Rachel Reeves – 2020 Comments on Serco

The comments made by Rachel Reeves, the Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Shadow Cabinet Office Minister, on 14 October 2020.

For months, Labour has been asking this government to put contact tracing into the hands of councils and local public health teams who know their own communities better than anyone.

In the face of all the evidence, the Tories are continuing with a system that rewards failure by handing enormous sums of money to big companies such as Serco and Sitel.

This approach has defied the experience around the world, left underfunded public services to clear up the mess days later and made our communities vulnerable to rising infection rates.

The government should look at the science, follow Labour’s call to bring in a circuit break and transfer control of contact tracing to local authorities, so that we can better protect people’s lives and livelihoods.