Covid-19 Vaccinations: 12 to 15-year-olds

Debate between Nadhim Zahawi and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

Monday 13th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I think it worth reminding the House that ventilation guidance has been there from the very beginning for schools and school leavers to implement, but the roll-out is happening as we speak. Our colleagues in the Department for Education are working right now to get those pieces of equipment into schools as quickly as possible.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I have great respect for my hon. Friend as the vaccines Minister, but I find what he has announced this evening deeply troubling. I think it will pit parents against parents and parents against teachers, with a poor child stuck in the middle wondering what to do. There will be very little benefit to the child, and there is a lack of long-term data on the potential harm. However, what concerns me above all is that the Gillick doctrine of treating children without parental consent will become the norm for a range of medical procedures.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Let me, again, slightly push back on that. It is not teachers who are being asked to do this; it is our clinicians, who are well trained and incredibly capable because they do the same thing year in, year out for the purpose of school-age vaccination programmes. They will be offering the vaccines, and ensuring that parents have enough time to read the information and then give their consent before a vaccination takes place.

This is very much not about a situation involving division. I think—I hope—my hon. Friend agrees that throughout the vaccine deployment programme that we began in earnest back on 8 December last year with Pfizer-BioNTech and continued on 4 January with the AstraZeneca vaccine, we have endeavoured never to stigmatise anyone and to provide as much information and transparency as possible, which has led to the highest level of vaccine positivity in the world. I believe that according to the Office for National Statistics data on vaccine positivity in the UK, more than 90% of adults have said that they are very likely to take the vaccine, or have already taken it.

Covid-19 Vaccine Update

Debate between Nadhim Zahawi and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

Thursday 4th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful and incredibly encouraged by the hon. Gentleman’s brilliant initiative, taken with many colleagues across the House, to deliver that brilliant video of south Asian MPs from different political backgrounds and traditions all recommending that, when people’s turn comes, they should take the vaccine.

We have been working across Government. In the Cabinet Office, the covid disinformation unit was set up in March. It works online with the digital platforms to ensure that we identify disinformation and misinformation to them. They should be taking that down immediately. My message to all of them, whether Twitter, Facebook or any of them is this: “You must, must be responsible and play your part in taking this disinformation down as soon as we flag it up to you.”

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con) [V]]

I am sure my hon. Friend would like to join me in paying huge tribute to the NHS colleagues and volunteers who have rolled out the vaccine with such speed in Gloucestershire. However, is he able to tell the House whether there will be any clarity about when the nine priority categories are likely to be completed? Will that inform the Government on how they can produce a road map for a roll-out of the wider economy, as my businesses in the Cotswolds are desperate for clarity on that matter?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. I will certainly join him in thanking the NHS family and army of volunteers. They have done phenomenally well. I can tell him that in his STP in Gloucestershire, 94% of the over-80s have received their first dose—that is pretty good going. He will know that we have built a deployment infrastructure than can deploy as much vaccine supply as we are able to bring in. A couple of Saturdays ago, we reached a record of just shy of 600,000 doses in a single day. That is, I guess, a demonstration of the capability of the infrastructure. We continue to grow it, as I announced today. It is very much dependent on vaccine supply. We have good visibility from here to the end of March, with more volume coming through beyond that. My focus should—I hope he agrees—be on the mid-February deadline to vaccinate those top four cohorts of the most vulnerable. That is 88% of mortality and, if we can get them done by mid-February, we will have achieved a real milestone in our fight against this virus.