Covid-19: Vaccinations

Lord Bethell Excerpts

Wednesday 13th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I welcome this Statement on the on the vaccine strategy and rollout, which we have been asking for from these Benches, in both Houses, since before the first lockdown. The Government have rightly set themselves stretching targets and we agree with them, especially in the light of the new variant’s high levels of transmission. The news this week of the severe problems that our NHS is facing across the country shows how out of control the virus is at the moment. Individuals must comply with the spirit and the rules of lockdown to help to reduce cases as soon as possible.

The Prime Minister has talked repeatedly about a vaccine signalling the end of the pandemic. I fear that lax messaging about the hope that vaccines bring is hampering the message about lockdown. It is a relief to hear in this Statement a more measured tone about this being a staging post in a long journey. Please can somebody tell the Prime Minister? The Minister will know that epidemiologists repeatedly make the point that we are a long way from life returning to normal. I note, for example, that in the debate about the vaccination priority list, the advice to clinically vulnerable people from government is that, even after their vaccine, they must remain shielding until told that it is safe for them not to shield.

On supply, we remain concerned that the Government will struggle to reach 2 million a week by next week—mid-January—given the numbers of vaccines being delivered this week. We are also receiving reports from GP surgeries of fewer doses arriving than ordered or, worse, short-notice cancellation of orders causing administrative chaos for already hard-pressed administrative surgery staff. While the opening of super vaccine hubs is welcome, can the Minister say why the hubs are vaccinating only during the day? If it is truly a priority to vaccinate as many people as possible, arrangements should be made for close to 24/7 delivery. I hear that, in the last hour, the Prime Minister has announced that the Government will try to start a pilot of some 24/7 hubs as soon as supplies permit—but how soon is soon? What are the vaccine supply pinch points? It is clear that targets are already slipping. This week, the target of 2 million a week has moved from mid-January to the end of January, and it is now the end of March instead of the end of February for the top five priority groups. Is this for the supply of all three approved vaccines, or just the AZ vaccine, where there is a much larger order to be rolled out with more substantial delays if there are supply pinch points? Also, it is because of a shortage of glass vials, or vaccine manufacture and regulation checks?

What are the Government doing to ensure that vaccine hubs are not superspreader locations? There have been worrying reports about people being asked to change masks and sit and wait less than two metres away from other people in the vaccine hubs. Given that the first five priority groups are all high-risk people, the last thing the NHS should be doing is encouraging them to go to areas that do not follow the government guidance on “hands, face, space”. Inevitably, there are glitches with any new process. We are still hearing of problems with the Pinnacle IT system that is being used for vaccinations. Some hubs were resorting to pen and paper in despair, and there are further problems reported with patients being asked to give the same detailed answers to a group of questions about Covid symptoms and allergies as they arrived, as they were registered and then as they were being given their jab. Any effective IT system should enter that information once. IT delays are reported as causing major delays, queues outside centres and daily targets missed at hubs. Can the Minister say what is being done to remedy these problems?

Can the Minister also say whether the vaccine dashboard will separate out the number of care home residents vaccinated? I see that care home cases are increasing again, which we deplore. As earlier this year, we strongly object to Covid patients being sent from hospitals into care homes, unless they are specialist Covid-designated units separated from other non-Covid residents. Even better would be to follow the example of Southampton hospital, which is using local hotels as step-down facilities. Will the Government endorse this and ensure that care home patients are kept safe through this surge until they are vaccinated?

The Government have announced that fewer than 1,300 surgeries and pharmacies are approved to deliver vaccines. The large hubs are all in urban areas. What will the Government do in rural areas, where elderly people do not have access to transport and may have to travel considerably further than the 90-minute journey for vaccinations announced this week? Are there plans as yet unannounced to increase substantially truly local-level provision, at a high-street level, in every rural village and small town—whether at a local surgery, pharmacy or visiting mobile vaccination unit—to ensure that vulnerable people who cannot travel or take the risk of infection will get access to the vaccine? It is not good enough for the Government to say that vaccines have been offered if the patients concerned cannot get to the vaccination delivery point.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)]

My Lords, I am enormously grateful for the detailed questions from the noble Baronesses. In particular, I endorse the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton: it is indeed a remarkable achievement to have invested in such a broad array of candidates and to have purchased such an enormous quantity of doses—367 million. This is indeed a profoundly important step by the Government and one that we should celebrate and take pride in.

