Covid-19 Update

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con) [V]]

[Inaudible.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Do we have the sound working for Mr Clark? [Interruption.] I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman. We appear to be hearing the sound engineers. Perhaps we will leave that for a moment and come back to the right hon. Gentleman. Meanwhile, we will go to York, hopefully, to Rachael Maskell.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

The evidence shows that the Government’s approach to easing the lockdown before Christmas meant that crowds of people came to York despite my warnings, spreading infection in the retail, hospitality and transport sectors because they could travel to a lower tier and were off guard in my community. The result has been devastating. It was completely unsafe and completely avoidable. Will the Prime Minister commit not to return to a tiered system where people can freely move the infection from one place to another? What steps will he take to avoid this catastrophe from happening again? Can I meet one of his Ministers to discuss York’s tragic experience over Christmas?

[The Prime Minister]

As soon as we were informed of the extra transmissibility—50% to 70% faster—of the new variant, we took all the action we could. I would just remind the hon. Lady that the best thing we can do for the people of York now is to ensure we keep the virus under control with the tough measures we have and ensure we all come forward for the vaccine. I urge her to get her constituents to come forward and take that vaccine. They are going great guns in Yorkshire. My memory is that in Yorkshire I think they have taken more vaccine than virtually anywhere else in the country. I congratulate the people of Yorkshire on what they are doing. We are now coming into the last furlong of the JCVI one to four and it would be great to get 100% of the people of Yorkshire in the course of the next few days.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Now we go to my esteemed constituency neighbour, Robert Halfon.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con) [V]]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. In all the gloom of the tragedy of covid, will my right hon. Friend pay tribute to the staff and volunteers who are working so hard to scale up the programme of vaccinations in Harlow and delivering the life-saving vaccines to thousands of residents in our new mass vaccination centre? I know he wants schools and colleges to open sooner rather than later. I really welcome what he has said today about catch-up, the extra funding, free school meals and, above all, the education plan for a covid recovery. Will he ensure the catch-up fund also helps children with mental health problems? Will he work with a coalition of the willing, such as the Children’s Commissioner and other educationalists, to get all our children back in the classroom?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Prime Minister]

What I will say is that we certainly were able to use speed and agility to deliver on the programme that we needed. It would have been a great pity if we had followed the advice of the Leader of the Opposition and the Labour party, who said, “Stay in the EU vaccines programme”, who wanted to get rid of big pharmaceutical companies in the crazed Corbynite agenda on which the Leader of the Opposition stood at the last election, and who attacked the vaccines taskforce that secured 367 million doses of vaccine.

So I do think that we have been able to do things differently and better, in some ways, but it is early days and it is very important to remember that these vaccines are an international venture. We depend on our friends and partners and we will continue to work with those friends and partners, in the EU and beyond.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I did not want to interrupt the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) while he was in full virtual, rhetorical flow, but he knows that he must not address the Prime Minister as “you”—he must not say, “What are you doing Prime Minister?” He must address the Chair. He is setting a bad example as a senior Member of this House, as are many senior Members, to new Members who have yet to learn the proper mode of address. We must be careful during this time of virtual proceedings not to let standards fall.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab) [V]]

I support the vaccination programme. My clinical commissioning groups have been among the best in England at rolling out the covid vaccine—a real success story for the communities that I represent, who have been placed under restrictions since 29 July. But today the NHS has said that it will cut by one third the future vaccine supplies to the north-west, so that the rest can catch up. That is worrying, if true.

Can I ask the Prime Minister about logistics? What impact does he think withholding vaccines to the north-west will have? Will second jabs be delayed still further or will the next cohort of first jabs need to be rescheduled, leaving those people unprotected for longer?

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab) [V]]

Healthy life expectancy for men at birth in the Hirst ward of my Wansbeck constituency is 52 years, whereas in Ickenham in the Prime Minister’s constituency it is 71 years, and that trend looks only to be getting wider. Can the Prime Minister explain to the people of my constituency why his Government are so eager to avoid a vaccine postcode lottery by diverting our supply from the north-east southwards to more prosperous regions of the country, simply because the NHS in our area has done an absolutely fantastic job, while at the same time the Government have done nothing to tackle the postcode lottery of healthy life expectancy, which varies so widely across this country? Can I urge him to consider whether the same actions would have been taken if the shoe had been on the other foot?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Before I ask the Prime Minister to answer the question, I must beg for shorter questions from hon. Members. I know they are sitting at home and that the opportunity makes them want to speak for longer once they have the attention of the House, but we will never get on to the next statement or let the Prime Minister complete all the promises he has made today if we do not get this statement finished.

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) and I share an ambition. We want to unite and level up across the whole UK, and that is the mission of this Government. I am afraid he is totally wrong in what he says about the roll-out of the vaccines. We are making sure that everywhere gets what they need for JCVI groups 1 to 4 by 15 February. That is what we are doing and will continue to do. I am delighted by his conversion to the vaccine. I seem to have read somewhere that he seemed a bit sceptical. There he goes smirking away. It is not a smirking matter. It is absolutely crucial. He should tell his constituents to get a vaccination.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Prime Minister]

I hear my hon. Friend loud and clear. I know his views will be shared by many in this House. I just want to go back to the key thing that we need to establish: it will not, alas, be until the middle of February that we have real, material evidence that the vaccines are working in terms of driving down the mortality rate among those crucial groups. So if we were to give schools decent notice to come back, we are driven more towards 8 March by that logic rather than coming back earlier. Believe me, we have been round and round this many times, and it is about as fast as we think we can prudently go. I think that is what the country would want; people would want schools open but they would want them open in a cautious and sensible way.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I will now suspend the House in order that arrangements for the next item of business can be made.