Public Health: Coronavirus Regulations

Dan Carden Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We have one of the biggest systems of tracking and tracing in the world. The idea that I sometimes get from people in this House is that, somehow, it is not one of the biggest systems in the world or one of the most effective in the world. I get that in this House, but I do not get it when I talk to my international colleagues. They ask me, “How did you manage to build this capacity so fast?” That is the truth of it.

Of course we need to continue to build it and to make sure it is continuously more integrated into the local communities, who can often go to reach the contacts that the national system finds it hard to reach. However, to argue that the enormous system that is working so effectively, with so many brilliant people working on it, is at the root of this challenge is, unfortunately, to miss the big picture, which is that, sadly, this virus passes on—until we have a vaccine or a massive testing capacity that nobody yet has, this virus passes on through social contact and that is, unfortunately, what we need to tackle in order to get this under control.

Let me make a point about the numbers. In the first peak, about 8% of people caught covid and 42,000 people died. If we do not have the virus under control, even with the better survival rates we now have, thanks to both drug discoveries by British science and improvements in clinical practice, those figures will multiply. In addition, harder economic measures would then inevitably be needed to get it under control and they would be needed for longer. If you, Madam Deputy Speaker, like me, want our economy back on full throttle, we need to keep this virus in check.

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

Yesterday, in his call with Merseyside MPs, the Health Secretary was asked about a circuit breaker lockdown and he did not say that SAGE had recommended that three weeks ago. Is that the case? Will he now publish the full scientific evidence for a circuit breaker lockdown?

[Matt Hancock]

The SAGE advice that Ministers receive is, of course, published; we have had great debates in this House about that and it is published. We make decisions that are guided by the science, taking into account all the different considerations we need to look to.