Karl Turner
Main Page: Karl Turner (Labour - Kingston upon Hull East)Department Debates - View all Karl Turner's debates with the Cabinet Office
(3 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberThere has been a bit of a theme to the interventions from my brilliant free port campaigners behind me. They are absolutely right. We do not hear about it from the Labour party, but Mr Hydrogen, as I think my hon. Friend is now known, makes an excellent point. As I said earlier, the bidding process is under way and it would be wrong of me to comment any further.
There are 9,000 fantastic community pharmacies across our country. They do an amazing job. What we want to ensure is that we get doses to the places where they are going to be distributed most effectively the fastest. I am sure the hon. Gentleman would not want to see doses distributed to many places where they might not all be used in the course of the day. We need at this stage to avoid any wastage at all. That is why we are concentrating on the 233 hospitals, 50 mass vaccination sites and 200 pharmacies already, and we will wrap that up. It will be particularly important as we come into the phases when we need to reach people who are harder to reach in local communities, and there, local pharmacies will, as he rightly says, play a vital role.