However, I acknowledge the searching questions from the noble Baronesses, so let me try to cover as much ground as I possibly can. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, asked about the digital backbone. This is absolutely critical to vaccine delivery. In many ways, injecting it into arms is the simple bit. Capturing the records, getting the invitations out right and the process of establishing identity are absolutely critical; in any project of this scale and complexity, that is where the problems are most likely to happen. That is why I pay tribute to colleagues at NHSX, NHS D, Test and Trace, PHE and elsewhere in the NHS who have done an amazing job of bringing together patient records around the nation to ensure that the invitations are sent out promptly and accurately and that the records are captured correctly. That information will be absolutely essential to both pharmacovigilance and the policy assessment of key issues such as transmissibility and efficacy. It employs the yellow card system to spot adverse incidents, and all data will go straight into the GP record, which is profoundly important when it comes to the research and analysis of the rollout of the vaccine. These may seem like prosaic details, but it is the most enormous digital achievement and one that will have an amazing impact on the health of the nation. I enormously encourage everyone in the country to ensure that they know their GP number, that they are properly registered with their GP and that they respond to any correspondence about the vaccine.

The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, characterised the vaccine rollout as “traditional”. Can I just push back gently on that suggestion? There is nothing traditional about the sheer scale of this rollout, or about its speed and complexity. Our approach has been to work through the NHS, and from that point of view it might seem traditional, but I reassure noble Lords that not only is the latest technology being used but there is also the complexity of the collaboration between all the different parts of government—the Army, the NHS and PHE. Every single relevant part of government is being employed in this huge task, and it is something we should be enormously proud of.

The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, asked about the supply figures. I am pleased to tell her that AstraZeneca has confirmed that it will be supplying 2 million vaccines a week. That is an enormous sum and it will mean that we can hit some really ambitious targets. Some 14.5 million people will be vaccinated by mid-February. Those are in categories 1 to 4, which includes care home residents and residential care workers, and they represent 88% of the mortalities in hospital. That will be transformational to the resilience of our healthcare system and to our approach to the pandemic. Some 17 million further people from categories 5 to 9 will be vaccinated by the end of spring, and all adults over 18—52 million of them—will be offered the vaccine by the autumn. That is a massive achievement.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, quite rightly emphasised that this does not change absolutely everything overnight. She asked, quite reasonably, about schools and workplaces. I can confirm that there is still a huge amount to do by the entire nation to ensure that we do not have high infection rates, that we still deploy testing in order to break the chains of transmission and that we understand how to keep infection down—because the tragic thing about this awful virus is that it hits the old and infirm, who can be protected by the vaccine, but it also hits the young. It has become very clear from recent hospital admissions and from our growing understanding of long Covid that this disease hits all parts of society, and although we will have the most afflicted vaccinated by the spring, this is still going to be a societal challenge for months to come.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, mentioned the letters to those shielding, which suggest that people should still remain shielded. That is a really important point and one we have to resolve, because those who are shielded who may go out into the community can themselves still be vectors of transmission. Those very people who we have done so much to protect may themselves be transmissible. Therefore, people are going from being protected to being potentially dangerous to others, and this is going to be a mind shift that we will all have to go through.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, asked about GP surgeries. I acknowledge her point. There have undoubtedly been stories of GP surgeries which have set up queues of people to be vaccinated and then there has not been a delivery of the vaccine. However, I reassure the Chamber that it has been a very small minority. More than 95% of vaccination deliveries have happened on time, and in the grand scheme of things I take the view that if some GP surgeries have stood people up and asked them to come back another time, that is a small price to pay to ensure that the greatest number of people can be vaccinated as fast as possible.

The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, asked about London. It is true that if we look at the infection rate, London has a relatively small distribution of the vaccine, but we are a young city here in London, so it makes sense that we have a lower proportion of vaccination. There are 2.8 million people who are more than 80 years old in the country. Not many of them are found in London, which is why the London figures look as they do.

