Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson apologised for the pain and loss suffered by the victims of the pandemic and their families during the UK Covid Inquiry yesterday.

Mr Johnson, whose apology was interrupted by protestors, said he hoped the Inquiry “will help to get the answers to the very difficult questions that those victims and those families are rightly asking, so that we can protect ourselves better, help each other to help protect ourselves better in the future, and prevent further suffering”.

Johnson’s leadership has come under fire during the Inquiry with former chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance describing him as being “clearly bamboozled” by scientific evidence.

During a meeting in September 2020, Vallance quoted the former prime minister as agreeing with a motion to let the pandemic “rip”, saying: “Most people who die have reached their time anyway.”

In his evidence, Johnson conceded action should have been taken sooner against the virus, commenting “we should collectively have twigged much sooner”.

He ascribed technical problems with his phone as the reason for 5,000 WhatsApp messages being missing from the evidence presented to the Inquiry.

Johnson also defended his decision not to sack former health and social care secretary Matt Hancock who former chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, described as being incompetent, a liar and obsessed with “media bullshit”.

Commenting on Hancock, Johnson said: “I thought the health secretary worked very hard and, whatever, he may have had defects, but I thought that he was doing his best in very difficult circumstances, and I thought he was a good communicator.”