A Labour minister was last night at the centre of an explosive row over claims he rubbished high-level intelligence pointing to Covid’s origins in a Chinese laboratory.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal that a former spy chief submitted a secret dossier to No 10 early in the pandemic reporting that the virus had originated with a leak from a Wuhan facility.
But Lord Vallance, the science minister who was the Government’s chief scientific adviser at the time, is accused of ignoring the report, possibly for fear of offending the Chinese or jeopardising research funding.
A classified dossier compiled by Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, was passed to then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the start of the outbreak in March 2020 which stated: ‘It is now beyond reasonable doubt that Covid-19 was engineered in the Wuhan Institute of Virology’.
The file, marked ‘Secret – Recipient’s Eyes Only’ argued that Beijing was pushing a fake narrative that the virus had originated in an animal market. The dossier, compiled by a group of eminent academics and intelligence experts and seen by The Mail on Sunday, said China even retrospectively manipulated viral samples to give credence to the deception.
But the argument is said to have been dismissed by Patrick Vallance, who was a familiar face during the pandemic as he flanked Mr Johnson at No 10 news conferences.
In today’s MoS, Sir Richard writes of his dossier: ‘Boris himself was persuaded by its argument. But the weight of the Government’s scientific establishment, already signed up to the Chinese narrative, prevailed.’
Last night, a source close to Mr Johnson pointed the finger at Lord Vallance for rubbishing the lab-leak theory in order to appease the Chinese government. The source said: ‘Boris repeatedly asked the [intelligence] agencies to do more work on the origins of Covid. It struck him as simply too much of a coincidence that a mutant Covid virus appeared in a city that just happened to possess one of the only labs in the world that engineered mutant Covid viruses.
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Boris Johnson and Britain’s Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance leave 10 Downing street in September 2021
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Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli inside the P4 laboratory in Wuhan, capital of China’s Hubei province
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‘He was very struck by the refusal of the scientists, especially Patrick Vallance, even to contemplate this possibility. He asked again after getting the Dearlove briefing and again the agencies came back with the same answer and specifically rubbished Dearlove. Looking back, he now wonders why the scientists and the agencies were so emphatic.’
The source said the former Prime Minister is concerned that the public were deliberately misled by the scientific and intelligence community to protect research funding from Beijing and to avoid angering the Chinese regime.
Lord Vallance is facing increasing scrutiny over his role in suppressing the lab leak theory. He took part in a multinational teleconference in February 2020, after which it is alleged scientists began dismissing the Chinese lab-leak hypothesis as implausible.
Last week, former minister Steve Baker said Lord Vallance ‘should be fully transparent about what he knew and why he chose to be among those who avoided inconvenient questions’.
The source said: ‘Boris thinks it is possible that the scientists disliked the lab leak theory because they are wary about public hostility to science. They didn’t want stories about Frankenstein viruses that would mean a threat to research funding. He also thinks they were nervous of causing offence to their international partners.
‘Clearly the lab-leak theory was deeply embarrassing and painful to China. It meant that the incompetence of someone in Wuhan had caused millions of deaths and $16 trillion of damage worldwide.
‘But they really didn’t want to say this. Beijing is ruthless in punishing anyone who says anything hostile or disrespectful to China. The scientists were clearly nervous about triggering cuts to the huge Chinese investments in academic research of all kinds.’
The Mail on Sunday last week revealed that a senior virologist had claimed British and American intelligence agencies orchestrated a clandestine campaign to shut down concerns of a lab leak.
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Chief Medical Officer for England Chris Whitty, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and then Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance during a press conference in March 2020
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Boris Johnson gives a press conference on the ongoing situation with the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020
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A classified dossier compiled by Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6 , was passed to then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the start of the outbreak in March 2020
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Lord Vallance, the science minister who was the Government’s chief scientific adviser at the time, is accused of ignoring the report, possibly for fear of offending the Chinese or jeopardising research funding
Robert Redfield, who was director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention when the pandemic erupted, said he was ‘100 per cent’ convinced that Covid-19 was the result of scientists becoming infected while carrying out high-risk experiments to boost the potency of bat viruses.
In April 2020, this newspaper revealed that the Government’s secret Cobra committee had been told that Covid had leaked from a laboratory, only for it to then be dismissed as a ‘conspiracy theory’.
It was reported last week that in 2020, Germany’s foreign intelligence service put the likelihood that the virus was accidentally released from the Wuhan Institute of Virology at 80 to 95 per cent.
The Die Zeit and Sueddeutscher Zeitung newspapers said an unpublished report from Germany’s spying agency BND had indications that numerous violations of safety regulations had occurred at the lab.
The source close to Mr Johnson said he suspected the scientists were also concerned about offending Anthony Fauci, the director of America’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 to 2022, which funded bat virus research in Wuhan.
The source said: ‘The truth is that the Covid-19 virus was not just Chinese but also partly American. It was a Chimerican chimera. So Vallance and the others clung to the wet market/bat/pangolin theory long after it had begun to look ridiculous.
‘They did so because they were instinctively kow-towing to China and sensitive to anti-science feeling in the wider public.
‘The agencies didn’t really have any good sources for their work other than the scientists who had an interest in this. Which is absurd when you consider that we must properly understand the origins of Covid to prevent another outbreak.’
The source concluded that it was ‘ridiculous’ that the ongoing UK public inquiry into the pandemic was not studying its origins.
Lord Vallance declined to comment last night, and a government spokesman said: ‘The UK continues to support the World Health Organisation in its ongoing expert study of the origins of Covid-19 and seeks a robust, transparent, and science-led review.’