Swindon MP Robert Buckland said XPO needed to ensure its Swindon depot was as safe as possible for workers.

The logistics firm’s Iceland distribution centre in Penzance Drive is at the centre of a mini-outbreak. As of Friday, 64 people had tested positive for coronavirus. It is understood more than 500 people working on the site have been tested.  

Robert Buckland, MP for South Swindon, said: “I think it’s inevitable a large number testing positive and I’m told some of those were asymptomatic carriers, people you wouldn’t have known had covid.”

He told BBC Radio Wiltshire this morning: “Then a wider number of the workforce are going to have to isolate because they’ve been in contact potentially with someone with the disease.

“Under the current rules a lot of the workforce are going to have to stay at home and stay away from work and therefore it’s incumbent I think on the employers to make sure that everything they’re doing offers as safe a system of work as possible.

“I’ll be speaking again to public health Swindon in the next day or so for an update and seek assurances as, rightly, people who work there are going to be scared about potentially contracting the disease.”