The Labour leader says an "effective" contact-tracing app is essential to easing coronavirus lockdown, and has hit out at the Prime Minister's suggestion that "no country in the world" has a functioning one.
The Government's track and trace app, trialled here on the Isle of Wight, was scrapped last week. The Government said 'technical barriers' could not be overcome and that it would be looking to work with Apple and Google to develop a new one.
It was previously promised that the technology would be rolled out nationwide at the start of June, but developers now say the wait could run until winter.
Speaking at PMQs this afternoon, Boris Johnson hailed the success of the human contact-tracing system in place nationwide.
But Sir Keir Starmer pointed out that only 10,000 people were contacted in its first two weeks. Highlighting the importance of an app, he said:
"If two-thirds of those with COVID-19 are not being contacted, that is a big problem... if we don't get track, trace and isolate running properly we can't open the economy and we can't prevent infection spreading..."
Mr Johnson responded, asking Sir Keir to "name a single country in the world that has a functioning contact-tracing app because there isn't one".
He replied, saying that Germany had a contact-tracing coronavirus app that has had more than 12 million downloads.
Earlier this week, Isle of Wight Radio reported how more than £11 million has been spent on contracts for the now-scrapped Isle of Wight-trialled app.
A number of other countries also have apps, including France, Australia, Singapore and Latvia.
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