Local Contact Tracing

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)]

The world-beating test and trace system set up to control covid-19 has been an expensive failure. Covid-19 is having a devastating effect on lives and livelihoods at the speed we saw back in April, especially in less affluent areas and communities, such as Liverpool city region. The Government have difficulty admitting that, when the system has cost £12 billion, but recognise it and act they must, as lives are at stake.

For test and trace to work, the Government must learn lessons from the experiences and outcomes to date. Local knowledge is the key to success. When a business is looking to expand into new markets, local expertise is hired to help. This situation is no different. One centralised, outsourced system was destined to fail. For months, many people have called on the Government to support local authorities and public health and expand their role. Their teams have proven to be successful at controlling the outbreaks, once they have got over the business of testing and the lack of PPE in care homes in those areas.

National Test and Trace teams contact positive cases by phoning and leaving a message, but many do not get back to them. Sometimes, they pass those failures on to local government, and local government goes out, knocks on doors and gets responses, and that has been proven. These teams have invaluable knowledge of the people and places where they are working year in, year out. Higher contact tracing rates lead to reduced covid-19 spread. It is the only way to get it under control. Local authorities do not have the capacity to do it all themselves—they are already beyond stretched. One outsourcing company subcontracted 28 different companies with no knowledge or experience to succeed, and that has proven to be a failure.

Often, the solution is simple. We currently have too much of a disconnect between local and national teams. By the time the subcontractors contact local teams to help, days have passed with covid-19 on legs, spreading. Effective information-sharing leads to faster contact tracing. Redeploying the national pool of contact tracers directly with local teams would help that. That is how the country can get a test and trace system working, which is what we all want.

Local authorities and their public health teams should be given the lead on test and trace and the resource to do so. Adequate funding is necessary so that they can expand their teams, but it takes time to recruit, and that is why I urge that the 25,000 tracers employed by the private sector are redeployed somehow into local teams.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I am sorry, Marie, but we have to leave it there. I call Margaret Greenwood.

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[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

The wind-ups will begin at 6.46 pm.

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[Olivia Blake]

No, I will not give way because we are short on time.

Why are the Government prioritising those private labs over our NHS to implement the testing system when those labs are clearly failing? We have seen some really good success in our labs in Sheffield, which have been testing staff at the teaching hospitals, and that could have been a lesson learned and applied across the country.

I have conducted polymerase chain reaction tests. I know that it is not that difficult. Moonshot is a complete and utter dream. I can safely say that I have been watching the testing system with frustration and I have suddenly become very popular with my ex-colleagues. They have been very enlightening when describing the conditions in which they have been working—often as volunteers while they are furloughed from their other labs.

In Sheffield, we heard that a recruitment drive was requested by the Prime Minister in September—a little bit late and a little bit after the horse has bolted. By that time, the planning for teaching was well under way and the contracts of many of them had ended and the seconding of staff was no longer available.

I have much more to say on this issue. I could go on and on and on, but the last thing I wish to say is that the numbers speak for themselves—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order.

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[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on the issue of track and trace. I and other Opposition Members are rightly furious at the amount of money being spent on private companies that could have been invested in our own NHS and in local public authority systems.

This issue is of huge interest to my constituents in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields. More than 100 people have written to tell me about where it has gone wrong with testing and tracing, and more than 700 people have signed my joint letter with my hon. Friends the Members for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan) and for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova), asking for a permanent testing centre in Wandsworth borough. Deloitte has been sent to find one, but it cannot find a place, so we do not have one; we rely on the Army to pop up every now and again. One mother was left in a car park, having to travel to another testing centre. She could not find a QR code on her app. The testing centre was almost empty, but she was not able to go in.

The Minister talked about a spine and ribs, and the whole system working together. We have a spine in this country: it is the NHS. It is a national health system. We should have used that from the start rather than spending £12 billion on systems that have entirely failed us. SAGE has now said that track and trace had a minimal effect on stopping the virus, but it should have been the core of our reaction and our action to stop the virus.

The existing privately outsourced system has failed. We have no permanent testing area in Wandsworth—will the Minister meet me to talk about that? My constituents have told me it is not working; local councils have told the Government that it is not working; and now scientists are telling the Government it is not working. It is time to give Serco a reboot; in fact, it is time to give Serco the boot. I ask the Minister to trust our local authorities and give them the contract for testing and tracing.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I call Chris Stephens, who is to resume his seat at 6.47 pm.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

Thanks very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. You had signalled to me that you were not going to call me, so I am a bit surprised.

