Fury as Jacob Rees-Mogg dismisses testing shambles

Jacob Rees-Mogg sparked anger today after telling people to stop their ‘endless carping’ about a lack of coronavirus tests. 

The Commons Leader dismissed the growing pressure on the Government over its testing shambles as he claimed the system had been a ‘phenomenal success’ which should be celebrated. 

Labour immediately slammed Mr Rees-Mogg as ‘out of touch’ and demanded he apologise. 

There have been widespread reports in recent days of people across the country struggling to access a coronavirus check. 

Meanwhile, official NHS Test and Trace statistics showed that just 33.3 per cent of people who were tested for Covid-19 in England in the week ending September 9 and had a so-called ‘in-person’ test received their result within 24 hours. 

That represents a massive decrease on the 66.5 per cent recorded in the previous week. 

Speaking in the Commons today, Labour frontbencher Valerie Vaz questioned why the head of the Government’s coronavirus Test and Trace programme, Dido Harding, had not spoken in public since August.

The shadow Commons leader added: ‘The number of tests returned within 24 hours has fallen from 68 per cent to 8 per cent – it seems to be all talk, talk and no test, test.’

But Mr Rees-Mogg, who had to self-isolate last week while awaiting Covid-19 test results for one of his six children, hit back and said: ‘We all have an obligation to try and stop the dangerous disease spreading, but the issue of testing is one where we have gone from a disease that nobody knew about a few months ago to one where nearly a quarter of a million people a day can be tested.

‘And the Prime Minister is expecting that to go up to half a million people a day by the end of October.

‘And instead of this endless carping, saying it is difficult to get them, we should actually celebrate the phenomenal success of the British nation in getting up to a quarter of a million tests of a disease that nobody knew about until earlier in the year.’

Shadow health minister Alex Norris said Mr Rees-Mogg should ‘immediately apologise’ for his comments. 

He said: ‘For weeks, people across the country have been struggling to get coronavirus tests. But rather than fixing problems, the Government has instead resorted to a blizzard of blame shifting and excuses.

‘Now, out-of-touch ministers have got a new message to those who can’t get tests: “stop complaining and praise us”. 

‘Jacob Rees-Mogg should immediately apologise. Whining about the public not being grateful enough won’t sort anything – only his Government can fix the testing shambles they are presiding over.’ 

Downing Street today admitted the coronavirus testing system is facing ‘challenges’. 

A Number 10 spokesman said: ‘We accept there are challenges and we accept that we are seeing significant demand for tests at the moment.

‘We are obviously working to address those challenges. We will continue to work to enhance testing capacity in the coming weeks.’