Covid-19 Update

Lord Haselhurst Excerpts

Thursday 7th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I thank the right reverend Prelate—and, of course, all the people from all the different faith communities who are working so hard to help with the difficult situation we find ourselves in. He is absolutely right: the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, raised some very important points, and we all need to come together to encourage people to take up the vaccine, and to deal with some of the myths and worries that people have. Trusted local community leaders such as faith leaders can really help to do that. We want to try to get everyone involved, so that we can get to the light at the end of the tunnel and, we hope, beat this thing once and for all.

[Lord Haselhurst (Con) [V]]

My Lords, may I ask my noble friend what assurances have been received from AstraZeneca that vaccine supply will be able to keep pace with the Government’s commendably ambitious deployment plans? And what contribution is expected of other vaccine sources?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I am sure we would all like to pay tribute to everyone who has worked so amazingly quickly to help to develop both the Oxford vaccine and the Pfizer vaccine. I can assure my noble friend that AstraZeneca is accelerating its delivery schedule. Obviously, we are working extremely closely with the companies in order to deliver what the noble Lord called our ambitious programme. We of course have access to 100 million doses of the vaccine on behalf of the whole of the UK, the Crown dependencies and the overseas territories.