Tory MP calls for Test and Trace chief to quit over system’s failures

There is growing pressure on Baroness Dido Harding, with Labour also suggesting her position is 'untenable'.

Calls are growing for the head of Test and Trace to be axed, with the latest figures showing the system is performing record-breakingly badly. 

Labour has suggested Baroness Dido Harding’s position is ‘untenable’, as pressure mounts to fix the system which has so far cost the taxpayer £12 billion.

Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis jumped to Lady’s Harding defence on Sunday morning, claiming she has done a ‘very good job’. He rejected a call by the senior Conservative MP Sir Bernard Jenkin for Lady Harding to be replaced by a senior military commander.

It comes as damning new figures showed Test and Trace had its worst week since the pandemic began. The system failed to reach 40.4% of close contacts of people who tested positive for Covid-19 in England in the week ending October 14, according to official figures published on Thursday. That is the lowest weekly percentage since test and trace began and is down from 37% in the previous week, while in-person testing figures have also dropped to record lows. 

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Yet for cases handled by local health protection teams, 94.8% of contacts were reached and asked to self-isolate in the week to October 14.

Mr Jenkin, who chairs the parliamentary liaison committee, said there was a ‘vacuum of leadership in test and trace, which is destroying public confidence and compliance’ and suggested Lady Harding should be removed and replaced.

Labour’s shadow mental health minister Dr Rosena Allin-Khan piled in to increase the pressure on Lady Harding, but appeared to stop short of saying she should resign.

Appearing on Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday, she said: ‘The huge take-home message here is … the Tories can see just how catastrophic the Test, Trace and Isolate system has been.’ 

‘It’s time to put it back to the local communities who know their communities best.

‘(Baroness Harding’s) position is very difficult, it’s untenable really, but fundamentally this comes down to the responsibility of the Government, they have failed people.’

There has been growing scrutiny of Lady Harding’s position and corporate history, with commentators highlighting various links to Conservative politicians and that she was branded ‘Dido, queen of carnage’ after being in charge of TalkTalk when up to 4 million customers’ details were leaked.  

The Government’s ‘Anti-Corruption Champion’, Conservative MP John Penrose, is her husband. 

But Mr Lewis told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme: ‘What Dido has done is put together and drive forward a team that has come on so much in the last few months.

‘We have got a scheme that has gone from having no test and trace – obviously before the virus – to building up a scheme now that means we have tested over 28 million people – that’s more than anywhere else in Europe – more than 1.1 million now who have been contacted through the scheme.

‘We want to see it improve, we want to see it grow and get better and better. That’s how we fight this virus.

‘But actually I think Dido and the team have done a very good job to get to where we are.’

The latest figures also revealed that for people in England waiting on results after an ‘in-person’ test, just 15.1% received their results within 24 hours in the week ending October 14, down from 32.8% the previous week.

That includes those tested for Covid-19 at a regional site, local site or mobile testing unit and is also the lowest weekly percentage since Test and Trace began.

Boris Johnson had previously pledged that, by the end of June, the results of all in-person tests would be back within 24 hours, except when there are ‘difficulties with postal tests or insuperable problems like that’. 

When the latest figures emerged on Thursday, Labour’s Shadow Health Minister Justin Madders branded the issue ‘an Interstellar sized black hole in the Government’s plan to reduce transmission.’

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