Coronavirus Vaccine

Martyn Day Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

My hon. Friend, as a GP, understands this subject more than most. We are working with the Welsh Administration to try to get community testing throughout Wales. We are working in Merthyr Tydfil right now to get the case rates down there. I am very happy to work with him, the Welsh Administration and local councils to ensure that we get the case rates down wherever we can.

[Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP) [V]]

As we await the welcome roll-out of a vaccine, test and trace remains vital. In Scotland, over 90% of cases and contacts have been reached, whereas England, with its reliance on Serco, has seen barely 60% of contacts reached—far lower than is needed to meaningfully limit the spread of covid. Will the Secretary of State advise us what clauses are in the contracts regarding this failure to deliver, and what is he going to do about it?

[Matt Hancock]

I gently advise the hon. Member and other Scottish National party Members not to try to make this comparison. I looked into this matter in some detail when somebody else raised it. It turns out that the figures are only comparable if one strips out finding contacts in places where it is easy to get the contacts, such as care homes, because everybody who lives in them can easily be accounted for. Comparing apples and pears like this is not sensible and it is not right. Trying to drive a wedge between the public and private element of the system’s provision—which, by the way, Scotland also has—is a mistake.