Covid-19: Variant B.1.617.2

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Wednesday 26th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I share the noble Baroness’s concern, but I can reassure her on a couple of things. It is, I think, a real tribute to the hard work of parents, teachers and the pupils themselves that the infection rates in schools have been relatively contained, and certainly have not shown the same kinds of behaviours that they did in September of last year. But we remain extremely vigilant, for exactly the reasons the noble Baroness explained. On the question of face coverings, it is a very difficult balance to strike—they are intrusive and disruptive but, on the other hand, they are an effective way of minimising infection. It is an area that we keep a very close watch on.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the delayed publication of official Public Health England Covid variant data, which was slipped out during the Eurovision Song Contest results, is bad enough, but can the Minister say whether the Secretary of State for Education has the power to remove official PHE data on cases in schools? If so, what were his grounds for that removal?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I really bridle at the suggestion that we run our data publication programme on the basis of the Eurovision Song Contest schedule. That really is not a credible suggestion. There is an issue with positivity rates for some of this data because not every test is registered, and, as a result, it is difficult to draw conclusions about exactly what proportion of tests have become positive. It is for that reason that we are careful about how we present some of the data, and that is behind some of the decisions that have been made about which tables to publish.