Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (No. 2) (England) Regulations 2020

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Friday 24th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, for us to move safely from lockdown, there must be effective testing, tracking and tracing. We are told today that the Government are abandoning self-testing administered by those who cannot attend a test centre. Such tests require the subject to insert a swab up the nose and into the back of the throat, obtain a suitable sample and return it by post for analysis. In an earlier debate, I pointed out that this requires a degree of precision and dexterity that not all of us will have, and means overcoming the natural reaction of the body if something is inserted up the nose or put to the back of the throat.

I submitted a topical Question on 14 May on this. It should have been answered a week later; it has still not been answered 10 weeks on. So I ask the Minister again, what proportion of the tests sent out were returned within three days and were returned but unusable, and what is the Government’s estimate of the proportion of false negatives? Will the Minister agree that self-testing, like the track and trace app, is another expensive but predictable failure?