Former Chancellor and Home Secretary Sajid Javid will replace Matt Hancock as Health Secretary

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Former Chancellor and Home Secretary Sajid Javid will replace Matt Hancock as Health Secretary, Downing Street has announced, with Dominic Cummings suggesting the appointment is down to Boris Johnson’s new wife Carrie.

The news came less than two hours after Matt Hancock announced his resignation from the position following the emergence of video footage showing him kissing an aide in his ministerial office in a breach of coronavirus restrictions. 

A statement from Downing Street on Saturday night said: ‘The Queen has been pleased to approve the appointment of the Rt Hon Sajid Javid MP as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.’  

Mr Javid resigned as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 2020 February and  was replaced by the current incumbent, Rishi Sunak – who was previously Mr Javid’s deputy in the Treasury department.

Javid’s resignation came after Mr Johnson tried to sack his entire team in 2019, and amid rumours of a tumultuous relationship with Johnson’s former senior adviser Dominic Cummings, who himself resigned in November last year.

But despite their stormy relationship, Mr Javid has returned to the Prime Minister’s cabinet after over a year in the cold as an emergency replacement for Mr Hancock, who resigned at around 6pm on Saturday night. 

Mr Javid’s appointment was announced less than two hours later, at around 7.50 pm. 

The former Chancellor quit government in February 2020 during a Cabinet reshuffle, which is believed to have been largely orchestrated by Mr Cummings, who pushed for Javid’s entire team of advisers to be sacked. 

Mr Javid, who also served as home secretary in then-Prime Minister Theresa May’s government, from April 2018 to July 2019, was odds-on to return to government after Cummings’ November departure.

Reacting to the new appointment, Cummings claimed it was all orchestrated by the Prime Minister’s new wife Carrie Johnson, who previously worked for Javid.

‘So Carrie appoints Saj!,’ Cummings tweeted. ‘NB If I hadn’t tricked PM into firing Saj, we’d have had a [Treasury] with useless [Secretary of State]/[Special Advisors], no furlough scheme, total chaos instead of JOINT 10/11 team which was a big success.

‘Saj = bog standard = chasing headlines + failing = awful for NHS. Need #RegimeChange,’ Cummings added. 

After initially refusing to resign, Mr Hancock wrote a letter of resignation to Boris Johnson on Saturday in which he said the Government ‘owe it to people who have sacrificed so much in this pandemic to be honest when we have let them down’.

It later come to light that the Health Secretary told his wife, Martha, that he would be leaving her on Thursday night – immediately after discovering that his affair with Gina Coladangelo was about to be laid bare.

Images and video showed Mr Hancock in an embrace with aide Ms Coladangelo last month, and the Health Secretary was facing increasing pressure to quit over the breaking of social-distancing rules.

Mr Hancock added: ‘The last thing I would want is for my private life to distract attention from the single-minded focus that is leading us out of this crisis.

‘I want to reiterate my apology for breaking the guidance, and apologise to my family and loved ones for putting them through this. I also need (to) be with my children at this time.’ 

The Prime Minister said he was ‘sorry’ to receive Mr Hancock’s resignation as Health Secretary, adding he ‘should leave office very proud of what you have achieved – not just in tackling the pandemic, but even before Covid-19 struck us’. 

Boris Johnson continued: ‘I am grateful for your support and believe that your contribution to public service is far from over.’

Ms Coladangelo is also reportedly leaving her position on the board of the Department of Health.

Mr Johnson had refused to sack Mr Hancock, with his spokesman saying the PM considered the matter closed after receiving the West Suffolk MP’s apology on Friday.  

In response to Mr Hancock’s letter, the Prime Minister wrote: ‘You should leave office very proud of what you have achieved – not just in tackling the pandemic, but even before Covid-19 struck us.’

And he said: ‘Above all, it has been your task to deal with a challenge greater than that faced by any of your predecessors, and in fighting Covid you have risen to that challenge – with the abundant energy, intelligence, and determination that are your hallmark.’

On Saturday Conservative MPs began to break ranks to call for Mr Hancock to go.

Veteran Tory Sir Christopher Chope said his constituents were ‘seething’.

Norfolk Norfolk MP Duncan Baker said: ‘In my view people in high public office and great positions of responsibility should act with the appropriate morals and ethics that come with that role.’

Mr Johnson had refused to sack Mr Hancock, with his spokesman saying the PM considered the matter closed after receiving the West Suffolk MP’s apology on Friday.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer tweeted: ‘Matt Hancock is right to resign. But Boris Johnson should have sacked him.’

Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: ‘It is right that Matt Hancock has resigned. But why didn’t Boris Johnson have the guts to sack him and why did he say the matter was closed?

‘Boris Johnson has demonstrated that he has none of the leadership qualities required of a Prime Minister.’

Liberal Democrats’ leader Sir Ed Davey tweeted: ‘Matt Hancock’s legacy as Health Secretary will be one of cronyism and failure.

‘And the fact that Boris Johnson thought Hancock could just carry on regardless brings the Prime Minister’s judgement into question once again.’

Mr Hancock’s three-year tenure as health secretary came to an end after The Sun newspaper published stills of what appeared to be CCTV footage from inside his ministerial office of him kissing Ms Coladangelo.

Ms Coladangelo, a friend from Mr Hancock’s days at Oxford University, was brought into DHSC as an unpaid adviser last year before being given the £15,000-a-year role of non-executive director in the department.

Legislation in place at the time said that ‘no person may participate in a gathering’ that ‘consists of two or more people… and takes place indoors’.

An exception to this rule was that the gathering was ‘reasonably necessary for work purposes or for the provision of voluntary or charitable services’.

Tory MPs and ministers will also have been eyeing the by-election in Batley and Spen next week.

Christchurch MP Sir Christopher told the BBC the impact on the West Yorkshire vote was on his mind.

Labour MP for Halifax, Holly Lynch, had been preparing to write an open letter to Conservative MPs and the Tory candidate in the election, Ryan Stephenson, challenging them to tell Mr Hancock to resign.

Before he did, Sir Christopher told Radio 4’s PM programme: ‘Of course I feel that. And that’s another reason why I think that the sooner he goes the better, because otherwise the last few days of the campaign are going to be dominated by this issue and it’s obviously not going to be very helpful for the Conservatives.’