Covid-19 Update

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, that saliva testing is a massive priority for the Government. I reassure her and Professor Spiegelhalter that the positive error rate in the saliva test trials in Southampton has been incredibly low—virtually zero. From that, we take great reassurance that this will be an effective vector for testing.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, will the Minister accept that the reason for scepticism about the Moonshot gimmick is that the Government have a consistent record of overpromising and underdelivering? The Minister will know that the latest test and trace stats are not good: they show that 69.2% of close contacts of people who have tested positive with Covid-19 in England were reached—that is the lowest percentage since the scheme was launched. What would he say to Bridget Phillipson, the MP for Houghton and Sunderland South? Because Sunderland has a rising number of cases, she checked online this morning the availability of tests: no home tests were available and no drive-through tests could be found. Later in the morning, the only test offered was a two-hour drive away in Scotland. Why should anyone believe the ideas that the Government float from week to week?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I completely and utterly reject the noble Lord’s suggestions. I remember well the nay-sayers, the sofa epidemiologists and the sceptics who, when we had testing at the level of 5,000, poured cold water on the idea we would get to 100,000. We hit that target. We have made amazing progress since and we will continue to push for more testing.