Commons Sense

House of Commons · Ministers' Questions

Test and Trace

Tuesday 23 June 2020 · 2 questions

Summarised by AI from the official record, so it can contain mistakes.

Read the full transcript on Parliament.uk

At a glance

Answered 2 Partly answered 0 Not answered 0

Key points

  • Ministerial Questions focused on the Test and Trace system effectiveness as lockdown measures eased.
  • Labour MP Lilian Greenwood emphasized the importance of a functioning test, trace, and isolate system for safe reopening.
  • Justin Madders inquired about daily testing figures exceeding 100,000 since a specific date, receiving a response citing over 100,000 tests delivered nearly every day since late April.

Topics (select to filter)

Questions & Answers

Q1 Lilian Greenwood Lab Birmingham Yardley
NHS
Context

The effectiveness of the NHS test and trace service is a critical component for safely easing lockdown measures.

Question

We all want to see lockdown eased, but that reopening will only be safe if the system to test, trace and isolate is working effectively. As more people return to work, start to travel on public transport, and perhaps even go to pubs, cafés and hairdressers—albeit keeping their distance—the ability to trace contact people we do not know will become much more important.

Answer from Matthew Hancock, The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care

Obviously, as soon as possible. I agree very strongly with the hon. Lady about the importance of contact tracing—the Test and Trace programme is one of the largest of its kind—to ensure that, as we manage to lift national measures, which we can because the disease is clearly under control and the number of cases is coming down, we can then respond through local action.

Answered
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Q2 Justin Madders Lab Ellesmere Port and Neston
NHS
Context

The Prime Minister promised to test 100,000 people daily by the end of April.

Question

Since that date, on how many occasions have more than 100,000 people been tested on any single day?

Answer from The Minister for the Pandemic Response and Vaccine Deployment (Mr Matthew Hancock)

I have not got those data exactly—if the Opposition would care to engage on the substance, rather than not taking this seriously, yesterday we delivered the 8 millionth test in this country. We have delivered more than 100,000 tests on almost every day since the end of April and at the end of last week we were delivering 230,000 tests a day.

Answered

Not addressed: The exact data requested by the MP was not provided; instead, general statistics about testing programme performance were given.

How: Changing Subject, Requesting Support

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