Nick Ferrari confronts Foreign Secretary over military use in pandemic response
23 September 2020, 08:40
Nick Ferrari confronts Foreign Secretary over military use
Nick Ferrari pushed Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to answer how the military will be used in the pandemic response after the Prime Minister's announcement on Tuesday.
Boris Johnson has announced that a series of tough new coronavirus measures could stay in effect for the next six months.
Speaking in the Commons, he said that the military could be deployed in England to help police officers enforce the new restrictions.
Nick put this to the Foreign Secretary to clarify in which areas the army will be used.
Mr Raab said: "The army have done a sterling job throughout, they've delivered PPE, they've helped with the delivering of tests.
Boris Johnson outlines new Covid-19 restrictions
"The idea is they're always on hand to backfill some of the public service provision including what the police do in order to free up the front line providers, including police officers, to do more of the things they need to do."
Nick asked, "Are the military going to be enforcing people wearing masks or not having people in their back garden?"
Mr Raab dismissed this, "The point is they will backfill and provide extra capacity where the police need it so that it frees the police up to do the frontline work that's important for them."
He said he "can't imagine we'll be in that position" where the army will be knocking on doors but they are "there as a contingency."
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