Matt Hancock: Opens Up About His Affair, Mistakes & The Pandemic | E121

1. 0:00 – 1:27

   Intro

   1. MHMatt Hancock0:00

      One of the reasons I wanted to come in and talk to you was because I want to just talk freely.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett0:05

      How does that all feel for you personally, that thought that one week earlier we could've saved 21,000 lives?

   3. MHMatt Hancock0:11

      There were some mistakes that we made in terms of the measures-

   4. SBSteven Bartlett0:15

      Yeah.

   5. MHMatt Hancock0:15

      ... how they were brought in. Well, now you see, Stephen, you're getting into gotcha questions.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett0:19

      No, I genuinely-

   7. MHMatt Hancock0:20

      It's just all total rubbish.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett0:22

      No, no.

   9. MHMatt Hancock0:22

      I'm not gonna-

   10. SBSteven Bartlett0:22

       No. I've not even asked the question yet. There needs to be boundaries. You want to get-

   11. MHMatt Hancock0:25

       No. No. No. Those rules-

   12. SBSteven Bartlett0:27

       Yeah.

   13. MHMatt Hancock0:27

       ... were not in place.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett0:28

       Can I ask the question?

   15. MHMatt Hancock0:29

       You can ask a question.

   16. SBSteven Bartlett0:30

       I'm gonna ask the question, yeah.

   17. MHMatt Hancock0:31

       Okay. This, this bit is really hard for me.

   18. SBSteven Bartlett0:33

       People say you, you are a contradiction.

   19. MHMatt Hancock0:34

       Yeah.

   20. SBSteven Bartlett0:35

       What's your response to that?

   21. MHMatt Hancock0:36

       (exhales) (instrumental music plays)

   22. SBSteven Bartlett0:39

       Could you do me a quick favor if you're listening to this? Please hit the Follow or Subscribe button. It helps more than you know, and we invite subscribers in every month to watch the show in person. When I started The Diary of a CEO, I wanted to create a platform where we get to see behind the scenes, where we get the truth, where we get the context. That is at least my attempt. The rest of it is up to the viewer to decide what they make of the conversation and what they take from the conversation, and the same applies to this episode. So without further ado, I'm Stephen Bartlett, and this is The Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself. (instrumental music plays) Matt, I was really, really keen to have you come and join me in my, in my kitchen here

2. 1:27 – 2:54

   Why did you want to have this conversation here?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett1:27

      in, in London to talk in a, a long form way about a ton of different things that are front of mind for you that have gone on over the last couple of years. I think, you know, usually, and you've listened to this podcast before, so you know-

   2. MHMatt Hancock1:37

      Yeah.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett1:37

      ... I typically start about... with childhood and all those things, which I will get onto. But the question that was really front of mind for me-

   4. MHMatt Hancock1:42

      Yeah.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett1:42

      ... and I think will be for a lot of people is, why did you wanna have this conversation here?

   6. MHMatt Hancock1:47

      Hmm. Well, uh, I love your podcast. One of the reasons I love it is 'cause I think what you manage to do is you manage to get people to be really, um, really honest about themselves, right? One of the things I admire about the podcast is that, um, it's important that we have a space where people can talk about where things go well and where people have failed and what they've learned from that. And you're so, um, sort of brutally honest with yourself about it, and you really put that on the line. And that in turn gets it out of other people.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett2:21

      Mm-hmm.

   8. MHMatt Hancock2:22

      And, you know, I've been through this, uh, um, extraordinary experience of being the Health Secretary in the pandemic. There's a lot of, you know, things that I've learnt through that and learnt about myself. Um, and I, I want to be able to articulate how I saw it, if you like. I just think that your... it's, it's, it's just one of the most self-aware podcasts that I've, I've listened to, and now, now I'm completely hooked.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett2:47

      Oh. So let's start then. (clears throat) I was brought up in a happy, loving, complicated modern

3. 2:54 – 5:41

   Your early years

   1. SBSteven Bartlett2:54

      family.

   2. MHMatt Hancock2:54

      Yeah.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett2:55

      Explain.

   4. MHMatt Hancock2:56

      Well-

   5. SBSteven Bartlett2:56

      And why, why complicated?

   6. MHMatt Hancock2:58

      Well, complicated because my parents separated when I was two, and I effectively grew up with four parents. So the both of them happily remarried before I can really remember. So it was complicated in the way that lots of modern families are complicated. And I have, I have a half-brother, have stepbrothers and sisters. But it was also, it was also very... it was very loving, and every... you know, I got that, that love and support from, from four parents rather than the normal two.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett3:30

      What were you like in school?

