Covid-19

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Thursday 3rd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greaves (LD) [V]]

My Lords, yesterday the Minister praised Pendle Borough Council—I repeat my interest—for its work on Covid, which now includes local tracking of positive cases; that is, the kinds of cases that the national system has failed to reach. Can the Minister explain why passing cases to the local level, which should be done within 24 hours, has in some cases taken four or five days? Furthermore, when a case has been reached, and more local contacts have been discovered, why do they have to be passed back to the national level and not quickly followed up locally? They might even be in the same street. Why are district councils such as Pendle not being provided with sufficient funding to cover all the costs of this work?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, once again I pay tribute to Pendle Borough Council, which is an absolute model of local collaboration in the handling of a local outbreak. I am greatly encouraged that Pendle has stepped forward to do local tracing. I do not know the precise details and will not pretend otherwise, but the story the noble Lord tells illustrates a harsh truth: not everyone wants to be traced. Not everyone participates in the system with the kind of enthusiasm one would like. It sometimes takes persistence and determination to track people who may be recipients of some very difficult news about their isolation and how they are going to spend the next 14 days—news that may either have an economic impact on them or seriously disrupt plans for them and their family. It is tough to track and trace people. That is why we work with local authorities to do it, why I was proud to announce the numbers earlier and why I am grateful to the noble Lord for illustrating the point with his story from Pendle.