Health Secretary Matt Hancock has insisted councils are ready to deal with local outbreaks of coronavirus - despite concerns raised by leaders here in the North East.
He was responding to a question from ChronicleLive, after we were invited to take part in the daily Downing Street press conference.
The Government is easing the lockdown by gradually lifting restrictions nationally, while asking local councils to contain potential outbreaks in locations such as workplaces, housing estates, care homes and schools.
But Newcastle City Council leader Nick Forbes has told Chronicle Live that local councils were not getting the “clear, coherent and consistent direction” needed from ministers, while officials in Gateshead said they were “nowhere near” being able to enforce a local lockdown if one was needed.
With shops due to re-open on Monday, we put these concerns to Mr Hancock, and pointed out that councils had warned they did not have powers to impose local lockdowns.
He said: "We do have powers to do things locally if we need to take local action to control the outbreak. Those powers reside with me as Secretary of State.
"And we have a system in place so that local leaders, if they have an outbreak locally, are able to raise concerns if they need more action than they have in their powers locally."
Baroness Dido Harding, who is head of the Government's test and trace programme, also responded. She said: "Local authorities across the country and health protection teams are doing this now. So there are a whole host of people working really hard on the ground to support businesses and other organisations that have got small outbreaks. And they are successfully containing them."
We reported on Saturday that Alice Wiseman, Gateshead Council’s director of public health, said the region’s authorities are “nowhere near” being able to enforce a local lockdown if one was needed.
It also appears that the Government has not yet decided whether local councils require extra legal powers in order to manage local lockdowns.
Local Government Secretary Simon Clarke said in a Commons written Parliamentary answer on June 8: “MHCLG (the Ministry of housing, communities and local government), alongside other relevant departments, are considering whether further powers are required for local authorities to manage future outbreaks in line with these plans.”
What ChronicleLive asked Health Secretary Matt Hancock:
"As I understand it, the government's plan is to carefully reduce the lockdown nationally and to ask local councils to contain outbreaks in areas where there is a spike in cases.
"But councils I have spoken to say they aren't currently in a position to do this.
"They were asked to produce an outbreak control plan by June 30, so those aren't ready yet. They don't have the legal power to impose lockdowns locally. It seems the government is still looking at whether they need extra powers.
"So with shops opening Monday, it seems that you are easing the national lockdown before the ability to control local outbreaks is in place. And I wondered if you could explain the thinking behind that."
What the Health Secretary replied:
"That's not quite the case Jon, because we do have powers to do things locally if we need to take local action to control the outbreak. Those powers reside with me as Secretary of State.
"And we have a system in place so that local leaders, if they have an outbreak locally, are able to raise concerns if they need more action than they have in their powers locally."
"This link between the local and the national is absolutely critical to getting this right."
