed that the measures were “not advice, they are rules”. The spread of coronavirus is rapidly accelerating across the world and in the UK. The actions we took yesterday are not actions any UK government would want to take but they are necessary. Our instruction is simple: stay at home, people will only be allowed to leave home for one of four reasons. First, shopping for basic neccessities, for example food, which must be as infrequent as possible. Secondly, exercising. Third, for any medical need or to provide care or to help a vulnerable person … And fourth, travelling to and from work where a job cannot be done from home … These measures are not advice, they are rules.” • This article was amended on 26 June 2021. An earlier version said that Prof Neil Ferguson visited a lover in May 2020 in breach of lockdown rules. In fact, she travelled to visit him, and the text has been changed to reflect this.