On pharmacies, I reassure all noble Lords who have asked me about this that my colleague in the other place, Nadhim Zahawi, is incredibly energetic in engaging pharmacy chains and community pharmacies. It is true that we have a pilot with hundreds of pharmacies already running in it, but it is very much our intention to work closely with pharmacies to deploy the vaccine. As noble Lords know, vaccines come in plates of 1,000. It is much easier to deploy those plates in large centres than in small ones. We are working extremely hard to break those packages down into smaller groups and to get those groups into smaller locations but, quite reasonably, in order to get the vaccine into the most arms possible, we are starting with the big centres.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, asked me about hygiene management in the distribution of the vaccine. She is entirely right: if you have a small room, such as a GP surgery, and you have a large queue of people, it is going to be extremely difficult to keep them all separated. That is why the development of these seven massive distribution centres in such places as the ExCel and Millennium Point in Birmingham is such an important development, because there is the space to be able to move very large numbers of people safely through the process. They will have a huge impact when they are opened next week.

On 24/7 vaccination, I am pleased to say that the Prime Minister has made an announcement on that. I must share with noble Lords that there has not been an overwhelming consumer demand for vaccinations at 4 am, but we are going to try this out as a process, and if there is indeed a big demand for late-night vaccination, then we will step up to the opportunity.

I was asked about rural distribution. Yes, it is incredibly important to get through to rural communities, particularly as many of the elderly and infirm can be found outside the city centres. I reassure noble Lords that, before very long, we will have vaccination centres within 10 miles of all communities. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is entirely right to say that there will be some people for whom we have to take the vaccination to them; we cannot expect them all to drive to a vaccine centre. Provisions are being made through local health authorities in order to ensure that that is delivered.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

My Lords, we now come to the 30 minutes allocated for Back-Bench questions. I ask that questions and answers be brief, so that I can call the maximum number of speakers.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, will my noble friend accept my congratulations? The Government have done an absolutely magnificent job on vaccinations. They bought more than enough of the right vaccine, approved it first in the world, injected it first in the world and have vaccinated more people than the whole of Europe put together. I hope the Government will now not be distracted by some of the pathetic media trivia we have heard about how far you can ride a bike, whether a Scotch egg is a meal, whether it is 2 metres or 3 metres, or tier 3 or 4, or whether things have been too fast or too slow. Does my noble friend agree that the only thing that matters now is vaccinating all our people, in the whole of the United Kingdom, as quickly as possible—and 24/7 if vaccine supplies permit—to build on the success we have had so far?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I am enormously grateful for my noble friend’s kind words. I think that, as a Government, we would prefer to be judged at the third act of this important performance, so I think it is probably too early to take too much praise, but I would like to say a massive thanks to the British nation.

In three ways, the nation has really stood up. The amount of collaboration between different groups—I alluded to it in my previous answer—between the Army, industry, the NHS and local authorities has been enormous. At the beginning of this pandemic, there were arthritic elements to the way in which Britain is governed that meant that different parts of our political and administrative machinery did grind into action slightly slowly, but, my goodness, over the vaccine deployment it has been absolutely athletic, and I take my hat off to every part of the machinery of government. On the union, this has been such a strong example of a national solution: all of Britain has come together in order to purchase and deploy the vaccine. Lastly, I would observe the resilience of the British public. It makes me enormously proud that the country puts the elderly and the infirm first and stands by and celebrates the weakest and most vulnerable in our society being put first in the queue. That is a national quality we should all be proud of.

[Lord Crisp (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I congratulate everyone concerned in the progress being made with the vaccinations, while recognising that there are issues to be addressed, not least that of accelerating the whole process. In passing, I note that I would be very happy to be vaccinated at 4 am if it sped things up. I will ask about testing and vaccination for a particularly vulnerable group; children excluded from school are the among the most vulnerable in the country, and I pay tribute to the approved alternative education providers and others working with them during the pandemic. I have been contacted by one of the directors of one of these providers, who tells me that, unlike schools, they are not being provided with lateral flow tests to help them protect children in school and staff. If I write to the Minister, will he take the matter up? Can he ensure that all such approved providers receive the tests and that their staff are given a high priority for vaccination—at least as high as that for teachers?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for flagging this important issue. He is entirely right that those who are sometimes overlooked by society and fall between the cracks are often those who either suffer from the disease or are vectors of infection. It is a public health priority to ensure that people such as those excluded from schools are not overlooked or in any way left behind. I would be very grateful if he could write to me with the details.

