Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I so understand and appreciate my hon. Friend’s constituents’ concerns. Similar concerns will have been raised with other Members from across the House, not just about the weddings businesses but about many other businesses that are facing restrictions as a result of the social distancing rules that we have had to bring in. The trouble is that, with all these things, there is an increase in the risk of spread and contagion. We simply have to balance that risk against what we are seeing now with the spread of the virus. I must reluctantly say to my hon. Friend that, although we will work as fast as possible to get our whole economy open and take all these restrictions off, the way to do that is for the whole country to work together, as we have done so far, to enforce social distancing, obey the basic rules about hands, face, space; getting a test if you have symptoms; and the rule of six, indoors and outdoors. That is the way that we will beat this virus. That is the way we will control it and allow weddings and all other sectors to open up again.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I, too, have had constituents in Cardiff South and Penarth contact me with serious concerns about testing. It is clear that the problems originate not in Wales, but with the UK testing and online system, which is leading to rationing, chaos and confusion, and all the while the virus spreads further. We are told that the Prime Minister’s chum Cummings has a seeing room. Well, it is clearly not working, because this should have been seen coming months ago, like the exams fiasco. The truth is that the Prime Minister has not got control of this. When is he going to get a grip?

[The Prime Minister]

Once again, the Opposition are at risk of undermining the colossal work of NHS Test and Trace. Let me give the hon. Gentleman one statistic: just in the last week, the average distance that people have had to go for a test has come down from 6 or 7 miles to 5 miles. We are continuing to improve this system the whole time, and I remind the House and those who want to run it down that we are conducting more tests than any other European country, testing more people per thousand population than any other European—[Interruption.] Those are the facts. He doesn’t like it; all he wants to do is score party political points.