   8. MHMatt Hancock3:32

      Well, one of the biggest things that happened to me was that I, uh, uh, after primary school... Primary school's in this lovely, um, very rural Cheshire-

   9. SBSteven Bartlett3:41

      Nice.

   10. MHMatt Hancock3:42

       ... uh, primary school, uh, very, very, uh, straightforward, small, uh, warm. And then, at the age of 10, they put me in for the... or I was asked if I wanted to p- go in for the exam for the local independent school a year early. This was a... probably one of the biggest things that happened in my childhood, because, uh, you know, I went and did the exam, and I got through, and I went to school. So I went to secondary school a year early. Suddenly, I went from being... finding it all pretty straightforward to really having to struggle to keep up, really having to work hard. And both socially and academically, suddenly I was in this... uh, you know, I was in... with a group of, big group of people who were all a year ahead of me. And combine that with my sort of... my mother's worth ac- work ethic.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett4:31

       Mm-hmm.

   12. MHMatt Hancock4:31

       You know, she started her own business and worked incredibly hard. And, um, you know, that had a... it had a, it had a big impact on me.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett4:39

       In what way? Specifically on the social side, you said-

   14. MHMatt Hancock4:42

       Yeah.

   15. SBSteven Bartlett4:42

       ... you were socially struggling to keep up. Were you bullied?

   16. MHMatt Hancock4:46

       Um, (exhales) a bit. I wouldn't say that was the ma- uh, uh, that was the main thing.

   17. SBSteven Bartlett4:52

       Mm-hmm.

   18. MHMatt Hancock4:52

       But I was... but yeah, people... it was tough. People were tough on me.

   19. SBSteven Bartlett4:56

       Mm-hmm.

   20. MHMatt Hancock4:56

       Um, and, um, and I'm also quite sort of, you know, self-confident and ex- exuberant, and that sometimes has rubbed people up the wrong way, especially when you're the little guy at school. So I think, you know, that... so that... I'm, I'm sure that part of the sort of the drive that I have comes from the fact that I found myself age 10 suddenly in a very, you know-

   21. SBSteven Bartlett5:21

       Mm-hmm.

   22. MHMatt Hancock5:21

       ... a tough environment.

   23. SBSteven Bartlett5:22

       And you, you ultimately must have done pretty well in that secondary school where you were trying to fit in-

   24. MHMatt Hancock5:26

       Yeah.

   25. SBSteven Bartlett5:26

       ... because you went to Oxford, which is just-

   26. MHMatt Hancock5:28

       Yeah. So I went to Oxford a year early, you know. So I was-

   27. SBSteven Bartlett5:30

       You went to... oh, yeah.

   28. MHMatt Hancock5:31

       Yeah. So I was-

   29. SBSteven Bartlett5:31

       Because you'd gone to secondary school a year early.

   30. MHMatt Hancock5:33

       Uh-huh. Exactly.
4. 5:41 – 19:17

   Why did you get into politics and why would you want to?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett5:41

      ... stu- study that course.

   2. MHMatt Hancock5:41

      Yeah.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett5:41

      That seems to be almost like a bit of a rite of passage to politics in a way, 'cause you've got, you know, people like... is it Ed Miliband, David Cameron, Jeremy Hunt that have all-

   4. MHMatt Hancock5:50

      Yeah.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett5:50

      ... studied that.

   6. MHMatt Hancock5:50

      The list goes on, Michael Gove. Yeah. Ed Davey.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett5:52

      Right.

   8. MHMatt Hancock5:53

      Um, s-

   9. SBSteven Bartlett5:54

      Ed Balls.

   10. MHMatt Hancock5:55

       Yeah. So one of the things that... as being a bit of a, a pol- like a... I guess there's two questions here. The first is, why did you choose politics?

   11. SBSteven Bartlett6:02

       Mm-hmm. I, I thought it would just... I thought it was the most interesting thing to do. I actually got into it through the economics. So I did... I, I studied economics A-level 'cause I was really interested in business.

   12. MHMatt Hancock6:10

       Right. And th- what, what happened was this, that, um...When I was a teenager in the early '90s-

   13. SBSteven Bartlett6:18

       (laughs)

   14. MHMatt Hancock6:18

       ... my mum's business nearly went bust, and we had a moment when we had this, uh, our major client themselves was struggling in the recession in the early '90s and couldn't pay their bills. So it was a classic late payment cash crunch for a small business. We knew that if we didn't get this check-

   15. SBSteven Bartlett6:39

       Mm-hmm.

