Covid-19

Debate between Baroness Evans of Bowes Park and Baroness Kennedy of Cradley

Thursday 28th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con) [V]]

I can assure my noble friend that new data around the impact of the new strain is being continually looked at and a lot of work is going on to survey and understand the new variants. That will feed into any advice or information, or decisions made. I can only reiterate to my noble friend what I said in answer to a number of noble Lords: we are following the advice of independent experts on which groups to prioritise for vaccines. The advice has been clear: we should focus our initial efforts on those in care homes, health and care workers, the elderly and the extremely vulnerable. I reiterate again that these top four priority groups have accounted for 88% of Covid deaths.

[Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I will follow on from the question of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans. We know from the Office for National Statistics that only half of households earning between £6,000 and £10,000 have internet access, compared with 99% of households with an income of more than £40,000. How will the Government ensure that the £300 million of catch-up and tutoring money will be targeted in areas where there are high levels of digital poverty and will go directly towards the pupils who have suffered disproportionately because of deprivation the high rates of infection and isolation that have kept them off school?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con) [V]]

I can reassure the noble Baroness that we will be targeting this money towards the very pupils she talks about. Yesterday, the Prime Minister announced that we will provide a further £300 million for tutoring. We will work in collaboration with the education sector to develop specific initiatives for summer schools and a Covid premium to support catch-up in exactly the way she said.

I refer back to the longer-term plan I mentioned. We understand that, while help is needed immediately, this situation is not going to be fixed quickly. Our pupils have lost a lot of time by being out of school and we want a longer-term plan, looking across the Parliament at how we can make sure we help pupils across the country to catch up as they have lost so much over the past few months.