Former chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance has criticised the “lack of leadership” in government during the Covid-19 pandemic.

During the UK Covid-19 Inquiry yesterday, extracts were quoted from Vallance’s diary in which he described Prime Minister Boris Johnson as being “clearly bamboozled” by scientific evidence.

During a meeting in September 2020, Vallance quotes 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 a later diary extract, Vallance says: “We have a weak indecisive PM.”

Vallance also commented that Johnson found it hard to understand the scientific evidence, saying: “Some points had to be explained repeatedly and some areas proved more difficult to get across than others.”

The diary also describes former chief adviser Dominic Cummings’ relaying the views of then chancellor Rish Sunak.

It records Cummings saying: “Rishi thinks just let people die and that’s okay,” with Vallance noting: “This all feels like a complete lack of leadership.”

Commenting on former health and social care secretary, Matt Hancock, Vallance says: “I think he had a habit of saying things which he didn’t have a basis for, and he would say them too enthusiastically too early, without the evidence to back them up, and then have to backtrack from them days later.

“I don’t know to what extent that was sort of overenthusiasm versus deliberate, I think a lot of it was overenthusiasm, but he definitely said things which surprised me because I knew that the evidence base wasn’t there.”

When asked if this meant Hancock’s comments were untrue, Vallance replied: “Yep.”