Covid-19 Update

Ben Bradshaw Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I will address each of my right hon. Friend’s questions in turn. The point about certification is important. While decisions on certification are being reviewed in a review led by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, it is clear that we will need to provide people with the ability to certify whether they have had the jab, and we will absolutely need to consider those who have a certified clinical reason why they cannot have the jab. That applies to a relatively small number of people, but it is an important consideration that will be taken forward as part of that work.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for expressing his views on the approach to international travel. Quarantine is required for everybody who arrives as a passenger to this country, as well as testing on day 2 and day 8. That means we have a robust procedure to ensure that cases cannot be brought into this country and then spread in the community.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab) [V]]

With covid rates in Devon now down to just 31 per 100,000 and with all the vulnerable groups due to have been vaccinated by the end of this month, what will be the justification for keeping my constituents locked down and local businesses closed through Easter and beyond because rates happen to be higher somewhere else?

[Matt Hancock]

We obviously had a tiered system over the autumn and one of the challenges we found was of people travelling from a part of the country where rates are higher to those where rates are lower. Therefore, while we do not rule out a localised approach to outbreaks, we will move down the road map as a nation across England.