UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock forgot his own social distancing rules in the Commons because he “really likes” his colleagues.
Hancock came under fire for walking up to and slapping the back of a fellow MP after parliamentarians were called back to work there by Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Today he was asked if it’s one rule for him, one rule for others, as the BBC’s Nick Robinson stood in as host on The Andrew Marr Show.
When shown the footage, Hancock – the man directly responsible for setting virus control measures – said: “I know, it was just totally natural, you know, this shows how difficult social distancing is.
“I know these rules inside out and I hadn’t seen my colleague for, for weeks and I really like him so I walked up and it was totally natural and then as you can see we thought ‘oh, uh, uh oh-oh, hold on’. All I can do is say I’m incredibly sorry for this momentary breach – it’s because I’m human, and we’re all human, and I’m no less determined to follow the rules because of a momentary breach.”
During the interview, Hancock also committed to publishing guidance for the reopening of English pubs this week, suggesting that “back-to-back” operations may be “much safer than face-to-face”.
However, he conceded that this “wouldn’t make for a very good pub lunch”.
He said: “As the Health Secretary I am accountable, and the Prime Minister is accountable, for the decisions that we take and these are judgements taking everything into account guided by the best possible scientific advice.”
On England’s bungled coronavirus tracing app, which was slated by MPs over privacy concerns and has now switched from its original design to an Apple-Google model, Hancock said: “We’ll get there, we’ll get there with the app.
“Everybody knows the challenges that we’ve had. I was only prepared to recommend an app to people when I’m really confident in it.”
He went on: “The human contact tracing is working well.
“The technology and an app is an additional support to that.
“It will be helpful when we get it up and running.”
However, some viewers were unconvinced by his performance, with Sherlock actor Mark Gatiss among them. He suggested the cabinet secretary was a “joke”.
In a separate interview on Sky News, Hancock said England is “clearly on track” to further ease the coronavirus lockdown, with the hope that pubs and restaurants could reopen as early as July 4.
Acknowledging that “a lot of the country does need a haircut”, he said that he is “not going to rule out” hairdressers and barbers also being able to re-open on July 4.
Later Boris Johnson said he is “sticking like glue” to his road map for easing lockdown for England’s hospitality sector from July 4.
In a Downing Street interview, the Prime Minister said: “The disease is increasingly under control and I just want people to reflect on that important fact.
“So, of course, as we make that progress it will be possible to open up more and you will be hearing more about what we want to do with not just non-essential retail but with the hospitality sector from July 4 and we’re sticking absolutely like glue to the road map to the plan that I set out on May 10.”
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