Covid-19 Vaccine Update

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that incredibly important question. Her region has done phenomenally well. I want to praise it because it has 91.8% of first doses for the over-80s in the STP. The NHS is already sharing data with local government. We need to make it more granular. We have brought into the deployment campaign Eleanor Kelly, the former chief executive of Southwark Council, so we are totally in line and integrated with local government, because they know exactly where those hard-to-reach groups are. The hon. Lady raises an incredibly important point and that is a big focus for me.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con) [V]]

The Government have done brilliantly well in securing more than 350 million jabs, which is enough, all being well, to vaccinate the at-risk population several times over. Given the UK’s relatively enlightened and co-operative approach to vaccine roll-out internationally—in sharp contrast to the narrow and vindictive nationalism of certain quarters of the European Union, which really ought to know better—what trigger points and timetable does my hon. Friend envisage for the disbursement of our inventory of surplus jabs, and the infrastructure necessary to deliver them to countries that are less advantaged than our own?

[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.