Covid Vaccine Passports Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Florence Eshalomi
Main Page: Florence Eshalomi (Labour (Co-op) - Vauxhall and Camberwell Green)Department Debates - View all Florence Eshalomi's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(3 years, 3 months ago)
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Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s thoughtful question. There is great difficulty with knowing at what stage we feel confident that the virus has transitioned from pandemic to endemic. We have now entered a period of equilibrium with the virus because of the success of the vaccination programme. The upward pressure on infections is obviously schools going back. The downward pressure on infections will be the booster programme and mitigating policies like the one we are debating. The Government certainly do not see this as a long-term power grab to restrict people’s liberties.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)
I feel I should try to help the Minister by thanking him for the regular briefings on vaccination uptake over the recess, which was very helpful to me in terms of encouraging a number of people from the BME communities to take up the vaccine. However, this policy is not going to work in Vauxhall. A number of businesses that have been hampered over the last 18 months want to get back. A number of those businesses are fearful of the looming rent increases for private commercial tenants. A number of businesses are fearful about the backlog of business rates that they have to pay. We are now probably going to ask those same businesses to pay to implement this policy. I want to go back to the issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra): what funding will be available to those businesses and when will they receive it?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s kind words about the engagement that we have maintained throughout the vaccine deployment programme. We will continue to do so, by the way, as we enter the booster programme, which, in some weeks, will hopefully break all records that we set in phase 1 of the vaccination programme. I think what is more detrimental to businesses in Vauxhall is having to open and shut, and open and shut again. The reason for this policy is to sustain their ability to trade, and hopefully trade profitably.