   16. MHMatt Hancock6:39

       ... by the end of the week, then the company was, was going under. Eventually, on the Wednesday or the Thursday, the check arrived, and the business was saved and it went on to, to prosper. But that made me ask this question, you know, how come a perfectly good business employing a load of people who are working incredibly hard, how can that go bust or g- be at risk of going bust for something completely outside of their control? And the sort of sense of injustice in that made me then ask, how does the economy work? And that's what led me to s- to take an interest in economics, which I r- had a real affinity with, I loved it as an A-levels subject. And that, so that's what led me to, to, um, to PPE.

   17. SBSteven Bartlett7:25

       At, at that age, so like 18, 19, 20-

   18. MHMatt Hancock7:28

       Yeah.

   19. SBSteven Bartlett7:28

       ... were you, were you aspiring to become a politician at that point?

   20. MHMatt Hancock7:31

       No, I was inspir- aspiring to become an entrepreneur.

   21. SBSteven Bartlett7:34

       Right.

   22. MHMatt Hancock7:34

       So I actually a- I almost did Economics and Management at Oxford, and then somebody told me it was easier to get into PPE than Economics and Management, so... And that sounded close enough to what I wanted to do.

   23. SBSteven Bartlett7:44

       Right.

   24. MHMatt Hancock7:44

       So that's why I ended up doing it.

   25. SBSteven Bartlett7:46

       Is there not... 'Cause, 'cause when I, 'cause people have said to me, you know, I've had business success and all these things-

   26. MHMatt Hancock7:50

       Yeah.

   27. SBSteven Bartlett7:50

       ... I've built a platform. People say, have suggested, "Oh, maybe you should go into politics, Steve." And the thing that scares the life out of me is-

   28. MHMatt Hancock7:55

       Yeah.

   29. SBSteven Bartlett7:56

       ... it's like a lose-lose game. People are gonna fucking hate you regardless of what you do. So I, I, I sometimes wonder, I'm like, well who are these people that, like-

   30. MHMatt Hancock8:05

       Yeah. (laughs)
5. 19:17 – 28:50

   How can you be the minister for all these different areas?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett19:17

      enterprise, energy, and ultimately health-

   2. MHMatt Hancock19:19

      Yeah.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett19:20

      ... how can one person-

   4. MHMatt Hancock19:21

      Yeah. Yeah.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett19:21

      ... know anything about any of that stuff?

   6. MHMatt Hancock19:22

      Yeah. So-

   7. SBSteven Bartlett19:22

      And w- How can anyone be a master of like five, six different things?

   8. MHMatt Hancock19:26

      Yeah. Yeah, because that's not the job. So, um, it's not the job to be the master. In a way it's the job to be the people's representative amongst the experts, so your job as the minister is to be able to be the representative of the people-

   9. SBSteven Bartlett19:41

      Mm-hmm.

   10. MHMatt Hancock19:42

       ... who is responsible for the direction of that policy a- area, and you have endless experts. Your job is not to be an expert. It's to listen to the experts and then decide democratically, what direction do we want to go? So take... I mean, an area that I do know, you know, I, I did have a background in, take o- on, um, the future of the internet, and, um, on-

   11. SBSteven Bartlett20:05

       What was your background in that?

   12. MHMatt Hancock20:07

       Uh, well, only that I, I, you know, I can code and I understand a bit of, um, about technology. But the big question was, how do you k- keep children safe online?

   13. SBSteven Bartlett20:16

       Mm-hmm.

   14. MHMatt Hancock20:16

       Right? And, uh, how you make, take the internet from a sort of a Wild West-

   15. SBSteven Bartlett20:22

       Mm-hmm.

   16. MHMatt Hancock20:22

       ... and social media to a place where people have more protection, you know, is, uh... That was the, the, the mo- the m- m- you know, most important question in that area at the time. And for that, yes, you need experts, but you also need a...

   17. SBSteven Bartlett20:36

       Mm-hmm.

   18. MHMatt Hancock20:36

       You basically need a-

   19. SBSteven Bartlett20:37

       A spokesman.

   20. MHMatt Hancock20:37

       ... a view of where you want to get to. It's a v- it's a, it's... You wanna... Y- you need to set the mission and the direction. It's the, it's-

   21. SBSteven Bartlett20:43

       Let's talk about that then, 'cause-

   22. MHMatt Hancock20:44

       It's leadership that's needed.

   23. SBSteven Bartlett20:45

       ... my background's social media-

   24. MHMatt Hancock20:46

       Yeah.

   25. SBSteven Bartlett20:46

       ... and I actually... Whenever I see like the social media policies being set, I always... The, the debate we have in social media and digital is like, who is it that's making these decisions? Because the people we see-

   26. MHMatt Hancock20:55

       Yeah. Yeah.

   27. SBSteven Bartlett20:56

       ... when we s- obviously the spokespeople as you've described-

   28. MHMatt Hancock20:58

       Yeah.

