Oral Answers to Questions

Karl Turner Excerpts

Wednesday 13th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

There 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.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab) [V]]

I join my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition in paying tribute to those involved in the vaccine roll-out, but the Yorkshire Post highlighted this week that many of the country’s 11,000 community pharmacies stand ready, willing and able to deliver desperately needed covid vaccines, yet the Prime Minister’s Government have seemingly shunned an army of fully trained, experienced and registered technicians. Pharmacies such as Witham pharmacy in east Hull are at the forefront of the flu vaccine every single winter and are ready to play their part in the national effort, so will the Prime Minister now take control, fully mobilise the skills and expertise of community pharmacies and get Britain vaccinated?

[The Prime Minister]

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.