Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateNeale Hanvey
Main Page: Neale Hanvey (Alba Party - Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath)Department Debates - View all Neale Hanvey's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(1 year, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberYes, it is true, I am afraid. People are about twice as likely to be waiting for treatment in the Welsh NHS. Waits are also longer in Wales, with 30,000 people waiting more than two years for treatment, even though those have been eliminated in England. England spends more on general practice than Scotland or Wales, despite the fact that Wales has 20% more funding, and England has also grown spending on general practice faster than either Scotland or Wales. We are highly focused on getting good primary care services in England. There are always lessons that we can learn from each other, but there are definitely lessons that Welsh Labour can learn from the English NHS.
The vaccine development and evaluation centre, backed by £65 million for state-of-the-art facilities, at the Porton Down site has been operational since early last year. It supported the autumn vaccine roll-out and the spring vaccine roll-out earlier this year.
In November 2021, Dame Kate Bingham rightly called the decision to withdraw support for the Valneva whole virus vaccine “inexplicable” because a broad portfolio of vaccines is important as we move forward against future variants. The British Society for Immunology states that there is an urgent need for second and third-generation covid vaccines, including universal mucosal vaccines with longer-lasting protective immunity. With growing public concern and mounting clinical and scientific evidence of vaccine injury from mRNA, why is the UK not seeking to harness the power of all technologies instead of establishing an inexplicable exclusive relationship with Moderna?
I confirm to the hon. Gentleman that, in the recent spring campaign, we deployed four approved vaccines—Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Novavax and Sanofi-GSK—as part of our roll-out. We are using a range of vaccines to protect us from the pandemic.