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The most powerful appointee in Keir Starmer’s government is under huge pressure to quit this afternoon after the Covid inquiry highlighted key failures by him during the pandemic. Chris Wormald was appointed Cabinet Secretary, Britain’s most senior civil servant, by Sir Keir after entering No. 10. Before the promotion, he served as the head of the Department of Health during the outbreak.

Today’s official publication by the official Covid-19 inquiry into core decision-making and political government includes damning criticism of Mr Wormald’s time in the job. His actions come under particular fire over failing to inform 10 Downing Street and the Cabinet Office about the Health Department’s actual ability to cope with the pandemic response.

The inquiry accuses former Health Secretary Matt Hancock of being “overenthusiastic” about his department, and failing to recognise or warn No10 about its limitations. However it condemns Mr Wormald for failing to correct this inaccurate impression given to Downing Street.

The report argues: “Despite being aware of the assurances which Mr Hancock was providing to 10 Downing Street and the Cabinet Office on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care – and that there were some concerns that these assurances were misleading – the Inquiry has seen no evidence that Sir Christopher Wormald took such action.

“His failure to do so gave rise to additional concerns at the centre of the UK government about the effectiveness of Sir Christopher Wormald’s leadership at the Department of Health and Social Care.”

It concludes that both Mr Hancock and Mr Wormald’s failures obscured the reality and the need for more action earlier on to tackle the virus to save lives. In a post on X this afternoon, Dominic Cummings also singled the Cabinet Secretary out for particular criticism.

He highlighted that the then-Health Department chief was behind suggestions that Boris Johnson advise Britons to hold ‘chickenpox parties’ in order to build up immunity.

Mr Cummings blasted: “He was rewarded for abject failure with promotion to the top job.

“This is very logical for Westminster. Wormald claims his chicken pox parties idea was simply a version of SAGE advice but this is obviously nonsense. SAGE did not advise pox parties.

“Wormald also tried to exclude from SAGE meetings Ben Warner [an advisor brought in by Cummings] who turned out to be critical in exposing errors made in SAGE and the Cabinet Office. Wormald’s justification is he was ‘applying lessons from the Iraq Inquiry’!

“Watch the same farce repeat itself on covid.”

Government sources have briefed that they believe Sir Keir may use today’s report as an excuse to sack his Cabinet Secretary, whom many believe is ineffective and a key reason behind the government’s lack of progress in delivering manifesto pledges.

This morning the PM’s spokesman insisted that Sir Keir still has full confidence in Wormald.