Look again at sick pay or “people will not isolate”, says Labour

Jonathan Ashworth has told Matt Hancock to look again at sick pay entitlement, warning that “people will not isolate” during local lockdowns without “that financial security”.

Following up on a statement on coronavirus from the Health Secretary in parliament today, Labour’s health spokesperson raised several questions about the government’s local lockdown strategy.

The Shadow Health Secretary highlighted that the areas that have seen increases in Covid-19 cases are “usually characterised by low pay, insecure work and lack of decent sick pay”.

He said: “So can I ask him to look again at sick pay entitlement, because people will not isolate unless they are given that financial security?” Hancock did not address the specific point.

On exiting local lockdowns, Ashworth asked: “How does an area that has gone into a local lockdown, escape from a local lockdown? In Germany, I understand local lockdowns are lifted at around 50 cases per 100,000 – will he be applying a similar criteria here in the UK?”

The Health Secretary refused to give a specific figure, and said that the government would be looking at “both the level and the rate of change” to ascertain when areas can be released from a lockdown.

Ashworth also asked the Health Secretary to apologise for the Prime Minister’s comment on Monday, when he claimed that “too many care homes didn’t follow procedures” during the pandemic.

The Health Secretary did not apologise. He instead claimed that Johnson has been “explaining that because asymptomatic transmission was not known about, the correct procedures were therefore not known”.