Covid-19 Update

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

Wednesday 30th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We have not set that out yet, because while our general approach is to vaccinate, as soon as possible, as many as possible of those who are vulnerable to this disease, and to then be able to lift restrictions, as I said in my answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), the exact timing depends on the roll-out of the vaccine and its impact on bringing down the rate of transmission. The change in the dosage schedule from four weeks to 12 weeks means that we can get the protection to as many people as possible sooner, and in a more accelerated way, than we would previously have been able to do.

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

The approval by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is great news at the end of a truly wretched year. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the speed of roll-out should be governed only by the rate of vaccine production? Will he assure me that his Department will cut through all and any pettifogging rules and bureaucracy to ensure that newly retired nurses and doctors, or those on career breaks, can be approved as vaccinators, so that the only limiting factor is vaccination production, not the availability of vaccinators or locations?