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Government defies watchdog order to hand over Hancock’s Covid diaries

Department of Health and Social Care may be held in contempt of court for missing information commissioner’s deadline

By Jenna Corderoy and Ruby Lott-Lavigna
Government defies watchdog order to hand over Hancock’s Covid diaries
Matt Hancock's ministerial diaries have been handed over to the inquiry, but not to journalists. | Isabel Infantes / AFP via Getty Images
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The government faces a fresh fight over key Covid documents after ignoring an order from the information watchdog to hand over Matt Hancock’s official diaries.

As the Cabinet Office battles to hide Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp and diaries from the official Covid-19 inquiry, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has missed a legal deadline to disclose Matt Hancock’s ministerial diaries to openDemocracy. It could leave the department in contempt of court.

Health chiefs have spent more than two years fighting our Freedom of Information request for Hancock’s diaries, which could reveal whose advice he sought and who had his ear during the initial stages of the pandemic. The former health secretary published his own edited diaries of the period last year.

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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0