   29. SBSteven Bartlett20:58

       ... we know that they don't know it like us-

   30. MHMatt Hancock21:00

       Yeah.
6. 28:50 – 32:01

   You running for Prime Minister

   1. SBSteven Bartlett28:50

      party, right?

   2. MHMatt Hancock28:51

      Well, um-

   3. SBSteven Bartlett28:51

      And that would lead you to being the prime minister.

   4. MHMatt Hancock28:53

      Yeah.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett28:53

      Um, why did you want to be the prime minister?

   6. MHMatt Hancock28:57

      Because I thought that there was a need for a complete fresh start.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett29:01

      Did you think you'd win?

   8. MHMatt Hancock29:02

      No.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett29:03

      (laughs) At least you're honest (laughs) .

   10. MHMatt Hancock29:04

       Yeah. No, but I, I had fun trying.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett29:09

       (laughs)

   12. MHMatt Hancock29:10

       Um, no, I didn't, I didn't think I'd win. Um, but I wanted to get some, I wanted to get some arguments made, right? I worried that my ... I worried that we were ... the party was talking not enough about how its enterprise that leads to prosperity.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett29:27

       Is it a publicity thing running? Because they ... I watch the US elections every year. I'm obsessed with it, and it r- and the same people run every year. They know they're not gonna win, but I think the ex- the exposure and publicity you get is incredible.

   14. MHMatt Hancock29:39

       Yeah. There's a, there ... Of course, um, that's one of the consequences. I basically had an argument I wanted to make-

   15. SBSteven Bartlett29:44

       Which one?

   16. MHMatt Hancock29:45

       ... which was, which was, okay, Brexit, decision has been taken. Uh, let's get that done and get on to building a stronger economy in the future-

   17. SBSteven Bartlett29:54

       Mm-hmm.

   18. MHMatt Hancock29:54

       ... and basically get it done as quickly as we can and move forward.

   19. SBSteven Bartlett29:57

       Mm-hmm.

   20. MHMatt Hancock29:57

       That was the argument I wanted to make. I managed to make the argument quite sort of loudly because I was running.

   21. SBSteven Bartlett30:03

       Hmm.

   22. MHMatt Hancock30:03

       Um, and then, um, uh, well, and then I pulled out.

   23. SBSteven Bartlett30:08

       Pulled out, came seventh, got behind Boris.

   24. MHMatt Hancock30:11

       I, um-

   25. SBSteven Bartlett30:12

       Seven out of 10 was it?

   26. MHMatt Hancock30:12

       Hmm?

   27. SBSteven Bartlett30:13

       Did you come seventh out of 10 or was it-

   28. MHMatt Hancock30:14

       I don't know, it was sixth or seventh.

   29. SBSteven Bartlett30:15

       Oh, yeah.

   30. MHMatt Hancock30:16

       But-
7. 32:01 – 47:14

   When covid hit

   1. SBSteven Bartlett32:01

      Minister when a pandemic rolls in.

   2. MHMatt Hancock32:02

      I know. I remember, I remember seeing the, um, the- the Chinese publication on the 1st of January, so it was New Year's Day, and I saw this, uh, thing on the inside pages of one of the newspapers s- um, to say, um, the Chinese have just, uh, announced that there's a- a new, uh, disease. Um, and nobody knew, we didn't know it was a coronavirus. It might've been a flu, uh, and nobody knew whether it was serious or not. But I remember thinking, "Well, maybe this is it." But I didn't really think it was until, um, uh, uh, until a couple of weeks later.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett32:41

      When- when was that, that? 'Cause I, you know, I was reading through all of the minutes from your Sage meetings to try and understand-

   4. MHMatt Hancock32:46

      Yeah.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett32:46

      ... the- the kind of phases of-

   6. MHMatt Hancock32:48

      Yeah.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett32:48

      'Cause I, listen, I run a business, right, and we have crises, and chaos, and all those things, and-

   8. MHMatt Hancock32:52

      Yeah. Yeah.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett32:53

      ... there's various stages you go through of trying to understand exactly what this is and then how, you know, how impactful it's gonna be-

   10. MHMatt Hancock33:00

       Yeah.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett33:00

       ... and then what we should be doing.

