'Bare-faced lie': Piers Morgan attacks Alok Sharma for saying 240,000 people were tested on Monday

Comments follow business secretary's remark on Wednesday

Piers Morgan has criticised the business secretary Alok Sharma for claiming that almost 240,000 people were tested for Covid-19 on Monday.

The Good Morning Britain (GMB) presenter said the figure given by Mr Sharma was “a bare-faced lie”.

"Alok Sharma has just gone on the BBC and claimed 240,000 people got tested on Monday. That is a bare-faced lie,” he said.

Mr Morgan also said that he would have challenged Mr Sharma himself if the government had not decided to boycott GMB for the last 57 days.

He added: “That is a bogus figure of tests that they [the government] claim were done. It has nothing to do with the number of people being tested.

“And why does it matter? Because testing is the absolutely crucial way out of this. Until we have a vaccine, it is probably the only way out of this.”

His comments came in response to the business secretary's appearance on the BBC Breakfast programme on Wednesday morning.

After mentioning the fact that a seventh Nightingale Hospital would open this month, Mr Sharma told the programme: "We had almost 240,000 people being tested on Monday. These are remarkable things that the NHS and those who work in it have done."

The business secretary's figure matches the official number of coronavirus tests reported by the Department of Health and Social Care.

In a post on its Twitter account on Tuesday afternoon, the government department wrote: "As of 9am 23 June, there have been 8,309,929 tests, with 237,142 tests on 22 June."

Mr Sharma made his remarks on coronavirus testing while speaking about the government's decision to lift certain lockdown measures from 4 July.

As a result of the changes, pub, cinemas and restaurants will be allowed to reopen and a new "one metre-plus" rule will replace the current two-metre social-distancing guidance.

The government has been criticised in recent months for its Covid-19 testing programme. Last month, it faced claims that it had massaged its testing figures to surpass its target of 100,000 tests a day by the end of April.

Critics noted that the 122,347 tests recorded for the final day of April included home tests that had been sent out but had not been completed.