Boris Johnson says parents can leave home if they have 'exceptional' childcare problems
The prime minister has said self-isolating parents can leave home if they have “exceptional problems with childcare”.
Boris Johnson said extraordinary circumstances may cause parents to vary their childcare arrangements.
He was responding to a question from Labour MP Yvette Cooper during a Liaison Committee meeting on Wednesday.
She was asking for clarification on the rules after the PM’s chief adviser Dominic Cummings drove 260 miles from London to Durham during lockdown over childcare concerns.
Cooper said: “Let me ask you about your instructions now to parents who either have COVID or have the symptoms of COVID, who won’t know how seriously they’re going to get it and who have no local childcare available.
“Is the message to those parents now the one from (deputy chief medical officer) Jenny Harries to stay at home unless there’s a risk to life, but if you do get ill contact the community hubs, or is it the message from the Transport Secretary and the Communities Secretary to be able to travel to wherever you have a support network – in the words of Robert Jenrick this morning, if you don’t have ready access to childcare then you can do as Dominic Cummings did.
“Which is it?”
Johnson replied: “I’m not certain, Yvette, that there’s as much of a discrepancy between those two bits of advice as you suggest.
“I think what Jenny was trying to say was that if you’ve got exceptional difficulties with childcare then you should take account of them.”
Yvette Cooper MP added: ‘We’re not talking about exceptional difficulties with childcare, we’re talking about the very normal difficulties with childcare.
“A survey from Mumsnet today found that a quarter of parents said that they didn’t have access to local childcare when they had Covid and were in exactly the same circumstances as Dominic Cummings – a third of them said they’d be more likely to break the rules now.”
Johnson replied: “The clear advice is to stay at home unless you absolutely have to go to work to do your job.
“If you have exceptional problems with childcare then that may cause you to vary your arrangements, and that’s clear.”
The PM has come under pressure to fire Cummings after it emerged he had taken a trip to his parents’ house in March.
Cooper told Johnson he had “a choice between protecting Dominic Cummings and the national interest” by either choosing to fire him or keep him.
Tory MP Simon Hoare also asked if keeping Cummings would undermine the public health message which would mean people ignored lockdown measures.
The PM responded he "did not think that was true".
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