   12. MHMatt Hancock33:02

       Yeah.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett33:02

       And I kind of ran through all of that. So when- when, in your view, did you start to realize that this wasn't just a cold, or-

   14. MHMatt Hancock33:09

       Yeah. Yeah, end of January. So the Chinese published the sequence of the genome of the, of the virus, so we then knew it was a coronavirus. Um, that was bad news, right, because we had a stockpile of flu vaccine, uh, for this sort of emergency if it had been a flu, um, and the fact that it was a coronavirus and spreading this rapidly in China was bad news. And then, at that point, I remember Chris Whitty saying to me, "It's 50-50. Something this contagious, either they can hold it in China or if it gets out of China, it's gonna go global." So we were, by the end of January, we were onto, um, developing the vaccine, for instance, um, and, uh, trying to get the testing system up and running, and then we had this surreal month during February when n- nobody else was sort of thinking that this was a big thing. And we still thought it was 50-50, but 50% chance of a global pandemic is, you know, very, very bad. And, uh, we were... I remember standing next to the Speaker's Chair in the House of Commons for a PMQs watching, every single question was about something else, and nobody asked a question about what became known as COVID. And I remember thinking at the end of the session, the end of half-hour, every single question that has been asked is totally irrelevant because it's all about other things, and we've got this one fact in China, and it is e- it's totally dominant.

   15. SBSteven Bartlett34:48

       Why weren't you raising the bell?

   16. MHMatt Hancock34:50

       Oh, I was. I was giving statements to Parliament and what have you, and we were preparing inside government for what needed to happen. So at the end of January, uh, JVT came and said... um, I said, "How long will it take to get a vaccine?" He said, "Well, normally it would take five years, but we think we can do it in a year to 18 months if everythi-"

   17. SBSteven Bartlett35:08

       He said that in January?

   18. MHMatt Hancock35:09

       Yeah, "... if everything goes well." And I said, "Your mission is to have a vaccine by Christmas." And we- we... he- he and the team that we built pulled it off. Um, so we were getting things moving, and then it was when we saw the pictures from Italy. Do you remember the-

   19. SBSteven Bartlett35:24

       Yeah, awful.

   20. MHMatt Hancock35:24

       ... you know? That was the moment that I knew it was global.

   21. SBSteven Bartlett35:29

       And that was what month?

   22. MHMatt Hancock35:30

       That was the end of February.

   23. SBSteven Bartlett35:32

       February, yeah.

   24. MHMatt Hancock35:33

       Yeah. It was the end of February, half-term.

   25. SBSteven Bartlett35:34

       'Cause everything was calm at this point. We were watching it happen overseas. I mean, like, I remember the s- the China scenes.

   26. MHMatt Hancock35:40

       Yeah.

   27. SBSteven Bartlett35:40

       Everyone was kind of calm about it. "Oh, China are having a problem." That's kind of how it felt.

   28. MHMatt Hancock35:44

       Mm-hmm.

   29. SBSteven Bartlett35:44

       And then the Italy moment-

   30. MHMatt Hancock35:46

       Mm-hmm.
8. 47:14 – 50:22

   What was your life like at that time?

   1. MHMatt Hancock47:14

      every morning, and, um, I'd, um, you know, I basically had about a half an hour with the kids in the morning, and then, uh, I'd get picked up at 7:30 maybe, seven o'clock, and, uh, and then, and then work. It was just, you know, unbelievable, um, until about, about midnight. And I, you know, what my, my permanent secretary Chris Wirmwild at the start said, "This is not gonna be over in a, in a couple of weeks, right? You've got to get, we've all got to get ourselves into a position where we can just keep going. This is a marathon, not a sprint." And, um, um, and there was a, um... We- weekends basically meant that we didn't start work till about 9:00, and so that was the, you know, that was the, the time off so to speak. And that, it was like that for three or four months during that period.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett48:11

      What, what about your mental health position? 'Cause I-

   3. MHMatt Hancock48:14

      Yeah.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett48:14

      ... you know, 'cause there, that feeling, that, going home every day with that feeling that my decisions could sway, as we saw negatively in this case, you know, 21 million, 21,000 lives-

   5. MHMatt Hancock48:23

      Yeah.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett48:23

      ... for better or for worse-

   7. MHMatt Hancock48:24

      Yeah.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett48:24

      ... and ultimately, you know, 160,000 people died.

   9. MHMatt Hancock48:26

      Yeah.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett48:27

       You're going home with that every day-

   11. MHMatt Hancock48:28

       Yeah.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett48:28

       ... with that thought that your dec- the decisions you're making now-

   13. MHMatt Hancock48:31

       Yeah.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett48:31

       ... as Health Secretary-

   15. MHMatt Hancock48:32

       Yeah.

   16. SBSteven Bartlett48:33

       ... are life and death.

   17. MHMatt Hancock48:34

       Yeah.

