'You are engendering fear, aren't you?': Nick Ferrari grills Grant Shapps
15 December 2021, 09:17 | Updated: 15 December 2021, 09:20
'You are engendering fear, aren't you?': Nick Ferrari grills Grant Shapps
This is the moment Nick Ferrari questioned Grant Shapps over whether the Government is "engendering fear".
On Monday Health Secretary Sajid Javid said that the UK Health Security Agency estimate that the Omicron variant is currently infecting around 200,000 people a day in the UK.
After referring to criticism of Mr Javid's use of the number, Nick Ferrari said to Transport Secretary Grant Shapps: "You are engendering fear, aren't you?"
Mr Shapps responded: "Well, look, I can easily imagine being here in a month's time or something and you saying to me 'well, Minister, why didn't you guys act sooner? Why didn't you take the obvious steps. Why did you sit on your hands?'
"And of course, to a certain extent, you're always trying to make a judgment about how far and how fast you need to go.
"And the one thing we know about coronavirus is it's typically better to act sooner."
He went on to say that "no-one wants to curtail freedoms" and that it's "absolutely the last thing in the world [the Government wants] to do".
