Thursday 22nd July 2021

(2 years, 8 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Nadhim Zahawi Portrait Nadhim Zahawi
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I am grateful to the hon. Member for his excellent question. It is incredibly important, because we pledged to deliver 100 million excess doses, beginning with 5 million immediately and 20 million by the end of the year, and then the balance next year, as well as the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine being delivered around the world at no profit to AstraZeneca or Oxford. To update him, we have sent out our first deliveries of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, as per the Prime Minister’s pledge, and speaking to the Serum Institute of India, they are now not producing 100 million doses a month of that vaccine but are up at 200 million doses a month. It really is an extraordinary achievement by Sarah Gilbert and her team and AstraZeneca in saving the world from this awful virus.

Jonathan Gullis Portrait Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
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We were very grateful to the Minister for helping us to secure the Tunstall mass vaccination centre, which has delivered over 50,000 jabs into the arms of people and is the city of Stoke-on-Trent’s mass vaccination centre. As part of the autumn roll-out, when we will be getting a third dose into the arms of many residents, will the Minister confirm that the Tunstall mass vaccination centre will stay in place over the autumn and winter this year?

Nadhim Zahawi Portrait Nadhim Zahawi
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I thank my hon. Friend for his effort in getting 116,657 jabs into the arms of his constituents and offering them that protection. I will certainly have a look at the vaccination centre as part of our infrastructure. We have a very ambitious programme to deliver to about 15 million people in the first phase and, with the second phase, a cumulative 32 million people. So we will be doing that at scale as well as, of course, flu vaccination wherever possible.