   18. SBSteven Bartlett48:34

       How do you relax? How do you-

   19. MHMatt Hancock48:37

       Uh, yeah, well, I, I think that's... Rela- I, relaxation I got through, through exercise, um, but the, um, in the health department the sense was a total sense of mission. Um, and I've never been in the military but some people say this is what it's like when you're on a military operation as well. Um, as in there was a focus over how to optimize how we could make decisions, you know, of course there were sleepless nights, but really we thought, you know, when we had some... You know, Chris Whitty himself is a brilliant advisor on how to keep yourself, you know, personally in the, um, in, in the zone. So the, the sense of mission that we were trying to solve something that was incredibly difficult as best as we could, um, was very, very strong in that period.

   20. SBSteven Bartlett49:28

       Did you have anxiety?

   21. MHMatt Hancock49:30

       It depends what you mean by anxiety. Of course, I was anxious about every, you know, all these-

   22. SBSteven Bartlett49:34

       That feeling of-

   23. MHMatt Hancock49:34

       ... big decisions.

   24. SBSteven Bartlett49:35

       That, that awful sense of nervousness that, you know, can be crippling at times. You know that-

   25. MHMatt Hancock49:39

       Yeah, but it was, yes up to the bit, but not about... I, I, you know, I didn't... (sighs) I didn't find it, I, I didn't find it crippling. I found it motivating.

   26. SBSteven Bartlett49:49

       Do, do you know what I mean when I say anxiety?

   27. MHMatt Hancock49:50

       In a funny sort of way.

   28. SBSteven Bartlett49:50

       Do, do you know what I mean? I mean, there's the, the kind of phrase of describing something as being an anxious situation, but then actually-

   29. MHMatt Hancock49:55

       Yeah.

   30. SBSteven Bartlett49:55

       ... suffering with anxiety.
9. 50:22 – 51:24

   If you’d known a pandemic would roll in would you have taken the health secretary job?

   1. MHMatt Hancock50:22

      I don't, I don't, I don't know. (laughs) I don't know. That's a great question. (sighs) Someone's got to do it.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett50:35

      Would you have... If you knew that that situation was coming, would you-

   3. MHMatt Hancock50:40

      If I knew that situation was coming, there's about 100 things I'd immediately have done, right? We would have sort-

   4. SBSteven Bartlett50:45

      No, no. No, I mean, would you have put yourself (sighs) in, in that role? If you'd knew the... If, if I said, "Now, there's a pandemic coming next week." Do you want, do you want the job of being health secretary?

   5. MHMatt Hancock50:52

      (laughs) That's such a what-if question.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett50:53

      But I, I would answer it. So-

   7. MHMatt Hancock50:55

      The honest truth is yes.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett50:56

      You would take it?

   9. MHMatt Hancock50:57

      Yeah.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett50:57

       Okay.

   11. MHMatt Hancock50:59

       Because someone's going to make the decisions.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett51:02

       Okay. So one of the, one of the decisions-

   13. MHMatt Hancock51:03

       Do you know what, do you know what the, the overriding sense is, um, that I'm trying to articulate not particularly well, is a sense of, is a sense of duty. Right? When the really bad stuff happens, and, and you're in the job, you got to stand up and be counted.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett51:19

       One of the decisions that was made was, and ultimately criticizes, this whole care home-

   15. MHMatt Hancock51:23

       Yeah.

10. 51:24 – 58:28

    The care home mistake

    1. MHMatt Hancock51:24

    2. SBSteven Bartlett51:24

       ... stuff. What's your view on that before we get into it?

    3. MHMatt Hancock51:26

       Yeah. So, so, okay, this is a really good example of, um, the g- the, the, uh, of, of, of, uh, of learning from what you're seeing on the ground. So the criticism runs that, um, the NHS made a decision to get people out of hospitals, because we needed hospital space, and send them into care homes, and that took COVID with them, and a lot of people died.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett51:47

       Mm-hmm.

    5. MHMatt Hancock51:48

       Um, that criticism is wrong. Um, but there's a different criticism which is more accurate. The rea- the reason that's wrong is, um, twofold. And there's been a piece of work that's, a piece of, uh, analysis that's done, that showed that approximately 2% of the, uh, infections that got into care homes were from that route. Um, the, um... And the reason for that is that when those people went into the care homes, they were, they then isolated in the care homes, um, because they weren't tested, because the tests didn't exist. Now, I wish to God that the tests had existed and would... You know, that was a big part of my life, trying to build this testing system. Um, but they, they didn't exist, and most of those people who left hospital actually went home, not into, not into care homes. The truth is that the peak in the care homes came about a month later. So the facts don't even stack up this narrative, but there've been... There's, you know, there's a few false narratives that have got going j- about the pandemic, and that's one of them. The truth is, and we couldn't say it, we didn't want to say it at the time, because we didn't want to demotivate people, but the truth is that the main route of, uh, the virus getting into care homes, sadly, was from staff, because staff live in the community and this disease was rife in the community. But I didn't want to stand at that podium and give the impression I was blaming the staff. The thing that we then did was we changed the rules so you could not let- work in more than one care home.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett53:15

       Mm-hmm.

