Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Grayling Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

As we have repeatedly explained, supply is the rate-limiting factor. The hon. Member will no doubt have seen that there have been international discussions on the rate of supply, and countries around the world are finding supply the rate-limiting factor. Thankfully, thanks to the decisions that this Government took early, we have some of the best access to the supply of vaccine in the world. That is why we have one of the best vaccine delivery programmes in the world.

[Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell) (Con) [V]]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend again on the progress of the vaccination process. He should be proud of what he has achieved. The documents published yesterday about the road map did not appear to contain any assessment of the infection risk in individual settings, which could have demonstrated that there had been carefully informed decisions about the reasons for each individual restriction. Has that work been carried out? If so, will my right hon. Friend commit to publishing those assessments immediately?

[Matt Hancock]

Of course we assess this, but it is challenging to get to a statistical answer to the question that my right hon. Friend raises. When we have taken action to restrict access to areas where there is evidence of significant transmission, such as the hospitality industry, that confounds the statistical analysis because people cannot go into that environment and therefore the passing on of infection there reduces. This is a matter of evidence and judgment. It is a significant challenge, but the road map is based on our best assessment of the situation, which is based on clinical advice, including the focus on the fact that we know that outdoors is safer than indoors. Hence the early steps, after schools, are focused on opening things up outdoors.