LABOUR criticised the government for paying social media “influencers” to promote the Covid-19 test and trace system and for putting community health contracts out to tender with private firms.

In the Commons, shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth called on his government counterpart Matt Hancock to pause the competitive tendering of contracts until at least the end of the coronavirus pandemic.

He urged him to invest the money in local health schemes instead, such as those seen in Leicester, where door-to-door Covid-19 testing took place under localised lockdown.

“Surely that would be a better use of public funding, for example, than paying for so-called influencers on Instagram to big-up test and trace,” Mr Ashworth added.

The government has recently admitted to paying social media personalities to promote the scheme. It said all costs involved in the campaign would be published in due course.

Mr Hancock said that the government would use “any way that is effective” to communicate with people, adding that offering contracts to private firms would see the “best possible [allocation of] resources to improve public health.”

Earlier in the Commons, shadow health minister Justin Madders accused the government of “rewarding private-sector failure” by extending the test and trace contracts.

On the national test and trace scheme and local testing teams, Mr Hancock responded that it is “the combination of the two that works best.”

He added: “I really think that the opposition is making a mistake, trying to divide people between public and private whereas actually everybody’s working very hard to […] control this virus.”