Covid-19: Strategy Debate

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Department: Cabinet Office

Covid-19: Strategy

Ed Davey Excerpts
Monday 11th May 2020

(4 years, 6 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Boris Johnson Portrait The Prime Minister
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Absolutely. My hon. Friend is completely right: speed of turnaround is crucial in improving our testing. We have done 100,000 tests again yesterday, I am pleased to say, but clearly pace of turnaround is absolutely critical for getting up to where we need to be—200,000, as he knows, by the end of the month, and then a much more ambitious programme thereafter.

Ed Davey Portrait Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD) [V]
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Throughout this crisis, many of us have put party politics aside to support the national effort to defeat coronavirus and we want to keep doing that, not least because the British people have sacrificed so much already, but in return, the Government must be clear with the British people and reassure us that Ministers are following the science and the advice of independent experts. So will the Prime Minister confirm new reports that neither the chief medical officer nor the chief scientific adviser signed off yesterday’s shift in the public health message from “Stay at home” to “Stay alert”?

Boris Johnson Portrait The Prime Minister
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That is not right.