Covid-19 Update

Jane Stevenson Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, I do. I want to add one more person to the long list of people whom the hon. Lady rightly thanked for their incredible work of getting take-up in Lambeth to as high as 85% among the over-75s, and that is her. She has played a personal leadership role, and I thank her and pay tribute to her for that. There is still much more work to do, and I hope that we can keep working together on it.

[Jane Stevenson (Wolverhampton North East) (Con) [V]]

The pace and scale of the vaccination programme has been incredible, and we owe a debt of thanks to everyone involved. In Wolverhampton, we have kept pace by using a variety of locations, including our leisure and community centres. As we all look forward to restrictions ending, I hope that these public buildings will be returned for leisure and community use. For how long does the Secretary of State predict that we will need a mass vaccination programme? With the potential need for a rolling programme of booster injections or vaccination against new variants, what infrastructure is being planned so that we can protect our entire population for as long as is necessary without overburdening our NHS?

[Matt Hancock]

My hon. Friend raises a very important point: free the leisure centres! Many are being used as vaccination centres now, but, like her, I look forward to the day when they can be used for the purpose for which they were built—as leisure centres. It is important that, should we need a continued vaccination programme, for instance, over the summer and into the autumn, as seems likely, we will have to move to more permanent places or places that are free to be used as vaccination centres over that period. In fact, that has already started to happen. We have already started to move some of our testing and vaccination centres to more semi-permanent sites to free up the original sites that we started with, because we needed things to move incredibly quickly. That is an important consideration. Frankly, it is best done as close to the local area as possible, so it is right that I do not get involved in each individual one. I am absolutely certain that the NHS in Wolverhampton is far better placed to make those sorts of decisions than I am from this Dispatch Box, but I hope that it will keep my hon. Friend informed.