Downing Street is trying to put a lid on the row about Matt Hancock’s affair with someone he appointed as an unpaid adviser and then non-executive director at the Department of Health following the Health Secretary’s own apology. At today’s lobby briefing, a spokesman for the Prime Minister repeatedly said the ‘Prime Minister has accepted the Health Secretary’s apology and considers the matter closed’. He insisted that ‘all the correct procedures were followed’ on Gina Coladangelo’s appointments.
Johnson and Hancock were at this morning’s daily coronavirus meeting. But the spokesman would not give any details of conversations between the two men, or whether Johnson had asked for further assurances from the Health Secretary. He said he was ‘not going to get into details of private conversations’ and repeated that ‘the Prime Minister considers the matter closed and has accepted the apology’.
Where it becomes other people’s business is when the affair is interlinked with government business and taxpayer’s money
Funnily enough, this doesn’t close the issue. Hancock would only say he breached the social distancing guidance, and Downing Street refused to deny that Hancock had broken the law – or indeed confirm that he hadn’t. When asked about this very point, the spokesman said:
‘I’m simply pointing to the Health Secretary’s statement where he says I accept I breached the social distancing guidance.’
So the unanswered, still open issues are:
- Is the Prime Minister confident Matt Hancock did not break the law with his behaviour?
- Why did Hancock say it was the ‘right decision’ for Neil Ferguson to resign for breaking the rules during lockdown, but not do the same himself in a similar situation?
- Why was it appropriate for Gina Coladangelo to have a parliamentary pass, to become an unpaid adviser at the department and then to receive the paid non-executive director post?
As we say on our latest podcast, the important matter here isn’t the affair: these things happen and they’re not normally anyone else’s business. But where it becomes other people’s business is when the affair is interlinked with government business and taxpayer’s money.
Then there’s the hypocrisy charge, not just from someone in a government that has restricted personal freedoms so much this past year, but from the very minister responsible for the lockdown legislation and guidance.
Downing Street merely said today that Monday’s data review ‘will happen’, but it’s not clear whether Hancock will be the person updating the Commons on that data and its implications for unlocking on 19 July.
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