Covid-19 Response

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We are looking into that question and I will write to my hon. Friend as soon as we have an answer.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green) [V]]

On contact tracing, I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State is working with experts in digital ethics because if it is not run transparently by a public company with code open to public oversight and data anonymised, people will not trust the system and it risks failing. Does he agree that only a community-led process of human contact tracing can provide the fine-grained and reliable data that such an app would depend on? Will he learn the lesson from the over-centralised organisation of the testing approach and instead adopt a more decentralised approach for contact tracing, using local environmental health officers and PHE’s regional outbreak management teams?

[Matt Hancock]

I agree with the first two points, including the importance of people for contact tracing as well as technology—in fact, the two working hand in hand will be the most effective approach. I also agree with the need for ethicists on this. We are all giving up a huge amount of our liberty because of social distancing, so measures to reduce social distancing through the use of data need to be considered in that context. We are making sure that that is done in a way that can provide assurance to people with concerns in that area.

On the final point, we have to make the appropriate use of both national and local resources. In testing, for instance, organising drive-through centres across the country and home testing is inevitably an issue that needs to be done centrally, and then other testing laboratories are organised locally. It is about getting the best of both worlds.