    7. MHMatt Hancock53:16

       And in the second wave, the number of deaths in care homes was far, far lower-

    8. SBSteven Bartlett53:19

       Yeah.

    9. MHMatt Hancock53:19

       ... and we had the testing. So actually, the m- what we needed to have done was do the, do the poli- the staff movement policy much earlier, and we hadn't, we hadn't spotted that that was the root. Um, and so, you know, the- there's an inquiry that will come and go through all these things, and I'm actually looking forward to it, because there's a whole series of points where we've got to make sure we learn the right lesson. Uh, and then there's a couple of other things that are upper there that, you know, just aren't true and need to be... Like this whole... You know, we talked about criticism as a politician.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett53:52

        Mm-hmm.

    11. MHMatt Hancock53:52

        Right? One of the things I've been criticized for is for giving a contract to the local pub landlord, right? I don't know whether you've read that story

    12. SBSteven Bartlett53:57

        Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I've heard all of that stuff. Yeah.

    13. MHMatt Hancock53:59

        ... or years back. Right? It's just not true.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett54:00

        We'll talk about that. I want to just... Because the, the point on the care home bit-

    15. MHMatt Hancock54:03

        Yeah. Okay.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett54:03

        It's good. So you've answered one of my points there, which was about that whole rumor that people were being released from the NHS into care homes and that was causing issues.

    17. MHMatt Hancock54:10

        Yeah.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett54:10

        The thing that, that I, that I saw from the SAGE minutes was that on the, roughly the 10th of March, which was fairly early in all of this-

    19. MHMatt Hancock54:16

        Yeah.

    20. SBSteven Bartlett54:17

        ... SAGE did say that they, there should be special policy consideration given to care homes-

    21. MHMatt Hancock54:21

        Yes.

    22. SBSteven Bartlett54:21

        ... and various types of, types of retirement communities.

    23. MHMatt Hancock54:24

        Yes.

    24. SBSteven Bartlett54:24

        Presumably, you had the data at that point that said elderly people-

    25. MHMatt Hancock54:28

        Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

    26. SBSteven Bartlett54:28

        ... were being disproportionately affected by... So around the 10th of March-

    27. MHMatt Hancock54:32

        Yeah.

    28. SBSteven Bartlett54:33

        ... t- there should, probably should have been an action taken.

    29. MHMatt Hancock54:36

        Yeah.

    30. SBSteven Bartlett54:36

        And then in the SAGE minutes, you don't really see care homes or retirement communities mentioned again-
11. 58:28 – 1:09:55

    Isn’t our high number of deaths an indicator that wrong decisions were made?

    1. SBSteven Bartlett58:28

       they choose to do it is to compare it to other countries. And in that first wave in particular-

    2. MHMatt Hancock58:31

       Yeah.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett58:32

       ... our deaths were just so much higher than the comparable countries, so does, is that not an indicator that we messed up, or that we got it, or that our judgment calls turned out to be the wrong ones?

    4. MHMatt Hancock58:45

       A combination of, a combination of things, right? A combination of things like the timing of the decisions-

    5. SBSteven Bartlett58:50

       Yeah.

    6. MHMatt Hancock58:50

       ... to lockdown. Um, the obesity of our nation compared to others is one other, uh, factor. Um, one of the factors that, um, the experts think is a cause is that lots of people travel from all over the UK to Spain and Italy during that half-term, and so it was brought back and seeded across the whole country.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett59:13

       Mm-hmm.

    8. MHMatt Hancock59:13

       Whereas other, some other countries like France had it very badly in a, in a couple of cities, but didn't have the spread in the way we did. So there's some things that are essentially, you know, just, just facts of life that were outside anybody's control. Obviously, that's not, you know, what you're getting at, and it's not-

    9. SBSteven Bartlett59:29

       Mm-hmm.

    10. MHMatt Hancock59:29

        ... the stuff that really affects how I think about it 'cause it's the, it's the active decisions that-

    11. SBSteven Bartlett59:34

        Mm-hmm.

    12. MHMatt Hancock59:35

        ... we also need to, you know, we need to go through and learn from.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett59:38

        So would you, uh, that, that's what I'm saying is-

    14. MHMatt Hancock59:40

        Yeah.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett59:40

        ... is, is the, the, the large number of deaths that we had versus other countries a indicator that we made poor decisions in that first wave?