[Lord Winston (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, speaking from these Benches, I think it would be appropriate to thank the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, very much for the amazing amount of work he has been doing on this very difficult issue. I hope he will continue to take our concerns back to the Department of Health and the Government in general, because that seems very important. I join my noble friend Lady Thornton in congratulating the Government on getting vaccines out, but, with all due respect, Israel has already vaccinated over one-fifth of its population with a massive vaccine campaign. On the important issue of dividing the time of the Pfizer vaccine, many of us have given informed consent for a period of three weeks between the two injections; by extending that period, we now risk not obeying the consent issue, and therefore there is an ethical problem. Could the noble Lord address that issue, because it is of considerable importance, certainly increasing the risk of suspicion of the vaccine, already very prevalent in parts of the population?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I am extremely grateful for the noble Lord’s kind words. I know lawyers looked at the question he raises on informed consent; I am afraid I do not have the precise answer at the Dispatch Box right now, but I will be glad to write to him with a clarification.

[Lord Scriven (LD) [V]]

Up here in the north, the Yorkshire Post is running a “shot in the arm” campaign to get the Government urgently to allow the local community pharmacists who are screaming out to get jabs in people’s arms to do so. Why are the Government using excuses about batches of 1,000 for the AstraZeneca vaccine getting in the way of using these safe places on the high street that will improve access in the take-up of the vaccine?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I am not sure we are using excuses; we are observing practical matters. The priority, quite reasonably, is to get the vaccine in as many arms as possible. We are totally committed to comprehensive distribution of the vaccine that reaches into rural communities and will include working with community pharmacies as important distributors. However, be under no illusion: our priority is speed and reach, which is why the deployment has taken the shape it has.

[Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Blencathra hits the nail on the head. I add my thanks for the support of the military—my noble friend the Minister will forgive me if I sound like a pedant, but it is not just the Army but also the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. However, their support is ultimately unsustainable. Yesterday the Defence Secretary suggested that the NHS should create a reserve of its own. We are certainly not short of volunteers, given the response to the call to arms last year, so is the Minister considering it?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend rightly picks me up on my use of words. I profoundly thank all those in the armed services who have made a contribution. They bring particular qualities to such a challenge as the deployment of the vaccine: logistical analysis and project management of the highest level, and the manpower and ability to get things done quickly on the front line. Those are extremely complementary. However, be under no illusion; there are 1.3 million employees in the NHS, and far fewer in the Armed Forces. There is no question of the Armed Forces being able either to replicate or take the role of the NHS in such a large project, though we are enormously grateful for their particular contribution. One lesson of the pandemic has been the remarkable return to work of former NHS workers and the early graduation of some trainees. We should and will look at the use of volunteers in the NHS in months to come.

[Lord Loomba (CB) [V]]

My Lords, the Government’s action plan for the rollout of the vaccine is commendable, with over 2.5 million doses given to date. One issue now appearing is that there are a good many no-shows at vaccine hubs. In an effort not to waste the vaccine, which has a short shelf life, administrators are finding as many people in close proximity as possible to give the unused doses to. While not wasting valuable doses is admirable, does the Minister agree that some back-up system should be in place to ensure that those who need it most are able to get it first when there are so many no-shows daily? Secondly, does he agree that parliamentarians in both Houses should be on a priority list for vaccination?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, no-shows are being managed extremely effectively under the current arrangements. We are extremely grateful to the British public for their perseverance.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

