Covid-19 Update

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the Tedros principle of us being safe only when we are all safe remains the most profound insight. The noble Baroness is entirely right: we must do more to try to help those in the developing world. The frustrating truth is that the world simply does not have enough capacity for the manufacture of these very complex and tricky substances. We are straining every sinew to try to deliver the 9 billion vaccines we need to deliver worldwide vaccination, but the rate of manufacturing is not as high as any of us would like. I take my hat off in particular to AstraZeneca, which has provided licences for the vaccine worldwide on a no-profit basis, but I also pay tribute to the other vaccine companies, which, despite what one might read in the press, are trying all they can to set up manufacturing sites all around the world. Progress is being made.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I too salute AstraZeneca for its noble efforts. However, I would like to take the Minister back to the SAGE meeting of 13 May, when the Government were warned:

“In the areas where numbers of infections are increasing rapidly … an even faster increase can be expected if measures are relaxed”.


The Government went ahead with relaxing the measures yesterday. I know that Mr Dominic Cummings can perhaps not be regarded as the most reliable of commentators, but was he not right to say that fast, hard and effective action is the best policy for the economy, as opposed to always delaying taking decisive action? When it comes to the next stage, can we be reassured that the decision will not be taken until the evidence in June is fully assessed and evaluated?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I am a big supporter of the “fast and hard” principle. In our response in Bolton, Bedford, London and elsewhere, we have demonstrated that principle in our handling of the Indian variant. I point out that the use of testing and social distancing measures in schools has been enormously effective. One of the remarkable aspects of the infection rate so far is that transmission levels among school-aged children have not increased in the way that SAGE and others, including myself, once feared. We should take a “glass half-full” moment to applaud that fact. I reassure the noble Lord that we will absolutely make these decisions on the data. Space has been put in between the steps for exactly that reason, and we are not going to rush it.