Covid-19 Update Debate

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Department: Cabinet Office

Covid-19 Update

Neil Coyle Excerpts
Monday 12th October 2020

(4 years, 1 month ago)

Commons Chamber
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Boris Johnson Portrait The Prime Minister
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Tell me about it, Mr Speaker! My hon. Friend makes an important point, and there are obviously provisions for 30 hours of free childcare. Her point about emergency childcare is well made. That is why we need to keep the economy moving in the way that we are.

Neil Coyle Portrait Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)
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The chief execs of 17,000 hospitality businesses—representing half a million jobs and millions of customers every week, including many in my central London Southwark constituency—say that not one of them has seen a super-spreader incident and none has had direct contact from the tracing system. Testing and tracing is not working, so why will the Prime Minister not get a grip and fix those systems, instead of floundering, trying to find someone else to blame, and putting more lives and more jobs at risk?

Boris Johnson Portrait The Prime Minister
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That is why we are investing massively in NHS Test and Trace, and in a co-ordinated local effort. As I have said before, we are now testing more people than any other country in Europe, and we have contacted hundreds of thousands of people across the country and persuaded them to slow the spread of the virus. Rather than continually knocking NHS Test and Trace, let us work together to support it and build public confidence.