FORMER health secretary Jeremy Hunt offered a grovelling apology today for Tory failures in Britain’s pandemic preparations highlighted by the Covid inquiry.

In its first report, published on Thursday, the inquiry found the government had “failed” the public due to “significant flaws” in preparing for a pandemic.

Mr Hunt admitted that as health secretary between 2012 and 2018, he had been “part of a ‘group-think’ where we overprepared for pandemic flu: we didn’t think about other types of pandemic.”

Speaking to the BBC, he said: “I apologise unreservedly to the families. That was the most terrible tragedy what happened to this country during Covid.”

He urged the new Labour government to take up the recommendations of Baroness Heather Hallett’s 217-page report.

Lady Hallett called for a pandemic strategy to be developed and tested at least every three years, including a Britain-wide crisis response exercise.

She said the government and political leaders should be properly and regularly held to account “for systems of preparedness and resilience” and that external experts should be brought in to challenge and guard against “the known problem of group-think.”

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said ministers will carefully consider the recommendations.