HEALTH Secretary Matt Hancock is coming under pressure to say if he flouted his own government’s coronavirus curfew to guzzle down a glass of white wine.
Last week, the Mail on Sunday claimed that the Tory minister had been caught drinking in the House of Commons smoking room bar, after 10pm, breaking strict Covid regulations.
The initial report claimed he arrived at the MPs-only bar just before a 9.40pm vote on Monday, October 5, ordered a glass of white wine and reportedly joked: “The drinks are on me – but Public Health England are in charge of the payment methodology so I will not be paying anything."
In a carefully worded statement he made no attempt to deny that he made the joke, or that he’d been in the Smoking Room. He said no rules had been broken and that he “departed the parliamentary estate to go home” after a vote at 9.40pm.
However, when the paper asked if Hancock had returned to the bar before he left for home, his spokesman declined to answer.
The paper’s source, another Tory MP, claims the Health Secretary was still there at 10.25pm.
The curfew rules in England were the same as those in Scotland at the time: all drinkers need to be out of the pub at 10pm.
The Mail’s report sparked an official probe by the Commons Administration Committee,who have this week confirmed that MPs did breach the regulations.
However, they’ve refused to say which MPs were guilty of the rule breaking.
That’s led to accusations of a cover up.
Charles Walker, the senior Tory MP who led the investigation, said it would have been “invidious” to have asked Commons bar staff to identify the boozing MPs.
He told the Mail on Sunday: “It happened and it should not have happened… it does seem there were drinks being consumed after 10pm on that Monday night in the Smoking Room.”
Former Labour MP John Mann told the Mail on Sunday: ”This does smack of a cover-up. We in Parliament have a duty to respect the rules we lay down for everyone in the country. But more than that, we have a duty to be seen to be respecting the rules.”
On Saturday, Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle banned alcohol sales in all Commons outlets.
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