Covid-19 Update

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I completely and utterly reject the noble Lord’s suggestions. I remember well the nay-sayers, the sofa epidemiologists and the sceptics who, when we had testing at the level of 5,000, poured cold water on the idea we would get to 100,000. We hit that target. We have made amazing progress since and we will continue to push for more testing.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the Secretary of State has blamed the recent failure of laboratories to process tests in a timely way on members of the public who are not eligible—as he calls it—seeking to take a test. Is this not another example of Ministers blaming someone else for their failures? How do people know if they are not eligible? If they are concerned about something, what system is in place to enable testing centres to know who is eligible, so that they can refuse to test those who are not?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right, but it is sometimes difficult to know whether you have the symptoms of Covid, the flu or something else. That is why it is a complicated matter. What we have seen through our engagement with the public in the last few weeks is people who show no symptoms of anything but who seek a test to provide themselves with reassurance. It is not a question of blame, but rather of clarification: we simply do not have the national resources to support that kind of activity.