Following Matt Hancock’s resignation, the Prime Minister has appointed former Chancellor Sajid Javid as the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. BBC News has the story.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, [Hancock] said the Government “owe it to people who have sacrificed so much in this pandemic to be honest when we have let them down”.
Boris Johnson said he was “sorry” to receive the resignation.
Former Chancellor Sajid Javid has been confirmed as the new Health Secretary, Downing Street said.
Mr Hancock had been under increasing pressure to quit, after the Sun published pictures of Mr Hancock and Gina Coladangelo, who are both married with three children, kissing. The newspaper said they had been taken inside the Department of Health on May 6th.
Fellow Tory MPs, as well as Labour and the Covid Bereaved Families for Justice group, had called for the Health Secretary to be sacked.
BBC Political Editor Laura Kuenssberg said Number 10 had stressed that it had been Mr Hancock’s decision to go and that he had not been pushed out by the Prime Minister.
She said Ms Coladangelo was also leaving her role as a Non-Executive Director of the Department of Health.
In a video posted on Twitter, Mr Hancock said: “I have been to see the Prime Minister to resign as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.”
“I understand the enormous sacrifices that everybody in this country has made, that you have made, and those of us who make these rules have got to stick by them and that’s why I have got to resign.”
Hancock’s full letter of resignation to the PM can be read below:
The BBC News report is worth reading in full.
Stop Press: According to MailOnline it’s a love match between Matt and Gina and the ex-Health Secretary told his wife on Thursday evening that the marriage was over and he intended to leave her.
