Covid-19 Update

Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the outbreak in Bolton, Bedford, London and elsewhere has demonstrated, if that were needed, the paramount importance of keeping resources for test and trace at a critical level, and that is what we have done. Since the national infection rate is lower, there is a much greater emphasis on the kind of surge activity and outbreak management that the noble Baroness describes. Sequencing has proved to be an essential part of that process, and we have brought sequencing from the back of the laboratory to the front line of test and trace operation. Every single positive case is now treated as though it were a VOC, with the same amount of tracing and sequencing that a VOC would have had a few weeks ago. We have the full operation on standby. Should another wave of infections arrive, as it may well do with the relaxing of social distancing, we have the systems in place to be able to deal with it.

[Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as Deputy Colonel Commandant of the Brigade of Gurkhas. The Indian variant is spreading not just across the United Kingdom but across the north Indian plains and into Nepal, a country ill-equipped to deal with such a pandemic. Given the speed of response and support offered to India, I simply ask my noble friend whether the Government will respond positively to Nepal’s request for 2 million doses of vaccine.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I am grateful for the briefing on Nepal I had earlier from my noble friend. The scenes that we have seen in north-west India are heart-breaking. Nepal is such a good example of the kind of country that the global community needs to surround and support with vaccine technology that, frankly, is for G7-style countries to help to provide to developing countries. I take my noble friend’s point completely on board. I do not have immediately to hand the statistics about what Britain is doing for Nepal on the vaccine front, but I will be glad to write to him with any data that I can put together.