(3 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberI welcome the statement from the Secretary of State and welcome him to his place. Does he agree that the UK’s portfolio of 517 million vaccine doses is evidence of the world-leading effort of this Conservative Government in securing our route out of this pandemic, allowing the restrictions to be lifted?
I agree absolutely with my hon. Friend on that. It is fair to say that our effort on vaccines, as a country, has been world-leading. It is certainly the best in Europe in terms of the number of people who have received the vaccine—ours is the largest of any of the large countries. That is down to the efforts of so many people, especially the scientists, the vaccine taskforce and all the NHS workers—the doctors, nurses and volunteers. It is a group effort, and when we look back at this pandemic it will be one of the things we will know has saved so many lives.