Covid-19 Update

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Tell me about it, Mr Speaker! My hon. Friend makes an important point, and there are obviously provisions for 30 hours of free childcare. Her point about emergency childcare is well made. That is why we need to keep the economy moving in the way that we are.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

The chief execs of 17,000 hospitality businesses—representing half a million jobs and millions of customers every week, including many in my central London Southwark constituency—say that not one of them has seen a super-spreader incident and none has had direct contact from the tracing system. Testing and tracing is not working, so why will the Prime Minister not get a grip and fix those systems, instead of floundering, trying to find someone else to blame, and putting more lives and more jobs at risk?

[The Prime Minister]

That is why we are investing massively in NHS Test and Trace, and in a co-ordinated local effort. As I have said before, we are now testing more people than any other country in Europe, and we have contacted hundreds of thousands of people across the country and persuaded them to slow the spread of the virus. Rather than continually knocking NHS Test and Trace, let us work together to support it and build public confidence.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Wednesday 30th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

And hopefully he can do Chorley at the same time.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

In January, the Government were still pretending that there were only 5,000 rough sleepers across the whole country. During the lockdown, 15,000 rough sleepers were supported under the Everyone In programme. Will the Prime Minister ensure that the homeless charities, councils and others who stepped up and provided accommodation in the crisis are funded for every single person they helped?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman raises a very important point. One of the consolations of this crisis was that we were able to prevent so many rough sleepers from succumbing in the way that, alas, happened in other countries. That was a great effort by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the charities, working together. Of course, we will continue to do what we can to support those vital charities, to prevent rough sleeping and homelessness.