Covid-19 Update

Mike Wood Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

Many people were sceptical about whether the sunset clauses would ever be triggered, so I congratulate the Prime Minister on responding to the clear evidence by bringing plan B to an end. However, as covid will be with us for a long time to come, will he ensure that regional Nightingale hospitals maintain the surge capacity necessary to deal with any future variants, so that they do not put unsustainable pressures on our NHS and we do not have the kind of restrictions that we have seen over the past two years?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend, who is completely right. We need to learn the lessons of the last two years. We need to make sure that if we are, heaven forbid, attacked by another variant—a more lethal variant than omicron—we have different ways of dealing with it, and we have resilience built in to the NHS and into the way we handle it. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health will be setting out our plans for how to live with covid, irrespective of what kind of variants we encounter.