Piers Morgan launches into explosive GMB rant as he accuses Therese Coffey of ‘LYING’

In the statement, Ms Coffey said the Government has increased testing capacity rapidly but she recognises there have been a handful of days where the target of 100,000 people tested was reached.

Mr Morgan replied: “So she recognises that there have only been a handful of days when more than 100,000 people have gone for a test.

“Therese Coffey, if you were on our programme, if you had the guts to come on, I would have said to you there have been no days. Zero, nada, nil.

“What you just said was a lie!

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“You just told BBC viewers that there had been a handful of days when over 100,000 people had been tested.

“No, there have been a handful of days when you have conducted 100,000 tests.

“There hasn’t been a day when you have tested 100,000 people.”

GMB co-host Susanna Reid then clarified why this was the case.

It comes as UK unemployment claims soared by more than 69 percent in April after the coronavirus lockdown gripped the labour market, official figures reveal.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said that jobless claims under Universal Credit surged by a record 856,000 to 2.1 million in April, compared with the previous month.

Official statisticians also said early estimates for April 2020 indicate that the number of paid employees fell by 1.6 percent compared with March, as firms began to feel a greater impact from the lockdown.

Job vacancies also significantly decreased, with the number of empty posts in the three months to April diving by 170,000 to 637,000, compared with the previous quarter.

The ONS also revealed that unemployment increased by 50,000 to 1.35 million in the three months to March, as the impact of the pandemic first started to be felt in the UK.

The rate of unemployment nudged marginally higher, to 3.9 percent, but remained markedly below economists’ predictions of 4.3 percent.

Meanwhile, the number of people in work increased by 210,000 to 33.14 million for the quarter to March.