Covid-19 Update

Chris Grayling Excerpts

Programme motion
Monday 19th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We have put in the extra resource that the hon. Lady mentions, which is important. Not only has the extra resource gone in, but we are hiring people to do the work and building the buildings in which it can be done. She raises an important point about the need to recover the backlog. I am really glad that in areas such as cancer and many others, the backlog is being worked through, but there is still more work to do.

[Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell) (Con)]

I support my right hon. Friend’s targeted approach. It is absolutely wrong, in my view, to close businesses and lock people in their homes in a broad-brush way in areas where the risks are much lower than elsewhere. He is following the right strategy.

I echo the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) about London. Many of my constituents have businesses across the border in south-west London, where it is not the case that the rate is over 100 per 100,000. There are large swathes of south-west London where it is well below that. Can the Secretary of State make sure that it is possible, as quickly as possible, to disaggregate those areas of London where the problems are less and to move back to a situation where those businesses can operate normally?

[Matt Hancock]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), who is no longer in his place, said at the start of this session, it is important to take a borough-by-borough approach, and I commit to doing that. Unfortunately, there are parts of south-west London, such as Richmond, that have an elevated case rate above 100. In London, this work has been done effectively and across party lines, working with the leaders of local councils and boroughs, as well as with the Mayor, but I will absolutely take into account the point that my right hon. Friend makes.