UK health secretary resigns after breaching COVID-19 rules

Britain's Health Secretary Matt Hancock resigned on Saturday after he was caught breaking the COVID-19 rules by hugging and kissing his aide.

Hancock had been engaged in an affair with a colleague and was caught on CCTV camera hugging his aide Gina Coladangelo on May 6, breaking social distancing rules that his department and government had advised the wider population to follow.

"I've been to see the prime minister to resign as secretary of state of health and social care. I understand the enormous sacrifices that everybody in this country has made, that you have made and those of us who make these rules have to stick by them and that's why I have got to resign," Hancock said in a video posted on Twitter.

"I want to thank people for their incredible sacrifices and what they've done - everybody working in the NHS, across social care, everyone involved in the vaccine program and frankly everybody in this country who have risen to the challenges that we have seen these past 18 months. I am very proud of what we have done to protect the NHS at the peak, to deliver that vaccine rollout - one of the fastest in the world," the former health secretary added.

Hancock said he would continue to support the government and the prime minister in the back benches of the parliament and is looking forward to the end of the pandemic and the resumption of normal life.

Under No 10's timetable, which Hancock helped construct, intimate contact with people not within the same household was discouraged until May 17 as part of the 4-step process. CCTV footage revealed that Hancock had intimate interactions with Coladangelo on May 6, just over a week before the official opening of the next step.

In the footage obtained by the Sun Online newspaper on Friday, Hancock can be seen looking out of his office before turning around and greeting Coladangelo. The pair then begin to hug and kiss.