New Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, is requesting the government finalise an exit strategy this week, for the end of the current lockdown measures
Leader of the Labour party Sir Keir Starmer, has said that they would back the expected move but has said that “there needs to be transparency” in order to maintain public trust.
The government predicted to announce on Thursday that the current social distancing measures will be continuing.
The government has said that talking about an end to the lockdown before the virus had reached the peak of infection, they could risk confusing the public.
Credit: John Devlin
Mr Starmer has written to the Foreign Secretary,Dominic Raab, who is deputising for Prime Minister Boris Johnson, to say that Labour would support a continuation of the social distancing and lockdown measures.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4, Sir Kier said:
“We’ve got to have the trust of the public,”
“Today programme, adding that it was “inevitable that the lockdown will have to continue”.
“For that trust there needs to be transparency and openness – they need to know what the thinking is on when lockdown will end.”
“Mass testing and then tracing is likely to be amongst the options for ending the lockdown,” Sir Keir said.
“If that is right we need the government to say so because decisions need to be taken now to make sure that the number of tests that are needed and that the arrangements are in place so they can be implemented at the relevant time.”
Kier Starmer has said that he believed that schools should be amongst the first institutions to reopen when an easing of lockdown measures is to occur however, he said it would be “wrong” to say when schools in the UK should be reopening.
In the letter written to Dominic Raab, the Labour leader said that millions of people in the UK have “played their part” and made many sacrifices, saying that:
“in return, the government needs to be open and transparent with the public about how it believes the lockdown will ease and eventually end”.
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