posters in the Downing Street windows a
stand-in deputy for question time inside
Parliament even more unfamiliar
practices we're now going over to Peter
bull when are the banks going to act in
the national interest acting president
top in his prime I think the first
secretary can get the best out of that
many ask their questions from their
constituency homes David Mandel we've
been unable to connect Kirsten in the
chamber for his first question time the
new Labour leader pressing the
government on its pledge to reach
100,000 over nineteen tests a day by the
end of the month so we're way behind the
curve and the end of the month is a week
tomorrow so what does the first
secretary expect to happen in the next
eight days to get us from 18,000 tested
a 200,000 test today
of course he's right to say that in the
final week that will require a big
increase but of course with a project
like this it does require an exponential
increase in the final days in the final
week of the program labour accused the
government of not taking up
manufacturers offers to make the
personal protective equipment for the
NHS any other failings - something's
going wrong and there's a pattern
emerging here we were slow into lockdown
slow on testing slow on protective
equipment and now slow to take up these
offers from British firms
I don't accept his premise that we've
been slow we have been guided by the
scientific advice the chief scientific
adviser the chief medical officer at
every step along this way if he thinks
he knows better than they do in with the
benefit of hindsight then that's his
decision but that is not the way we've
proceeded and it's not the way we will
in the future 8,000 businesses have
offered PPE in response to the
government's call and every business
receives a response
one such company network medical told
the government it could make face
shields it got in touch at the end of
March and got a reply at 7:30 this
morning a bog-standard automated
acknowledgment in the meantime it
supplied a chain of UK private hospitals
unfortunately we've not had anything
still from the UK NHS and the problem is
that if we don't have anything soon from
them then we'll either have to stop
manufacturing because there'll be no
demand or we'll have to supply to
customers outside of the UK where we've
had interest as well but obviously we
want to keep this in the UK the health
secretary became the first minister to
declare that Britain had reached the
peak of the corona virus epidemic he
told the Commons that the NHS now had
10,000 free beds for routine care and
routine surgery would resume shortly I
just want to thank everyone from across
the country for their steadfast
commitment in following the rules
including in this house it is making a
difference we are at the peak but at the
Downing Street press conference a
warning we are a long way from the
vaccine or miracle drug that would allow
a return to normal until we have those
and the probability of having those
anytime in the next calendar year are
incredibly small and I think we should
be realistic about that we're gonna have
to rely on other social measures which
of course are very socially disruptive
last night a delivery of personal
protective equipment arrived on an RAF
plane from Turkey but questions
persisted about why Britain had not
taken up an invitation to join an EU
joint procurement exercise but medical
kit to help deal with kovat 19:00
yesterday top official at the Foreign
Office told MPs
it had been a political decision last
night he sent a letter to MP saying
there was no such decision and the UK
simply did not receive an invitation in
time to join in the EU procurement
schemes you can smell spontaneously
written himself I'm sure there were been
conversations Philip Wright Croft used
to run the department planning for
brexit today he's joined other X
Whitehall Grandy's
kovat 19 crisis means the government
must drop its commitment to leave the
post brexit transition at the end of
December to compound that uncertainty
for sake to say to British businesses in
particular we can't tell you what the
relationship will be with the EU at the
end of this year he's taking a very big
risk that does not look sensible from an
economic perspective she struggled to
imagine a British government actually
doing it getting us through with it at a
time like this I I frankly I do struggle
with that previous EU procurement rounds
have included testing equipment the EU
says Britain was fully aware of all of
them despite saying they were not
communicated the government says it does
now want to be part of future
procurement rounds just as the chief
government medical adviser signals
challenges of this crisis will be with
us for a long time yet