    16. MHMatt Hancock59:48

        Well, now you see, Stephen, you're getting into gotcha questions.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett59:51

        No, I genuinely, 'cause, because we're going to come on to-

    18. MHMatt Hancock59:54

        So-

    19. SBSteven Bartlett59:54

        ... the good stuff, right? We're gonna-

    20. MHMatt Hancock59:54

        Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    21. NANarrator59:55

        Mm-hmm.

    22. SBSteven Bartlett59:55

        ... come into the fact that we're out of lockdown before everybody else.

    23. MHMatt Hancock59:57

        Right. So the, but the way, the reason I, I reacted that way-

    24. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:00

        Mm-hmm.

    25. MHMatt Hancock1:00:00

        ... is that, is that it is self-evident and obvious that you've got to improve decisions and learn from them.

    26. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:07

        No, no. Yeah, yeah.

    27. MHMatt Hancock1:00:07

        And the best, and the best proof point of this, and the best, um, sort of... It's, it's obvious from anybody who's running any organization-

    28. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:14

        Mm-hmm.

    29. MHMatt Hancock1:00:14

        ... is you constantly got to be asking, "Was that the best decision?" And part of leadership-

    30. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:20

        Mm-hmm.
12. 1:09:55 – 1:23:30

    The first vaccine - showing your emotions

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:55

       or something?

    2. MHMatt Hancock1:09:55

       Yeah. So the, so th- I mean, this is an example of wh- of how you need to go through these things properly and how narratives can sort of spin out of control. And this is true on social media, uh, which you're a great expert in-

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:09

       (laughs)

    4. MHMatt Hancock1:10:09

       ... but it's also true in the mainstream media. So for some reason that I, that is lost in the mists of time, uh, some of the papers got the idea that the landlord in the village that I had previously lived in, in Suffolk, um, who had then gone on to, uh, run this factory, had got a contract that I had given him.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:33

       (laughs)

    6. MHMatt Hancock1:10:33

       And, you know, it was on the front page of The Guardian for several days, and it was a- And, and it's just all, it's not true. He didn't have a contract with the department. He didn't have a contract with the NHS. Um, he, yes, he, he, he flipped his factory to making those little plastic tubes, uh, you know, the ones that you, um, stick your, your-

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:52

       Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    8. MHMatt Hancock1:10:52

       ... your test thing into, but we needed millions of these things, and somebody had to. I didn't have anything to do with the contracting arrangements 'cause he, he was a subcontractor to another business. So there's no way that we ... I, I mean, it's just a total, it's just a total nonsense. And so in a, in a stressed period like a pandemic, a lot of conspiracy theories got going. This was one of them. There'd been loads on, on vaccines from the anti-vaxxers.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:11:17

       Mm-hmm.

    10. MHMatt Hancock1:11:17

        And dealing ... So you gotta deal with that misinformation at the same time as trying to make the best decisions as you can, and that is one of the, that is one of the hardest things to wrestle with in, in terms of how we communicate.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:11:28

        The, um, the rumor around that time was that he'd sent you a WhatsApp message and you'd like forwarded him onto someone, and that had led to him getting a, a deal.

    12. MHMatt Hancock1:11:36

        Yeah. The, so he, he, uh, I mean, these WhatsApps have been, uh, been published under FOI. The w- the WhatsApp was about something incredibly banal. It was about standardizing the size of these tubes-

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:11:47

        Mm-hmm.

    14. MHMatt Hancock1:11:47

        ... across different suppliers so that they could be made more efficiently. I mean, like a really in-the-weeds bit of policy.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:11:54

        Right.

    16. MHMatt Hancock1:11:54

        That ... And I just pinged this onto the people r- I mean, I, well, I, I, it was-

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:11:58

        Okay.

    18. MHMatt Hancock1:11:58

        It wi- (laughs) it was at a level of detail about eight below where I was-

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:03

        Okay.

    20. MHMatt Hancock1:12:03

        ... um, operating.

    21. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:04

        There was, th- th- in 2000 ... May 2021, there was th-

    22. MHMatt Hancock1:12:09

        Yeah.

    23. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:09

        ... some minor inadvertent breach because you held shares in a f- a firm that had got a contract?

    24. MHMatt Hancock1:12:14

        No.

    25. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:14

        No?

    26. MHMatt Hancock1:12:15

        So that's not true either. There you go. I mean, this is, um ... I, I was, uh, I was given some shares in my sister's company, right? Um, and they had a contract, uh, an existing contract with the Welsh NHS.

    27. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:29

        Right.

    28. MHMatt Hancock1:12:29

        And I wasn't responsible for the Welsh NHS. So here's another example.

    29. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:32

        Are you, are you familiar with that rumor, th-

    30. MHMatt Hancock1:12:34

        Yeah, yeah, of course. Of course.

Episode duration: 1:43:09