My Lords, I am happy to join others in congratulating the Minister on how he has delivered news about the vaccines to your Lordships’ House and to everybody concerned with the rollout. I wish it well in every possible respect. However, I am sure he will agree that, as it will take a little while before the vaccine has the beneficial consequences we want, it is essential that we do not drop our guard now. In that context, I return to a subject I asked him about two weeks ago: the mandatory wearing of face coverings. I asked him then what guidance the Government could give to public-spirited people who try to encourage others who are not wearing face masks in places such as shops and on public transport about whether they are right to do so? Can he give some comfort to those of us who want to intervene but are frankly deterred by the reaction we are likely to get? It is good news that the supermarkets are operating a new policy, and I welcome the announcement by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. I would like a bit of a lead from the Government as well.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The noble Lord is entirely right. The advent of the new variant, with its extremely high transmissibility, means that we all have to rethink our approach to the pandemic. We must all adopt habits that are uncomfortable and frustrating, of which mask-wearing is one good example. I know that colleagues in government are looking at ways in which restrictions should be refined. The Government do not take a view on intervening with members of the public; it is the personal responsibility of individuals to make decisions for themselves. The police certainly have very clear guidance on what interventions they should make, and it is best to leave it to them.

[Baroness Jolly (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the scale of this rollout is truly impressive, and I join others in congratulating all those who have actually made it work in such a short time span. I live in a very rural area on the edge of Bodmin Moor. My local satellite surgery has closed because it cannot be made Covid secure, and the vaccination site is 18 miles away with no public transport connections. Would it be possible for older people who cannot get to the vaccination site to be vaccinated by a different practice, which is only five miles away by bus but in the other direction?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The short answer is yes, and absolutely. The noble Baroness makes a point that we understand vividly and extremely well. Many smaller GP surgeries simply are not physically capable of being Covid secure, as she rightly points out. We are taking a panoptic view of health records to ensure that the right GP surgeries which are open can offer the service to those who would not normally be reached.

[Lord Fairfax of Cameron (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I would like to ask my noble friend the Minister two questions, if I may. Like many others, I first congratulate him and the Government on the progress made so far with the vaccination programme. But what plans do they have to further turbo-charge the vaccine deployment programme? I am, of course, thinking of a 24/7 vaccine centre, as many others have referred to already. Reference has also been made to Israel’s much greater progress, so far. But is the Minister aware of the comment of the highly respected Professor Bell of Oxford, who said that we could vaccinate the whole country “in five days” if we had the will, subject, of course, to supplies of the vaccine? Professor Bell went on to say that this vaccine rollout is a “war” and should be treated as such by the Government. Therefore—in my respectful submission—to refer to consumer demand is not necessarily consistent with that status of war. On my second question, the Government have said that they expect all nine high-risk groups to be vaccinated “by the spring”. Can the Minister tell us what exactly the Government mean by the spring—in other words, months and days or dates?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, on turbo-charging the vaccine deployment, the two key focuses are: first, on very large centres, which can have a very large throughput of people, as these will make an enormous difference and bring an industrial energy to the process; and, secondly, to extend the reach into the hard-to-reach communities, whether those are rural or where people are not in the mainstream of British life. Regarding the noble Lord’s point on the “war”, while it might seem obvious to him that everyone will step forward for the vaccine that is not, strictly speaking, right. Some people are going to make careful decisions before stepping forward to have it, so we have to think about making it attractive and reasonable to as many people as possible, particularly those who are vulnerable to the disease. I do not think it is right that we cannot have a consumer mentality to this. We have to treat the public with consideration and thoughtfulness, because they will decide whether they are going to step forward or not.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)]

I now call the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. Lady Meacher?

[Baroness Meacher (CB) [V]]

