Oral Answers to Questions

Laura Trott Excerpts

Tuesday 5th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We do work globally, and we do work together. As the Prime Minister made clear yesterday, we have committed £744 million to the global response to coronavirus. We are significant funders of the WHO, and I am grateful for its work. We are also a significant funder of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, which is leading the global search for a vaccine. In fact, we are making the largest contribution of any country in the world to the global search for a vaccine, and three of the top 10 vaccine candidates are being developed here in the UK.

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

What plans the Government have to test, track and trace people with covid-19.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)]

We are developing a new test, track and trace programme to help to control the spread of covid-19, and to be able to trace the virus better as it passes from person to person. This will bring together technology through an app, an extensive web of phone-based contract tracing and, of course, the testing needed to underpin all that. The roll-out has already started on the Isle of Wight, and I pay tribute to and thank the Islanders for the enthusiasm with which they have taken up the pilot. I hope that we learn a lot from the roll-out, so that we can take those learnings and roll the programme out across the whole country.

[Laura Trott [V]]

I thank the Secretary of State for his answer. I welcome the plans to introduce the contact-tracing app, but for it to be effective it will need to be rolled out to a large proportion of the population. What plans does the Secretary of State have to achieve that, and how will he alleviate privacy concerns?

[Matt Hancock]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. She is right to say that the more people who download the app, the more people will protect themselves, their families and their communities. The cross-party support for this test, track and trace programme is important, and right across this country people need to know that the app has privacy in its design. The data it holds is held on people’s phones and it does not go to the Government, until of course someone needs to get a test, in which case of course they have to get in contact with the NHS. So privacy is there by design, there is cross-party support and, according to a very early poll, 80% of people on the Isle of Wight want to download it. These are good early signs and we will have a big communications campaign to explain to people the benefits of the test, track and trace programme as we roll it out across the country.