Covid-19 Update

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I have grateful for the hon. Lady’s words, including those about the issue of vaccine certification, on which I agree with her. No one in this Government, and certainly not this Prime Minister—as I said at the weekend, it goes against his DNA—wants to curtail people’s freedoms, so we will not do this lightly at the end of September. As for her question about the funding, let me try and give her some more details.

The £5.4 billion cash injection over the next six months in response to covid-19 includes £1 billion to help tackle the backlog, delivering routine surgery and treatments for patients. As I said in my statement, the total Government support for the health service is £34 billion in this year alone. The funding will go towards helping the NHS to manage the immediate pressure of the pandemic. As I have said, it includes an extra £1 billion to help tackle the backlog, along with £2.8 billion to cover related costs such as those of the enhanced infection control measures that are so important to keep staff and patients safe from the virus, and £478 million to continue the hospital discharge programme, freeing up beds.

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

Six years ago we lost 28,000 people to seasonal flu. Can the Minister assure me that we will not prioritise the jabbing of 12 to 15-year-olds over the seasonal flu programme, given that the number of children whom we would lose to covid would be vanishingly small in any event? Can he also assure me that in his planning he has considered not only the 15-minute wait that the Pfizer jab requires, but the extra time and effort that are required to get truly informed consent from children whose motivation cannot be clinical, must be altruistic, and may be subject to peer pressure?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Let me try to unpack my hon. Friend’s question. First, no decision has been made on vaccinating 12 to 15-year-olds who are healthy. We are vaccinating those who are vulnerable. We will not pre-empt the important work that the chief medical officers are doing and on which they are experts. Operationally, we have the infrastructure to be able to deal with both programmes.

The flu and covid booster campaigns are the largest endeavours. As I said earlier, in some weeks we will probably break the record that we set in the original covid vaccination programme. The flu vaccine is traditionally delivered through the brilliant work of GPs and, of course, community pharmacies, and they are doing that again. They have raised their ambition and ordered more than they did last year—which was a record-breaking year—and we have procured centrally as well. I can reassure my hon. Friend that that is our priority. I worry very much about a bad flu season this year, which is why we have been so much more ambitious in that regard, as well as on the covid booster campaign.