Oral Answers to Questions

Mohammad Yasin Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for his very well meant suggestion. It is very kind, but there is evidence both ways on that. What everybody would expect is that everybody who gets pinged and gets contacted by NHS Test and Trace should follow the rules.

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab) [V]]

Six out of 10 people who have died from covid-19 are disabled. Yet, during this pandemic, disabled people have seen their care cut back, have struggled to isolate without sufficient support, and have been excluded from the Government’s shambolic communications. As we start Disability History Month, will the Prime Minister tell the House why disabled people have been so let down by his Government?

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the question and for his campaigning on behalf of the disabled but I must reject what he says. We have done everything we can to reach out to disabled and vulnerable groups of all kinds, to give them all the advice that we think is necessary and all the support that we possibly can throughout the pandemic. I know that this has been very tough for people, and I thank them for the way that they have pulled together and followed the guidance. It has been particularly tough, as the hon. Gentleman rightly says, for disabled people. That is why we have given huge quantities in support, as I said before, to the NHS and to vulnerable groups of all kinds. The way forward now is to keep the virus under control, to come out of the current measures on 2 December, to allow our economy to start moving again, and to use testing and the prospect of a vaccination next year, ready to get the disease under control.