Covid-19 Update

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I will raise that question and make sure that the appropriate guidance is put on gov.uk.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

The Secretary of State is doing an excellent job and is being incredibly responsive, despite what I appreciate must be the huge volume of correspondence coming into his inbox. He is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. However, there is confusion about whether people should be going to work or not. From both a health and an economic perspective, as a business owner, I would much rather have a short, sharp shock, with everything closed down for 30 days to get this disease under control and allow the Secretary of State to get his testing and tracking in place and defeat it.

[Matt Hancock]

I agree with what my hon. Friend has said—and not just the first bit—but I repeat what I said in my statement. I want to be clear that, where people absolutely cannot work from home, they can still go to work. Indeed, it is important that they do so to keep the country running.