Coronavirus: New Cases

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I have to strongly disagree with the noble Baroness when she says that the Government are doing nothing. We are reliant on the UKHSA, which monitors rates and gives us advice, along with the JCVI. In my briefing from the UKHSA, it said it is continuing to monitor cases. As many noble Lords will remember, when we announced the living with Covid strategy we said that we are always ready to stand up measures should case rates rise so much that our health system was under pressure. We managed to break the link between infections and hospitalisations and hospitalisations and death; if that gets out of control then of course we will stand up the measures that we had previously.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, why do the Government not reintroduce free Covid tests for everyone in England and financial support for those who do the right thing and self-isolate, especially in the face of the cost of living crisis?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Lord will be aware of the different balances and trade-offs that the Government have to consider. At one stage, I think we spent £2 billion in a short period on testing, and a number of people in the health system said that surely that money would be better spent elsewhere, given the backlog due to lockdown. It is always a difficult trade-off on where you spend the money. At the moment, there are people who are still eligible for free tests: certain social and healthcare workers, and also people visiting and some carers. All this will continue to be monitored. Should the number of cases spiral out of control, clearly we would look to reintroduce free testing at some stage, should that be needed.