Business of the House

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for asking this vital question, and I am sure we can agree that ensuring we leave the transition period successfully in full by the end of this year is one of the Government’s—and, even more importantly, the British people’s—highest priorities. An extension of the transition period would be in neither the UK’s nor the Europeans’ interest. Both parties want and need to conclude a deal this year to complete the transition period. An extension to the transition period would bind us into future EU legislation without us having any say in designing it, but still having to foot the bill for payments to the EU budget. We must be able to design our own rules, because that is in our own best interests, without the constraints of EU regulation. I would like to assure my hon Friend and the people of Ashfield that the Government are delivering on their promise. Will we have an extension? To quote Margaret Thatcher, “No, no, no.”

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

The people of Chesterfield were incredibly happy when Derbyshire clinical commissioning group set up a coronavirus testing unit in the car park of the Proact stadium in Chesterfield, but weeks after it was set up, the vast majority of people from Chesterfield are unable to get a test there, because it is only for key workers, meaning that Chesterfield residents have to travel 30 or 40 miles to get a test. I have been attempting to pursue this, but it seems to be a local example of the national failure. All this testing capacity is going home after an hour every day and people are unable to get a test. Can we have a debate in Government time on the Government’s entire testing strategy so that people can bring local examples and help the Government to really get on top of testing?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The testing strategy has achieved 205,000 tests as of the 30 May in terms of capacity, and that is important. It is the largest diagnostic testing programme in our history, and from scratch it has in a number of weeks got to more than 4 million tests having been undertaken. So that is a significant success, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has driven this personally, and has, to my mind, done absolutely brilliantly in managing to force something through that would not have happened without his individual and personal determination. However, the hon. Gentleman makes an important point, and this is one of the ways in which this House being here is always so useful, because specific constituency examples where things can be improved can be brought to the attention of the House. I will certainly pass on to my right hon. Friend the point that the hon. Gentleman has made.