Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Self-Isolation) (England) Regulations 2020

Lord Bilimoria Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bilimoria (CB) [V]]

My Lords, with millions of people and many thousands of businesses in tier 2 and tier 3 areas, the support measures announced today by the Chancellor will bring a huge sigh of relief to many, especially those in the hospitality sector. However, it is no exaggeration to say that successful, affordable mass testing could transform the way we live and work in the months ahead. The Minister has worked very hard in this area. Will he give us an update on the 20 million 15-minute antigen tests that have now been procured and are being deployed around the country?

The Prime Minister, the Health Secretary, the Transport Secretary and even the Minister have consistently used Public Health England’s 7% figure to reject calls for the introduction of airport testing. By contrast, 30 other countries are now implementing airport testing on arrival. Some have gone further to test after five days of quarantine to reduce the number of asymptomatic carriers who might be missed. Today, the Daily Telegraph reported that

“Oxera and Edge Health, said the 7 per cent figure was ‘significantly understated’ because it excluded not only travellers who might have symptoms but also those whose viral load could be detected … ‘If all infected passengers (including detectable symptomatic passengers) who attempted to enter the UK population but were prevented from doing so were to be included in the estimate, this estimate would be 63 per cent.’”

That is nine times 7%. They also said that the public health report was based on a modelling exercise and did not take into account

“‘real-world’ evidence from … airport testing regimes such as Jersey, where only a tiny fraction of arrivals tested positive without any onward community transmission.”

Will the Minister explain why we cannot implement airport testing, which will help our tourism industry, business, airports and airlines, which have suffered so much through this pandemic?