Covid-19: R Rate and Lockdown Measures Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Geraint Davies
Main Page: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)Department Debates - View all Geraint Davies's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(4 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Matt Hancock
The use of the testing capability that we now have, which is one of the biggest in the world and the biggest capability in Europe, means that we can focus the testing where it is most clinically needed. Reports such as the one by PHE on the impact of the disease on different parts of the population, whether that is in respect of age, sex or ethnic background, are incredibly important in making that assessment. Where the clinical judgment is that tests should be used specifically for one group because they have a higher risk, we will follow that clinical judgment.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op) [V]
Given the varying rates of infection across both England and Wales and the need to isolate covid, will the Secretary of State now adopt the Welsh guidance that people should not normally travel more than five miles from their home, in order to stop people travelling from high-infection areas to low-infection areas and thereby spreading the virus unnecessarily?
Matt Hancock
We talk to the Welsh Government all the time about making sure that the public health matters that are devolved are exercised in as co-ordinated a way as reasonably possible, and I fully respect the Welsh Government’s capability in making these sorts of assessments for Wales.