Covid-19: Contracts and Mass Testing Programme

Baroness Warsi Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the insight into how the public react to key messages associated with our healthcare and health advice has been absolutely critical. Behavioural change and asking the public to step up to extremely challenging requests from the Government require a huge amount of analysis and study. The support from our own communications team has been supplemented by agency support, which has both the capacity and the expertise to provide the necessary insight. That insight has been critical to the success of our messaging.

[Baroness Warsi (Con) [V]]

My Lords, there is little doubt that one of the main reasons we are re-entering lockdown this week is the failure of Serco’s track and trace system, which the Prime Minister promised would be world beating. I do not want to go into the detail of the connections between Serco and the party and key members of the Government. However, on a general level, can my noble friend justify renewing the Government’s contract with Serco when it has failed so badly, resulting in loss of life and livelihoods—a situation that SAGE has warned will decline further in the future?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I do not accept the assumption that we are going into a second lockdown because of the failure of tracing. The tracing system has led to the isolation of more than 1 million individuals, which has done an enormous amount to break the chain of transmission. However, there is more that we could do. I completely acknowledge that the Government are focused on improving performance in tracing, and we will use the opportunity of the next month to ensure that that performance gets better.