Covid-19 Update

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Thursday 7th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I am very happy to raise those issues with both the Department of Health and the Treasury. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Bethell in particular will be able to keep the noble Baroness updated on discussions.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Government on being way ahead of the curve in vaccinating more people in this country than the whole of Europe combined—and thank God we did not sign up to the EU procurement racket. Does my noble friend agree that a jab in the arm is not rocket science and does not need experts to do it? Tens of thousands of people self-inject daily, and all we had was a two-minute teach-in from a nurse and that worked. Can we call on every able-bodied volunteer, not just retired medics and professionals and the military, cut out the NHS’s idiotic 21 forms to fill in, and run those vaccination centres 24/7? The public want to pile in to help. Let us encourage them to do it and put no obstacles in their way.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right: I am pleased to say that more than 1.3 million people across the UK have already received the first dose of the vaccine—as he said, it is more people than the rest of Europe combined. This is a united endeavour across all four nations. We will move every sinew to ensure that we can roll out the vaccine programme as quickly as we can, but, of course, it must also be done safely.