Matt Hancock says SAGE and COBRA meetings no longer control government decisions

Matt Hancock announces further plans to downgrade SAGE by confirming the secretive Joint Biosecurity Centre is taking over Britain’s coronavirus response – as he dismisses plans to reform Public Health England before winter

  • The Health Secretary would not put a date on when the last time COBRA met
  • MPs looked concerned that the emergency committee was no longer in charge 
  • Matt Hancock said there was now a ‘bespoke system’ of new committees 

Matt Hancock has confirmed the advisory group SAGE has been downgraded and the Joint Biosecurity Centre is taking over the UK’s coronavirus response. 

Mr Hancock said there are now Covid-19 committees set up inside Whitehall to make decisions without COBRA meetings, which are usually hosted by the Prime Minister.

And SAGE – the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies – has taken a backseat now that coronavirus is a ‘semi-permanent’ problem rather than an emergency.

The Health Secretary explained that the new Joint Biosecurity Centre, about which little is known, is now taking charge of decisions on Covid-19.

Speaking to a committee of MPs this afternoon Mr Hancock refused to say when COBRA last met and said it has been replaced with a ‘bespoke system’ composed of two main groups named Covid-S and Covid-O – Covid-S is chaired by Boris Johnson.

It is not clear how much engagement the Joint Biosecurity Centre has with independent scientists – SAGE was set up so the country’s top researchers could advise the Government without bias.

Mr Hancock also admitted that reform of Public Health England is on the cards and that he didn’t realise until the epidemic hit what its limits were.

Not until March did it become clear to the Health Secretary that PHE wouldn’t be able to arrange the mass coronavirus swab testing the country needed, he said.

Although he said his focus was now on ‘preparing for winter’, the reform of PHE was ‘a question whose time will come’.  

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the new Government committees have been set up to control decisions about Covid-19 without the need for a COBRA meeting

Greg Clark, chair of the Science and Technology Committee of MPs, asked Mr Hancock in today’s meeting when COBRA last met. 

COBRA is the emergency committee usually chaired by the Prime Minister when there is a national emergency.

Mr Hancock said: ‘I haven’t got that date to hand,’ and refused to be pressed for any more detail, before revealing that the committee is no longer the chief decision-maker.

The Health Secretary explained: ‘The decision-making for coronavirus that’s in place is that there’s a Covid-O, which takes the operational decisions and meets two or three times a week, and then that reports into Covid-S, which takes the strategic decisions and is chaired by the Prime Minister, and that works effectively.’

Mr Hancock described Covid-S and Covid-O as a ‘coronavirus sub-committee system’. 

Mr Clark noted that COBRA is the ‘established means of operating in an emergency,’ adding ‘this seems to be an emergency’.

Mr Hancock confirmed that COBRA had been used at the start of the crisis but it has been replaced by a ‘semi-permanent’ system dedicated entirely to Covid-19. 

And explaining why the Government has drifted away from SAGE, which is led by Sir Patrick Vallance and includes the chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, Mr Hancock said it was not set up in a way that allowed it to keep going indefinitely. 

He said: ‘SAGE, remember, is the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies – it’s not a body that is just there for coronavirus or, indeed, for communicable diseases and epidemics and pandemics.

‘And as we build our capability to deal with epidemics on a grand scale we are building the capability together in one place under the JBC [Joint Biosecurity Centre]’.

It is not clear whether members of the JBC are independent or on the Government payroll. 

The organisation itself is part of NHS Test and Trace which means it is run by Baroness Dido Harding, who answers directly to Mr Hancock. 

SAGE, by comparison, is composed of scientists from across the country who volunteer their time to take part in round-table discussions to talk about scientific evidence and help explain it to members of the Government.