Hancock’s Chinese lab leak claims censored
Officials told minister to alter his memoirs to ‘avoid causing problems’ with Beijing
MATT HANCOCK was censored by the Cabinet Office over his concerns that the Covid-19 pandemic began with a laboratory leak in Wuhan, The Lockdown Files reveal today.
The former health secretary was told to tone down claims in his book because the Government feared it would “cause problems” with China.
Mr Hancock wanted to say that the Chinese explanation – that the virus being discovered close to a government science lab in Wuhan was coincidental – “just doesn’t fly”.
But, in correspondence from late last year and leaked to The Daily Telegraph, the Cabinet Office told him that the Government’s position is that the original outbreak’s location is “entirely coincidental” .
It is the first time that the British position has been categorically stated.
Mr Hancock was warned that to differ from this narrative, which resembles China’s version of events, risked “damaging national security”.
In his book, Pandemic Diaries, Mr Hancock also wanted to write that “global fear of the Chinese must not get in the way of a full investigation into what happened” but this too was watered down.
The disclosure comes days before Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, prepares to set out a defence and security strategy that is expected to take a less aggressive tone to China than that proposed by Liz Truss, his predecessor.
The changes were made by the Cabinet Office when Mr Hancock submitted his manuscript for review – a process all former ministers are expected to follow – last year. Once alterations were made, the book was signed off for publication by Simon Case, the Cabinet Secretary, on Nov 4 last year.
The assertion that the nature of the outbreak was “entirely coincidental” marks the first time that the British Government has directly commented on the lab leak claims. It is in contrast to the US, where the FBI and the department for energy have said they believe that a lab leak theory is plausible.
In the draft of his Pandemic Diaries memoir, written with Isabel Oakeshott, Mr Hancock wrote: “Given how cagey the Chinese have been, I think we have to treat their official version of events – still the Wuhan thing – with considerable scepticism.
“Imagine there was an outbreak of a deadly new virus in Wiltshire and we shrugged off the fact that the outbreak ‘just so happened’ to be near a little place called Porton Down. We’d be laughed out of town.” However, officials at the Cabinet Office responded, saying “this is highly sensitive and would cause problems if released”.
In a separate section he planned to write: “To me it seems pretty credible. It’s just too much of a coincidence that the pandemic started in the same city as the lab, which – by the way, is a full 40 minutes’ drive from the wet market originally linked to the outbreak.
“The only plausible alternative is that the virus was brought to Wuhan to be studied, and then escaped. The Chinese denials are a bit like us claiming that a random virus just happened to break out near a little place called Porton Down, perhaps because of some badgers. It just doesn’t fly.”
The section is almost entirely removed at the behest of the Cabinet Office. To explain the alterations, civil servants wrote that the mention of “Porton Down is damaging to national security” – a reference to the laboratory
which is the Government’s scientific and military research centre.
They explained: “What is set up as a joke, is one of the attack lines Russia has used against us for the Novichok poisoning, as it is only a few miles from Porton Down to Salisbury (which is entirely coincidental – as, we believe, it is that the Wuhan lab is so close to where the first Covid outbreak was recorded)”.
The comments appear in the final version of the book significantly watered down with references to Porton Down and global fear of the Chinese removed. The comments about the origins of coronavirus are among a number of instances where officials asked for criticism of China to be removed.
The comments made by Cabinet Office officials are significant because they offer a glimpse as to the thinking of the Government over the Covid-19 outbreak. Until now, it has not directly commented on theories about a possible lab leak. Last week, Christopher Wray, the FBI Director, said that the bureau believes Covid-19 most likely originated in a Chinese governmentcontrolled lab. However, US intelligence agencies maintain that there is still no consensus on the origins of the virus and China has rejected any suggestion that the virus might have leaked. Last year, the former head of
‘What is set up as a joke, is one of the attack lines Russia has used against us for Novichok poisoning’
MI6 said that any evidence that a lab leak in Wuhan sparked the coronavirus pandemic has probably been destroyed.
Sir Richard Dearlove, who headed up the secret intelligence service between 1999 and 2004, warned that it would be difficult to prove that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was working on “gain of function” experiments to make a natural coronavirus more deadly to humans.
At a hearing in Washington this week, Jamie Metzl, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former State Department official, said: “There is no smoking gun proving a lab origin hypothesis, but the growing body of circumstantial evidence suggests a gun that, at the very least, is warm to the touch.”
Next week, the integrated defence spending review update will be published, as Mr Sunak meets Joe Biden, the US president, in the US for talks around the Aukus pact, a No10 spokesman said yesterday. Last year, it was reported that Liz Truss was expected to formally term China a “threat” in the update, raising the possibility that Mr Sunak may criticise the country.
The Pandemic Diaries was published in December last year. In autumn 2022, a draft book was given to the Cabinet Office by Mr Hancock for clearance. Under the Ministerial Code, former ministers intending to publish their memoirs are required to submit the draft manuscript in good time before publication to the Cabinet Secretary”.