Covid-19 Update

James Davies Excerpts

Monday 5th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I half agree with the hon. Gentleman; it is important that we put more testing resources into the areas where case levels are high, and it is very important that we continue to strengthen the local engagement with the national system—I was talking to the Mayor of Greater Manchester about this only this morning. The challenge is that we also need the scale of the national system, so that where there is an outbreak we can bring huge amounts of resources to bear and make sure that we can really target the support, for instance, for contact tracing. So it is the combination of the local and the national that will get us through this.

[Dr James Davies (Vale of Clwyd) (Con)]

Since last Thursday and the Welsh Government’s local lockdown measures, half a million people in north Wales have not been allowed to cross often meaningless county council boundaries without a good reason to do so. That is causing huge disruption to livelihoods and wellbeing, so will my right hon. Friend outline his understanding of the scientific evidence for restrictions on travel such as this?

[Matt Hancock]

My hon. Friend raises a very important question, which I know is exercising people who live in north Wales and on the border. I am not going to criticise the Welsh Government, with whom we work closely, but what I will say is that, in England, when we choose to bring in measures restricting travel, we do it with strong guidance at the moment rather than within the law. That is partly because there are all sorts of reasons why people might need to undertake a journey, so even where we advise people to minimise unnecessary travel, we do so with guidance and, in large part, people follow it.