Covid-19 Update

Stephen Hammond Excerpts

Monday 19th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We have a huge amount of work on to tackle exactly the phenomenon that the hon. Lady describes. I thank people in Enfield who have been working on the vaccination programme, because they have done incredibly well, but there is much more to do. We have to ensure that we make the vaccine more accessible—that it is easy to access—and that people have reassurances if they are hesitant. The Minister for Covid Vaccine Deployment, my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), is leading on these efforts, including with innovative approaches that we are currently trialling, such as allowing multigenerational households to be vaccinated at once, to see how we can drive up uptake in those groups in which we have not seen such high uptake. As I said, overall uptake among over-50s is 94%, which is far higher than my best possible hopes just a couple of months ago, but if we can reduce that final 6%, for every percentage point that comes off it, the safer we all get.

[Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con) [V]]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement and for the extraordinary roll-out, which is still continuing, and I thank all the health workers across Wimbledon and south-west London.

In his statement, my right hon. Friend was right to identify the risk of new variants and to mention genomic sequencing and boosters. Will he confirm that there will be availability of rapid testing, with tests that provide results quickly and identify new variants, and that the booster programme will be rolled out on a similar basis to the vaccine programme, which has been so successfully rolled out?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, absolutely. The booster shot programme will be rolled out in a similar way to the first two jabs. There will of course be some differences, not least because of the interaction of an autumn covid vaccination programme with the autumn-winter flu vaccination programme. We still need the final clinical results on their interaction to see whether someone can have both at the same time, which would obviously be logistically easier. Those matters need to be resolved. The reason for the announcement today is that we want to be absolutely clear that a booster shot programme will happen this autumn—later this year—and we are determined to make it as efficacious as possible, because, ultimately, dealing with these new variants will require booster shots, especially for the most vulnerable.