Covid-19

Baroness Donaghy Excerpts

Wednesday 26th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I am extremely grateful for my noble friend’s remarks. The inquiry will, as he says, provide an important moment to look at the lessons that we can learn from the response to the pandemic. The Prime Minister has given extremely clear reasons why the timetable is as he described and we should stick to the timetable that he has suggested.

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I understand the Minister saying that he is focusing on the vaccines and surge testing. I even understand his reply to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, that one cannot have surge testing in 120 areas. However, I want to go back to the Bedford issue. Despite the director of health, the mayor and the local MP spending nearly a fortnight saying that the Indian variant was just as bad in Bedford as it was in Bolton, the surge testing took place days later. What weight is given to the advice from the local directors of health? There seems to be an imbalance here because it is the Government’s decision rather than that of the local directors. Can the Minister assure us that there is not a change in policy on this? He stated:

“We are … looking to see how we can communicate more effectively with local authorities”.


Actually, the local authorities are communicating effectively with the Minister. Has there been a change of emphasis on this?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

Let me assure the noble Baroness that there has absolutely not been a change of policy at all. There are clear channels of communication from DPHs and local authorities to the contain secretariat at NHS Test and Trace, which can mobilise the community testing resources. I am not aware of there being a large glitch in the provision of resources to Bedford but I should be happy to look into it, given that it has been mentioned by two noble Lords. I should be glad to write to her to see whether there is anything that we should be improving specifically for the city of Bedford.