To allow time for the Front-Bench speeches, I will briefly continue the Serco theme. I am concerned to hear that Serco got a contract without any competitive tendering. My real concern is that last year both Serco and the Home Office argued in court—sadly, they were successful—that because Serco was a private contractor delivering a public service, it was exempt from the Human Rights Act. To give Serco a contract like test and tracing, with all that could happen with data, and for it to be exempt from the Human Rights Act, is very dangerous territory for the Government.

It has been said before that Serco has now subcontracted to 29 other companies, including those that have failed on HMRC contracts and in other places. That is of real concern. There is a lack of scrutiny here and I will be supporting the motion.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I apologise to Matt Western and Zarah Sultana for their not being able to get in even though they were present.

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[Julia Lopez]

I will take that suggestion back. We have listened to a lot of what has been said today, and there has been a lot of constructive feedback. I just want to let the hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) know that we are going to be opening a testing site on the campus in Reading next week.

As many have said, the work that we are doing on test and trace is absolutely critical. My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan), who is a doctor himself and one of the many Conservative MPs who work in the health service, made a superb contribution using his experience of the system. He rightly pointed out that the vocal comparisons made at the outset of the pandemic with other European nations have suddenly faded away now that the UK is testing more per capita than those same nations. He encouraged us to be realistic about the capacity of the public sector and talked about the challenges of making things happen in practice, rather than simply lecturing from the sidelines about theoretical magic bullets.

The hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) said that we must test, test, test, and we are. As I mentioned, we hope to be able to do 500,000 tests a day by the end of this month. On the points that he raised about the Slough testing centre, it is critical to underline that people must make sure they have booked their appointment before they arrive on foot or by car. I understand that that test centre is still accessible by both methods.

My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt) talked about the huge role that his town has played in the national effort, from the initial quarantine of British citizens from Wuhan to the incredible Lighthouse project that is employing robotics to boost our testing capacity. We are grateful for that contribution at this time of crisis. As he said, from vaccines to ventilators, medication to PPE, all have been produced at scale very quickly by the private sector, and British companies have achieved tremendous things.

I welcome those Opposition Members who recognised the challenges that we face as a Government and who made constructive contributions, highlighting genuine concerns from constituents. We are working through some of those concerns. However, I share the regret of my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), who pointed out that the era of constructive opposition from Labour Front Benchers appears this week to be over. It is important in this public health crisis that we reflect on criticism and try very hard to improve. However, this afternoon, they have sought to divide local from national, public from private, UK nation from UK nation, and to undermine public confidence in the system for their own political ends. That is a matter of deep regret for us all.

We recognise that contract tracing needs to reach as many people as possible and we are working hard to make sure that that happens, but this is about partnership, with a national framework and local support. Indeed, we are rolling out that strengthened partnership to more local authorities. We also now have the covid-19 app, downloaded over 17 million times in England and Wales, identifying contacts with those who might have tested positive for the virus, including people you might not know. Work is ongoing to make the Scottish app interoperable.

It of course remains critical that everyone does their bit and follows the rules—hands, face and space, and self-isolating where necessary to prevent the spread of the virus. That is why on 28 September, we introduced financial support to help individuals to self-isolate, meaning that those on low incomes who cannot work from home but need to self-isolate do protect themselves and others. They will receive £500. This is an important step forward in helping enable people to take the action that they should to prevent the spread of disease. We have also put in place requirements for businesses not to stop employees self-isolating if they need to. NHS Test and Trace is also making follow-up phone calls to those who are self-isolating to ensure that they are aware of what local support is available to them and signposting them to local services.

Alongside that, we have set out a series of tougher enforcement measures, targeting those who repeatedly flout the rules, including fines of up to £10,000, but testing and tracing is only one of our lines of defence, so I reinforce once again: if you have symptoms, you must self-isolate in line with public guidance and get a test. Even if you are feeling well, wash your hands regularly, wear a face covering in confined spaces and follow the 2 metre rule on social distancing, because it is these little things that can make a big difference.

In conclusion, we are entering a new and crucial phase of our fight against coronavirus, where the number of cases is rising and we can see that once again, the virus is spreading among the elderly and vulnerable. But we are also in a very different position as a nation from where we were when this virus first hit our shores. We have better data, better treatments and the testing and contact tracing that will be instrumental in getting the virus under control. There is a genuine partnership approach—a national framework with tremendous local support—and I commend the amendment to the House.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

During the Division, Front Benchers must leave via the door in front. Everybody else must leave via the door behind me—socially distanced, please.

Question put (Standing Order No. 31(2)), That the original words stand part of the Question.