News updates: health secretary speaks in Commons; experts sceptical PM’s £100bn plan to do up to 10m tests a day can be delivered
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- AstraZeneca chief claims vaccine still possible this year
- Global coronavirus updates – live
Sir Desmond Swayne, a Conservative, asks Hancock if he is starting to consider that the possibility that government policies are having an impact “worse than the disease itself”. Hancock says he disagrees.
These are from my colleague Peter Walker, who points out that Matt Hancock has been using this statement to repeatedly accuse the opposition of not supporting mass testing. It is not really true, but it chimes with the line used against Labour by Boris Johnson at PMQs yesterday.
Matt Hancock has been listening to Boris Johnson too much. After Jonathan Ashworth asks some specific and very sensible questions about test and trace in the Commons, Hancock accuses him of not backing the system and taking a “divisive approach”.
Hancock has said several times Labour & SNP “oppose” mass testing, which brings shouts of protest from opposition benches. They’ve made it clear they support idea, but are sceptical govt can implement it. This is, so far, a fairly… prickly performance by Hancock.
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