Covid-19 Vaccine Update

Afzal Khan Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his excellent question. My absolutely priority is to ensure that we have the inventory—as he quite rightly describes it—to allow us to offer the vaccine to all adults in the United Kingdom, and at the moment we are nowhere near that. Supply remains the limiting factor in our first target, which is to vaccinate groups 1 to 4 by mid-February, and then groups 5 to 9 as soon as we can after that, with phase 2, which we have been discussing today, after that. He is absolutely right that we have now ordered or optioned 407 million doses of vaccine. Once we are in a position to secure enough vaccine for the United Kingdom’s population, we will be able to look at where else we can help with our vaccine supply. We have also put £1.3 billion into a combination of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and COVAX. Of that £1.3 billion, approximately £480 million is going to COVAX, which is helping low and middle-income countries with their vaccination programmes as we speak.

[Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab) [V]]

I was grateful for the Minister’s support for the video that I and colleagues across the House with south Asian heritage produced to encourage take-up of the vaccine throughout the UK’s south Asian communities. He knows that there is real concern about the impact of the disinformation being spread online and offline in black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. Worryingly, much of the disinformation appears to play on people’s faith or race. What work is he and Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport colleagues undertaking to tackle the spread of vaccine disinformation online?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful and incredibly encouraged by the hon. Gentleman’s brilliant initiative, taken with many colleagues across the House, to deliver that brilliant video of south Asian MPs from different political backgrounds and traditions all recommending that, when people’s turn comes, they should take the vaccine.

We have been working across Government. In the Cabinet Office, the covid disinformation unit was set up in March. It works online with the digital platforms to ensure that we identify disinformation and misinformation to them. They should be taking that down immediately. My message to all of them, whether Twitter, Facebook or any of them is this: “You must, must be responsible and play your part in taking this disinformation down as soon as we flag it up to you.”