Covid-19 Update

Mark Harper Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Lady raises an incredibly important point. It does not matter whether or not somebody is registered with anybody, they can still spread the disease. The reason for the answer that she was given is that we have to try to get the vaccination programme out to everybody, no matter their status. There are people who do not have any status in paperwork at all, and we need to make sure that we support the roll-out to them as well. We are working with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, which is best placed, along with local authorities, to make sure that the vaccination programme reaches anybody who fulfils the criteria set out by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

I welcome the fact that Gloucestershire is remaining in tier 2 and thank the Secretary of State for his engagement with me and my Gloucestershire colleagues this week—it was very much appreciated and it was very much a team effort to get to where we are. May I press him a little on what he said about vaccines? Will he confirm that the data that is going to be published from next week will have enough detail in it that we will be able to see clearly the vaccination roll-out by age and by area? Will he set out, early on when we return in January, the Government’s thinking about how far the vaccination programme needs to have gone and the level of risk that we will have reduced for the country such that we can start to release the restrictions that are so burdensome on our population?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes. We are committed to setting out weekly updates on the vaccination programme—we released the first data yesterday, on the 137,000 number—and increasingly with the sorts of breakdowns that my right hon. Friend asks for, as more and more groups are reached. He asked for the calculus in terms of the proportion of the population that needs to be protected in order that we are able to bring down restrictions, and that is exactly how we are thinking about the next phase. We do not yet know the impact of the vaccine on transmission, so we cannot yet have a concrete answer to his question, but it is precisely the question that we are asking. We should know much more within the next few weeks.