Covid-19 Update

Greg Clark Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I think the best way to explain that is that all the data we have on Leicester has been made available to Leicestershire County Council. I pay tribute to Ivan Browne, director of public health at Leicester City Council, who has done a superb job through this. All the data available to us is available to him. Indeed, I can commit to the House that we will publish all the data on test results, in order to ensure that the wider public, as well as directors of public health, are able to access that data.

The hon. Lady frequently tries to divide the testing system between those tests done in hospital labs and those done in the labs that we have built over the past few weeks. That is the wrong approach—it is only because we managed to build those labs that we have such large testing capacity across the UK. Those tests from the lighthouse labs are available in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as England. I pay tribute to the work of those labs, which have done so much to deliver what is now an extraordinary testing capability that we can bring to bear on specific problems, such as this one in Leicester.

[Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)]

As the Secretary of State said, speed is of the essence in responding to the pandemic. However, on 8 June, in the Chamber, I asked my right hon. Friend to intervene immediately to correct the situation that elderly people and people with physical and learning disabilities in supported and sheltered accommodation cannot get testing kits. Three weeks later, they still cannot. How can we have confidence in a speedy and targeted approach to testing and tracing if those of great vulnerability still cannot be tested three weeks after a clear commitment was given to grip the matter?

[Matt Hancock]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his question. I am pleased to be able to say that we are now rolling out testing to the settings that he describes. This will be rolled out over the coming three to four weeks, to coincide with the time that it will take us to build that roll-out capacity. It is important that, first, that testing is where it needs to be, and secondly, that we do that on the basis of clinical need, which is why we supported testing in nursing homes and residential homes first.