Sorry, I could not get myself unmuted. My Lords, as a Covid sufferer, which I am, I too applaud the Government’s amazing vaccination programme. I just have a few points of clarification. First, when the Government talk about offering a vaccination to all four top vulnerability groups by mid-February, do they mean all those groups will have a vaccination by mid-February or an invitation for one, which, of course, could be for a vaccination in March or April? Secondly, is there any progress yet on bringing forward the second vaccination—we are talking about the country here—from the 12-week point, bearing in mind the greater risk of mutations while we have this rather long wait between first and second vaccinations? Thirdly, if I may, can the Minister contradict the anti-vax story, which I regard as very dangerous, that the vaccinations contain polyethylene glycol which could be dangerous for allergic people? These stories just have to be crushed, if we can.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the four priority groups that the noble Baroness alludes to are: care home residents; residential care workers; the 80-plus; healthcare workers; social care workers; 75 to 79 year-olds; 70 to 74 year-olds; and the clinically extremely vulnerable. It is a huge proportion of those who are most vulnerable to the disease. We can only offer people a vaccine; we cannot force them to have it. Certainly they will be offered it, but the encouraging news is that a very large proportion of people seem to be stepping forward, and attitudes towards the vaccine so far seem to be extremely positive. I reassure all those who have seen anti-vax messages that this is not something that those with allergies should be frightened of. On the second dose, the MHRA has been clear that there is no evidence that the current round of mutations we have seen has any impact on the vaccine, and that it in no way increases the need for an accelerated second dose.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, I would urge speakers to keep their questions short—one question, please—to allow all speakers to contribute.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, based on the scientific and medical evidence, which undoubtedly will be gathered throughout this vaccination process, can the Minister indicate if there will be annual rollouts of the vaccination programme from 2022 onwards?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I cannot look into the future with that much clarity, but the noble Baroness raises a possibility that surely must be accounted for. It is possible that this kind of coronavirus may mutate; it may need to be managed, as we do other flus. It is too early to make that call but that is the kind of thinking that goes into the development of the NIHP—the new National Institute for Health Protection.

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I declare an interest as someone who is shielding. I too congratulate everybody involved in the vaccine project. The Minister alluded to the targets; I have to assume that we are going to vaccinate 350,000 today, so that we can maintain the target. That is really important. On the rural aspect, I live in Shropshire. Those who run Shropshire live in the north and tend to forget south Shropshire, so the issue of rural vaccination is pretty crucial. But can I make one final point relating to the point that my noble friend Lord Winston raised earlier on? I am in a position to ask the Minister a question today only because I gave my informed consent on three or four occasions in the last 12 months. I did not look on that as a specific performance contract by the NHS; I looked on it as allowing the NHS to do things to my body to help me survive. If they come along and change their opinion about the way they want you to survive, we should go along with their advice.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The noble Lord makes the point extremely well, and I agree.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD) [V]]

My Lords, no one is safe until everyone is safe. Does the Minister agree? If so, what thought have the Government given to supporting the temporary TRIPS waiver proposal by South Africa and India, given that it will help the WHO’s efforts to co-ordinate the local supply of vaccines through its C-TAP initiative?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I would put the truism slightly differently: the vaccine makes you pretty safe, but it does not mean you are not dangerous to other people. I think we all have to get used to that. Regarding the South African variant and the other variants popping up in Brazil and elsewhere, this is a manifestly different disease that is growing up around the world. It has a huge implication for international travel. We are working with the WHO and other groups to try to understand this, but it is certainly of grave concern to the country.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I join many others in applauding the Minister and the Government on their vaccination energy and foresight, and for being leaders in the world, frankly. Given the Minister’s zeal and energy, he informed the House on 30 November that the SIREN and Oxford healthcare workers studies would report on the level of sterilising immunity provided by natural infection before the end of 2020. Have they concluded that antibody protection can be relied upon for at least six months after infection, or longer, and what are the implications for herd immunity?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the SIREN study is an important study on antibody protection. My understanding is that it is due to be published very soon indeed, and when it is, I will be glad to share the insight with my noble friend.

[Lord Walney (Non-Afl)]

Further to the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Richie, the Minister told your Lordships’ House yesterday that was there was a very real threat that a variant could start escaping the vaccine. In those circumstances, could there not be a need for a massive standing vaccination programme, far beyond the national flu jab scheme, and are the Government therefore making contingency plans for such a challenge?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

That is a gruesome prospect and not one that I like to see in a debate like today’s, where there is so much positivity. However, the noble Lord is entirely right that mutations may go that way. The good news is that the current round of mutations that have been seen in Kent, South Africa and Brazil seem to be about transmissibility, not escapology. It is as though the car had driven into the pits and had a turbo attached to it, but not camouflage equipment. But that could happen, and if it did, we would indeed have to look at much more emphatic and systematic long-term vaccination programme.

