Covid-19 Update

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and speaks with great knowledge, experience and eloquence on this matter. We have to protect livelihoods as much as possible, in the same way that we are trying to protect education as much as possible. That does mean sometimes that we have to take measures on social contact that people would prefer not to see, but unfortunately the measures that the Prime Minister outlined yesterday, and which I set out in my statement, are, in my judgment, absolutely necessary both to keeping the virus under control and to protecting education and the economy as much as possible.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

A significant increase in covid cases has been confirmed in Liverpool over the past week, with widespread community transmission. I have been contacted by constituents with symptoms who are trying to book a test and either cannot, or are told to go to Oldham, Manchester, Powys, or Colwyn Bay, even though there is a testing facility at Liverpool airport just down the road, in the constituency. Will the Secretary of State explain why that is, and say why there is no availability of home test kits, given that there appears to be so much unused testing capacity?

[Matt Hancock]

As I said in my statement, there is record testing capacity, and most people get tested very close to home. We do have a challenge, however, because some people without symptoms who are not eligible for a test have been coming forward. Thus far, I have been reluctant to place a barrier and a strong eligibility check on the front of the testing system, because I want people with symptoms to get that test as fast and easily as possible. However, given the sharp rise in the past couple of weeks of people coming forward for tests when they are not eligible, we are having to look at that. The key message to the hon. Lady’s constituents is that the tests are vital for people who have symptoms, and therefore people who do not have symptoms and have not been told by a clinician or local authority to get a test, should not and must not go and use a test that somebody else who needs it should be using.