Covid-19: Road Map

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I am sure that my colleagues will have heard my noble friend’s question. I will certainly pass it on to relevant colleagues in DCMS.

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, the Prime Minister has accepted that we are not going to get rid of Covid and that it is going to be present at some level and endemic at least for quite a long time. Will it not be the case that, when we get the virus down to a level that we think is acceptable, outbreaks will be sporadic and localised? Is that not even more reason for putting testing, tracing, tracking back, stamping out and imposing lockdowns on individuals—self-isolating, if you like—in the hands of people who know what they are doing and who have the local knowledge and the professional expertise; that is, the environmental and public health officers of local authorities and the local health staff connected with GP surgeries?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I agree with the noble Lord, and I hope that I gave some indication of that in my answer to the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. As the Prime Minister said, we will take a highly precautionary approach, acting hard and fast to suppress worrying local outbreaks—the noble Lord is absolutely right: there will be local outbreaks. I referred to Middlesbrough and Walsall, where local action of exactly the sort described by the noble Lord has been taken. As I said, we will publish the updated Covid contain framework next month to bring all this together. That will be another way in which an enhanced toolkit of measures to address various concerns at a local level will be set out.