Helen MacNamara and Downing Street’s deputy chief of staff Cleo Watson had “lots of conversations” about why top officials were not addressing PPE for women, Archie Mitchell reports.

After Ms MacNamara, Britain’s second most senior civil servant at the time, raised the issue with the head of the Cabinet Office’s Covid taskforce, it took two weeks for it to be discussed at a meeting with the prime minister.

Helen MacNamara sent a plea to a Cabinet Office colleague saying “women have died” as a result of not enough being done to consider how the pandemic was affecting them, Archie Mitchell reports.

The former top civil servant said issues that stemmed from a sexist culture in Whitehall included weeks of confusion about whether women could access abortion during the lockdown and not making provision for victims of domestic abuse.

“It is very difficult to draw any conclusion other than women have died as a result of this,” she told a colleague in an email seen by the Covid inquiry.

Calling for tangible changes, she said: “It isn’t enough that we keep observing this phenomenon.”

The lack of female perspective when key decisions were made led to a disproportionate focus on football, hunting, shooting and fishing, Helen MacNamara has told the Covid inquiry, Archie Mitchell reports.

“There was a serious lack of thinking about domestic abuse and the vulnerable, about carers and informal networks for how people look after each other in families and communities,” the ex-top civil servant said.

Ms MacNamara also said there was a lack of guidance for women who might be pregnant or were pregnant and what those who were key workers should do.

She cited the “absence from the room” of women, and said many key issues affecting women were not even considered.

Helen MacNamara has told the Covid inquiry she cannot remember anyone working in the centre of government who “understood how the NHS operated, Archie Mitchell reports.

One of Britain’s top civil servants during the pandemic, Ms MacNamara said the Treasury and national security are overrepresented, while the management of the state is underrepresented.

She said it was something she “observed” at the time, but it is now “striking” and speaks to “what needs to be different in the future”.

It was disappointing that Boris Johnson did not pick up on “violent and misogynistic language” from Dominic Cummings, Helen MacNamara said.

Asked about Mr Cummings’ messages in which he made expletive-laden remarks about her, the former deputy cabinet secretary said: “It is also revealing of exactly the wrong attitude to the civil service. I was doing my job as a civil servant and I am confident about that.

“The way in which it was considered appropriate to describe what should happen to me, yes, as a woman, but, yes, as a civil servant, it is disappointing to me that the prime minister didn’t pick him up on the use of some of that violent and misogynistic language.”

Helen MacNamara, who provided a karaoke machine for a lockdown-busting leaving-do on June 18, 2020, said she had “profound regret” about the situation.

She said she was worried about the “kind of culture” that staff were working in and the need for them to have space to spend time together.

“My profound regret is for the damage that’s been caused to so many people because of it, as well as just the mortifying experience of seeing what that looks like and how rightly offended everybody is in retrospect,” she said.

“I absolutely knew and thought it was actually important for there to be space for – particularly the private office – to be able to gather together and spend time together.

“That was entirely because of the kind of culture that they were working in and entirely because I was really worried about individuals breaking and suffering, and whether they were going to be okay, and how important their colleagues were to each other.

“I’m saying none of that in excuse of my own misjudgment. I’m saying none of that in excuse of thinking any of these things were okay. But it was a much more complex situation than has allowed to be presented for lots of different reasons.”

She added: “Mainly, I feel very strongly that is unfair on the junior civil servants who were caught up in it.”

Helen MacNamara, the former deputy cabinet secretary, said the texts were “both surprising and not surprising”, and that Mr Cummings was “frustrated” with her, while she said she was just “doing my job as a civil servant”.

The inquiry is taking a break for lunch, resuming at 1.45pm to continue hearing evidence from Ms MacNamara.

In the meantime, we’ll post some highlights from her evidence this morning as well as anything we might have missed.

Live updates will resume after lunch.

Helen MacNamara has described a bizarre situation in which she offered to help Matt Hancock in case he was not able to cope with the “enormity” of his role as health secretary during the pandemic, Archie Mitchell reports.

When the former top civil servant went to check on Mr Hancock, trying to “reassure him”, he said he was “loving” the responsibility.

He then “took up a batsman’s stance outside the Cabinet Room and said: “They bowl them at me, I knock them away,” according to Ms MacNamara.

Matt Hancock was “regularly” telling people things that they later discovered were not true, Helen MacNamara has said, Archie Mitchell reports.

The then health secretary “time and time again” assured officials that plans were in place for dealing with Covid, and Helen MacNamara said she was “surprised” to learn that they were not.

This was part of a pattern of behaviour from Mr Hancock, she told the Covid inquiry.

The former top civil servant said there was a “lack of confidence” from No10 that what the then health secretary said was happening “was actually happening”.

She said: “What we experienced that was said in a meeting as being under control or going to be delivered or something that was fine, subsequently a matter of days at times or weeks later we would discover that was not in fact the case.

“You don’t usually get everything’s okay and then two weeks later not only is it not okay it was not even there.

“That is very unusual”.