Covid-19 Update

Sam Tarry Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)]

The last time I raised test and trace failures, the Secretary of State accused me of not being serious. Well, I am deadly serious. The Mildmay testing centre opposite my office in Ilford South has stopped accepting walk-in tests, despite the constituency being on the cusp of a local lockdown, with Redbridge now having the highest infection rate in London. The Secretary of States has repeatedly claimed to be following the science and data while ignoring the advice of leading scientists who have called for an expansion of our public health infrastructure. We now face further lockdowns across the country as a direct consequence of the lack of capacity in his test and trace system. It is hardly world beating. With the chief medical officer saying that there are 38,000 infections per day, can the Secretary of State give us an assurance that we will not need a second lockdown to mitigate his failing test and trace system?

[Matt Hancock]

I work very closely with the London leadership, cross-party, to tackle the problems and to ensure that there is testing available according to the clinical priority. In the hon. Gentleman’s area in the last week, there have been over 3,000 tests. I am sure that he welcomes those, but we absolutely work so that there are more, not least in the public health and NHS systems, as well as through the pillar 2 Lighthouse lab approach.