Covid-19 Update

Liam Fox Excerpts

Monday 19th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Lady raises an important point on a subject that she knows extremely well. If I may, could I give her the respect of considering the question and writing to her with a full reply, because it is a very important question and I want to make sure that we get it right? Maybe we can then have a correspondence to make sure that we get to the right result.

[Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

The UK’s vaccination programme has been an international trailblazer, the strategic aim of preventing the NHS from being overwhelmed has clearly been met, and I am delighted that my right hon. Friend, who has done a tremendous job as Secretary of State throughout the pandemic, appears determined not to allow a shift in the goalposts and to follow the cautious pathway out of lockdown. But can we please, and can he please, ensure that we have a rational and balanced discussion about viral variants? Viruses always mutate and there will be an unavoidable level of risk that we will have to get used to post pandemic, unless we are to become a perpetually frightened, introspective nation—the opposite of global Britain?

[Matt Hancock]

My right hon. Friend has deep experience in this area, and I am very grateful for what he said—that was very kind. He is absolutely right about the fact that viruses always mutate, and we can rise to that—we can respond to that—as we do with flu. This is another area in which the parallel with how we manage flu as a country is the right one, because the flu virus mutates most years. We work out, observing the Australian winter, what is the most likely variant we will get in our winter, we adjust the vaccines to that variant and then we roll them out over the autumn. That sort of programme is likely to be needed in this country for some time to come. We will start later this year with the booster shots, and we will make progress after that according to the evidence as we see it. I hope he was not trying to make a point of something; I always try to be rational, but it is sometimes hard.