Layla Moran
Main Page: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)Department Debates - View all Layla Moran's debates with the Cabinet Office
(3 years, 11 months ago)
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Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD) [V]
As an Oxford MP, I echo the Prime Minister’s congratulations to the Oxford Vaccine Group on today’s fantastic news. Will he join me in further congratulating it on being shortlisted for the NHS parliamentary awards?
I chair the all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus, and we have repeatedly heard in the course of our inquiry from experts and scientists who are concerned that a prospective vaccine, as welcome as it may be, is not, in and of itself, an exit strategy. Will the Prime Minister meet me and a cross-party delegation from both Houses to discuss our forthcoming recommendations, so that we can create a covid-secure UK that includes testing at the borders and locally led test, trace and isolate systems?
The Prime Minister
The hon. Lady is entirely right about the vaccine—it is wonderful news, but it is premature to say that it constitutes, on its own, an exit strategy. That is why I have insisted throughout this afternoon that it must be accompanied not only by NHS test, trace and isolate, but by new types of testing, plus the tough tiering that we have had and that we will have when we come out of this lockdown. The way forward is to make those things work together—to make the tiering work in tandem with testing—so that people get a test with a view to reducing the restrictions under which they, we and she are living. Get a test and help to kick covid out—that is the way forward.