Covid-19 Update

Lord Grayling Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Lady tempts me, but I will resist the temptation. We do not know when this vaccine will be ready, because I will not allow it to be rolled out before it is clinically safe—and anyway, the independent regulator would not license it before it is clinically safe. She asked how we will treat people who have been vaccinated and those who have not been. The problem is that only when we can assess and monitor the epidemic-modifying effects of any vaccine—not only how much it protects an individual but how much it stops transmission—can we make further judgments about the non-pharmaceutical interventions, such as social distancing rules, that we have in place. We will keep that under review and monitor it extremely carefully.

[Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on what he has done to secure access to supplies of what we hope will be approved vaccines very soon. He has done a fantastic job on that, as he has on the expansion of testing and the 15-minute tests. However, may I take him back to the issue of testing in the aviation sector? Prior to the pandemic, we had the biggest and most important aviation sector in Europe. Since the pandemic, that sector has collapsed, yet last week Lord Bethell told the House of Lords that the chief medical officer believes that the aviation sector is a low priority for testing. It may be a low priority in his eyes, but it is economically vital to us. I urge my right hon. Friend to make sure that those 15-minute tests are made available to the aviation sector at the earliest opportunity.

[Matt Hancock]

The expansion of testing capacity obviously opens up the number of different uses to which it can be put. We are working closely with the aviation industry—my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport is leading those discussions, but I am heavily involved in them—and I hope we can make some progress soon.