Hancock's statement came after Sir Paul Nurse, told the Covid-19 Inquiry it took three months for the DHSC to respond to a letter he sent along with research director, Sir Peter Ratcliffe, in April 2020 calling for the move.

The former health secretary told the inquiry: ‘The argument that is implied … is that somehow somebody eminent, who had won a Nobel Prize, knew something and we ignored it. It's just not true. It's not what happened.'

Hancock said he had not seen the letter adding the Government was already putting in place policies to tackle asymptomatic transmission.

In further evidence, Hancock expressed his  concerns that the scale of the UK's capacity for mass testing was being dismantled, adding ‘the critical thing is that we absolutely must, as a nation, be ready to expand, radically expand testing capacity once a test is developed'.

The inquiry later heard excerpts from the diaries of the UK's then scientific adviser, Lord Patrick Vallance, in which he wrote that former Prime Minister Boris Johnson favoured a ‘more authoritarian approach to people refusing to self isolate.

Vallance wrote the Government's instinct was for more ‘punitive measures' and wanted to go for ‘stick, not carrot'.