A former chief medical officer described a meeting with Michael Gove as a "car crash" as policies around decontamination were discussed days after the 2018 Novichok poisoning, an inquiry has heard. Yulia and Sergei Skripal were targeted with the nerve agent Novichok in Salisbury.

Dame Sally Davies emailed then-cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood days after the Skripals were poisoned, describing her meeting with the minister.

In an email chain shown to the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry on 11, Professor Dame Sally Davies had contacted the then-cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood on March 15, 2018, days after Sergei and Yulia Skripal were poisoned in Salisbury.