Covid-19 Update

Simon Fell Excerpts

Monday 21st September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Nobody has addressed the problems and challenges in the testing system more than me. We need to resolve those problems, as we have in very large part resolved the problem of people being sent long distances. I would love to know the example that the hon. Gentleman cites, because I am told that that problem in the system was fixed last week, and if there is a more recent example, I want to know about it.

[Simon Fell (Barrow and Furness) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s commitment to the expanding of testing, which is clearly key to identifying the virus and stopping its spread. I direct him to an article in The Times today about private businesses expanding testing capacity. BAE in my constituency is testing almost 6,000 employees on a weekly basis and is keen to expand that into the community. I know that my right hon. Friend has already started to engage on this issue, but I urge him to do everything he can to cut through any red tape, expand such testing as quickly as possible and use every tool at our disposal.

[Matt Hancock]

Of course we support businesses and others who want to get tests outside the NHS Test and Trace system; last week we published a paper on how they can go about doing that, and we encourage businesses to do that for their employees. The critical thing is that if people test positive, that data must, by law, flow to Public Health England so that we can do the necessary contact tracing and enforce the isolation that is going to be mandatory from next Monday. We strongly support that sort of action, whether it is taken by employers or, indeed, the University of Cambridge, which proposes to do the same for its students.