Covid-19

David Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for what he is doing to campaign for vaccines in Broadland and to scale up at speed across the country. I have said the pace of roll-out that I want to see. That is already, as I think the Health Secretary would confirm, extremely challenging for our GPs and our hospitals. It is a big, big target—it is a big, big ask of the country. As my hon. Friend will know, because he will have heard me say this several times already today, this Government have been going faster than any other country in Europe, and we intend to remain out in front.

[Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con) [V]]

In March last year, the Government and the devolved Administrations laudably adopted a united response to the pandemic, with a clear, jointly agreed message that was easy to communicate. But since then, they have pursued different approaches with different terminology and different messaging, which can and, I believe, does lead to confusion. Could my right hon. Friend work with the leaders of the devolved Administrations by following the example of the four chief medical officers, who have worked closely together, and returning to the consistency and clarity of messaging that prevailed last March?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend makes a very important point about the occasional dissonances between the UK Government and some of the devolved authorities, although actually, if we look beneath the political surface and some of the argy-bargy that goes on, the fundamental message is the same. It was very telling that the three devolved Administrations and the UK Government came together to enact fundamentally the same package of measures at the same time yesterday and today.