Matt Hancock: Lockdown to be eased again from 4 July
This morning the Health Secretary Matt Hancock spoke to Nick Robinson, who was filling in for Andrew Marr. Robinson asked about the government’s plans to ease the lockdown after it was announced yesterday that the UK’s alert level was being downgraded from level 4 to level 3, which indicates that transmission of the virus is no longer rising:
MH: This week, we will announce further details of the measures we can take to relieve some of the national lockdown measures… [from] July 4th… That’s part of the plan that we’ve been working through… and the plan is clearly working.
Police did ‘brilliant job’ in Reading attack
Hancock also joined Sophy Ridge and praised the police for their response to yesterday’s knife attack in Forbury Gardens in Reading, where three people have died and more have been injured. Thames Valley Police have apprehended a suspect and say that they are now treating the attack as a terrorist incident:
MH: My heart goes out to the families, the friends of the victims… The police did a brilliant job last night… and we should give them all of the space and support that they need to get to the bottom of it.
‘Lots of potential reasons’ for high UK death toll
The interview turned to Hancock’s own brief, and Ridge confronted him over the government’s response to the coronavirus. The UK appears to have been one of the worst-affected countries worldwide, with the official death toll now exceeding 42,000. The OECD also believe that the UK economy will see among the sharpest contractions in 2020. Hancock gave some suggestions for why this could be, but stressed that it was still too early to say:
MH: There’ll be a time for this sort of analysis… There’s lots of potential reasons for that, including just how open a country we are and the amount of engagement we have around the world.
‘You bet’ I’m pleased with spare capacity in contact tracing
Ridge also challenged Hancock over the effectiveness of the government’s contact tracing operation, which has seen 27,000 tracers contact only 40,000 people in a week. Hancock said that he was happy with how the current system was operating, arguing that the apparent inefficiency was a good sign overall:
MH: We built a big system, and we don’t need as big a system now because the number of new transmissions is lower than it was… Am I pleased that we’ve got excess capacity in contact tracing? You bet I am.
We’re looking at drinks app for pubs
Despite the government’s recent trouble in developing an NHS contact tracing app – which is now being abandoned for using technology from tech giants Apple and Google – Hancock told Ridge that an app for ordering drinks may soon be on its way, in a bid to boost a return to the pub:
MH: That is the sort of thing we are looking at… [to] make it safe to open things… It’s actually the approach that many other countries around the world are taking.
Rachel Reeves: Gavin Williamson has failed on schools
The shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Rachel Reeves told Ridge that the government had not lived up to its pledge to reopen primary schools for all pupils before the summer holidays began. She upbraided Education Secretary Gavin Williamson for not supplying schools with enough physical space to do so, arguing that libraries and leisure centres could have been used as temporary classrooms:
RR: The government have failed in the commitments that they made to parents and to the country… Frankly I don’t know what… Gavin Williamson has been doing for the last three months… [He] set a test, he has failed it miserably.
Shaun Bailey: ‘Certain people have got big mouths’
Ridge also interviewed Shaun Bailey, the Conservative candidate for Mayor of London, asking him about the rumours that moves had been made to deselect him before the election, which is now due in 2021. Bailey said that he was not too concerned about any behind-the-scenes machinations:
SB: When this rumour emerged, I went straight to the PM and… he said ‘Whatever it is Shaun, you needn’t worry, because I’m on your side’… Certain people have got big mouths and certain people will always distress that I was selected.
Taking the knee means nothing if forced
And finally, Ridge asked Bailey if he had been offended by comments made by the Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab about the act of ‘taking the knee’ to show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. Raab said that he would only ‘take the knee’ for the Queen and when proposing to his wife:
SB: I think taking the knee is a very personal gesture… It means nothing if you are bullied into taking the knee. It means nothing if your boss sends you an email saying you have to do it. You do it because you want to do it.
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