Covid-19 Update Debate

Full Debate: Read Full Debate
Department: Cabinet Office

Covid-19 Update

Clive Efford Excerpts
Monday 12th October 2020

(3 years, 7 months ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Boris Johnson Portrait The Prime Minister
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I thank my hon. Friend for representing his constituents well in the way he does. Of course, we will make sure that we regularly review the measures for his constituency, and indeed for every constituency in this country.

Clive Efford Portrait Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
- Hansard - -

The only think that is world beating about the Prime Minister’s track and trace system is its capacity to take taxpayers’ money and put it in the hands of friends of the Tory party, and deliver a chaotic system. That contrasts with the performance of local government, which has performed miracles at a local level while being starved of resources by the Government, who promised money and then reneged on that promise. Will the Prime Minister now provide the resources to local government if he is going to give it extra responsibility in delivering track and trace?

Boris Johnson Portrait The Prime Minister
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I note the ideological scorn of any private sector work, which I thought I had left the Labour party these days, but does not seem to have done. I share the hon. Gentleman’s veneration of local authorities, as a creature of local government myself, and that is why we have given an extra £3.7 billion to support local authorities in this crisis. As I told the House just now, there is a billion more to come.