[Baroness Altmann (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I too congratulate the Government and the Minister on all the tremendous work that has been done, especially on the vaccine. Can he say what the hold-up would be for a 24/7 programme, what the scale of supply is, and when a supply chain might be available that could deliver 24/7 vaccination? The scale of damage to other aspects of the health of our nation as well as to the economy is unsustainable. This is like a war effort but we absolutely need to be rolling out this vaccine as quickly as we possibly can.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I completely hear my noble friend’s encouragement, and her advocacy on behalf of business and a return to normal is heard loud and clear. The deployment is happening literally as quickly as we can possibly make it. I suggest to her that even NHS workers have to sleep, they have families, and it is not possible to run operations through the night on a mass scale. You cannot force people to turn up for a vaccine. I am not sure that the idea that millions of people will turn up at 4 o’clock in the morning for a vaccine is entirely realistic. However, my noble friend’s point about scale and whether we can move faster and turn around the situation more quickly is extremely well made. I reassure her that we are doing everything we possibly can.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]]

Will my noble friend join me in congratulating dispensing GPs in rural areas on hitting the main target group of over 80 year-olds? Can he confirm that the latest spike in care homes may be attributable to the fact that a second dose is not being administered within 21 days? Will he revert to that practice as far as possible and ensure that the same vaccine is given for the second dose?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I pay tribute to the role of dispensing GPs, who will play an incredibly important role in the rollout. However, I reject the suggestion that any spike in care homes is in any way related to decisions on the second dose. The new variant has spread throughout society, including care homes, and that is the explanation for the spike.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

Can the Minister assure the House that the Government have a co-ordinated plan involving not just vaccination but improved test, trace, self-isolate and support, and flexing controls on commercial and social activity to reduce and control the levels of the virus over the coming weeks and months? Can he tell us when the Government plan to publish such a plan? Obviously, events will have an impact, but now that we have had a year of learning about the virus, surely the Government have an overall vision of how we as a nation will emerge from the pandemic, and it would help us all if that was shared with the nation.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right that we have the vaccine today but that does not mean that we will not need to be testing, distancing and washing tomorrow. In fact, there will be a very large number of people—tens of millions—who will not be vaccinated through the summer but who could still catch the disease. We have to make provisions for our public health to protect those people in the workplace, in society and in their homes. The plan is very clear—it is the plan that we have already. However, the noble Baroness is right that we have to be focused on it and ensure it is kept up to date and deployed with energy and enthusiasm.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

I thank my noble friend for his assiduous and clear briefing to the House. Can he thank those who have already delivered vaccines to our overseas territories? Perhaps in due course he can let me have details of what has been delivered to individual OTs and the plans for the coming weeks.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I pay tribute to colleagues in the FCDO, which has been a tremendous advocate for overseas territories. We have made considerable provisions to ensure that vaccine supplies are provided to the far-flung territories, where we have strong relationships and a duty of care. I would be glad to write to him with the details of that deployment.

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, anyone questioning the horror of the disease and the pressures on the NHS need look no further than outside their local hospitals, as I did, notwithstanding that questions on efficacy, information and choices are the fundamental right of every patient. The Minister will know that the Bangladeshi community has a very high vaccination compliance rate, but in this case there has been quite a lot of confusion. Can he yet again confirm that sufficient bilingual material is being made available to the community, and will he agree to meet with me and some experts on this issue?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, that is a very good reminder. I will be glad to return to the department and check that the bilingual material is as she asks, and I will write to her with the details.

[Lord Mann (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, the NHS has been put in charge of this and is delivering big time, and everyone I speak to is delighted about the way the rollout is going. When we move into the next phase, will workplaces be targeted, so that they are able to do their own logistics and get thousands done at a time, quickly, cheaply and easily?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, that is a decision for the NHS deployment team. I do not know the precise answer but frankly, based on experience I would guess that NHS environments are probably the focus for the deployment—that the focus is on where NHS staff can have safe, hygienic environments, rather than on workplaces. However, I will take the noble Lord’s idea back to the department and write to him to see whether that is being considered.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)]

My Lords, all questions have been asked.