FORMER minister Tobias Ellwood said the Prime Minister had to be able to speak frankly in Downing Street “without fear” of being “misquoted”.

It comes after Boris Johnson’s former aide Dominic Cummings gave seven hours of evidence to MPs on the Prime Minister and the Government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Conservative MP for Bournemouth East Mr Ellwood told Channel 4 News yesterday: “To make it clear, whether you are in a board room or a military ops room or even at the heart of the Government in No 10 or indeed the White House, you will hear and participate in frank discussions that are held in private.

“And even the Prime Minister is allowed to ask questions, whether they be awkward and naive, without fear of coming back to maybe be quoted or misquoted.”

Asked whether he believed Mr Cummings’ account, Mr Ellwood, who is chairs the House of Commons defence select committee,replied: “I’m not going to give any form of justification to Dominic Cummings’ evidence today, which is all about score settling.

“I will rise and recognise and agree with him that we rely on an existing Cabinet construct which has been tried and tested, but is risk averse and siloed and Cabinet members were well intentioned but were mostly ill-equipped and inexperienced to deal with this pandemic to scale.

“We needed to create a better strategic oversight, a swifter decision making, better command and control – Dominic Cummings was absolutely in a position to change that and he didn’t.”

During his seven-hour session to MPs on Wednesday, May 26, Mr Cummings hit out at Health Secretary Matt Hancock, said tens of thousands of people died unnecessarily because of the Government’s failings over coronavirus and claimed Boris Johnson is “unfit for the job” of Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister’s former adviser said Mr Johnson dismissed the pandemic as a “scare story” or the new “swine flu” in early 2020 as the global crisis loomed and then had to be persuaded to lock down in March.

Mr Cummings apologised to the public, saying that ministers, officials and advisers had fallen “disastrously short” of the standards they should expect in a crisis.

While Mr Cummings was giving evidence, Mr Johnson was facing MPs at Prime Minister’s Questions.

The Prime Minister said: “To go into a lockdown is a traumatic thing for a country, to deal with a pandemic on this scale has been appallingly difficult, and we have at every stage tried to minimise loss of life, to save lives, to protect the NHS and we have followed the best scientific advice that we can.”

In response to Mr Cummings’ “swine flu” claim, the Prime Minister said: “I don’t think anybody could credibly accuse this Government of being complacent about the threat that this virus posed at any point.”

Under questioning from Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister did not deny a suggestion that he said words to the effect of “Covid was only killing 80-year-olds” as he resisted a second lockdown.

Mr Johnson said that would be a matter for the public inquiry to look into but “I am absolutely confident that we took the decisions in the best interests of the British people”.