Coronavirus

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Nobody wants to see the sort of economic consequences that we have already seen—even if there are more to come—but we have to take these measures in order to tackle this pandemic. We have put extra support into mental health, and more is to come. It is a really important part of the solution.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

This is the first opportunity that I have had on the behalf of my constituents to thank publicly the Secretary of State, his ministerial team, the entire civil service team and all their families for what they have contributed in this national effort. I thank all those people through him.

Local authorities in Bedfordshire have the highest incidence rate of coronavirus across the east of England. The Secretary of State said in his statement that the processes are in place to escalate concerns if there needs to be a local lockdown, but there are local concerns about the availability of local data. What is the current state of localised data? What efforts is he making to improve its availability?

[Matt Hancock]

Localised data is available through the work of Public Health England and local directors of public health, including the director for Bedfordshire, and then through our survey data, although that is stronger at the national level than at the regional or local levels. Pulling all this data together, and then ensuring that it gets to the decision makers so that they can base their decisions on it, is the task of the joint biosecurity centre. I will ask its head to write to my hon. Friend with details of the data it has on Bedfordshire and what further data it is working on in order to answer the questions that my hon. Friend rightly asks.