Covid-19 Update Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Duncan Baker
Main Page: Duncan Baker (Conservative - North Norfolk)Department Debates - View all Duncan Baker's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(3 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Nadhim Zahawi
My hon. Friend is quite right to say that GPs need to do more than just the vaccination programme, the booster programme and the flu vaccination programme. We also have to recognise that they do an incredible job in protecting the most vulnerable from flu, and that they were the backbone of the covid vaccination programme. We are continuing to work with primary care networks, but we have enhanced the pharmacy offer as well. I will be able to set out more detail on that when we begin the booster programme.
Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)
I am sorry to press the Minister on a hot topic, but although I understand the need for limited and specific use of vaccine passports—perhaps in nightclub settings, which are particularly risky, as he has said—the admission yesterday that the proposal had been expanded to include larger venues and gatherings is really beginning to concern my constituents, especially when we have vaccinated around of 80% of the population. Will this be a high water mark for their use, and when will the criterion potentially end?
Nadhim Zahawi
My hon. Friend has heard me say today that no one embarks on this lightly, and it is not in the Prime Minister’s DNA to curtail people’s freedoms. It is purely so that we can have sustainable continuation of an open economy that we would introduce such programmes. I do not know—if anyone claims otherwise, they are foolhardy or foolish—when we can definitely say that the virus has transitioned from pandemic to endemic status.