Business of the House

Ian Mearns Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Andrew]

My hon. Friend is a doughty champion for his constituency, and I know that he will do everything we can to ensure that his constituency is at the top of the list. I will, of course, ensure that his question is put to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, and I will come back to him as soon as possible.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab) [V]]

I welcome the acting Leader of the House to his place. I very much welcome the announcement of Backbench Business debates next Thursday and the following Thursday, which will help us to eat into our significant waiting list of unaired debates.

Last week, I raised with the Leader of the House the testing capacity in Gateshead. At a time when there is a significant increase in coronavirus cases, my local authority has seen a significant reduction in local testing capacity, and it also tells me that it is being asked to pick up more and more of the work on contact tracing. Have the Government given any thought to how that will be resourced, and when will our local testing capacity be restored? We really need that capacity to deal with the increasing number of cases in Gateshead.

[Stuart Andrew]

I am grateful to the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee. I am delighted that we have been able to find more time to catch up with the Backbench Business slots that are available in the Chamber. Because we have had disruption over previous months, it has been important to get the legislative processes back in place as quickly as possible, but I am glad that we are starting to see more and more other aspects such as Backbench Business debates, with Westminster Hall hopefully opening in October.

The hon. Gentleman talks about local testing, which I know is a big issue. It is a fact that we have one of the best testing rates in the world, equivalent to one test for every five people in the country, and we are outpacing countries such as Germany, Spain and Italy. It is inevitable that there may be some problems; I accept that. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care will be making a statement immediately after this, in which I am sure he will update the House on the progress that has been made.