Covid-19 Update

Steve Baker Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Before making an intervention like that, the right hon. Gentleman should first thank the teams who have supplied so much vaccination to this country, acknowledge that we have gone faster than almost anywhere in the world and work with us—work with the West Midlands Mayor and work across Birmingham—to make sure that we get the testing done as well and that we get vaccination done wherever possible. The fact that the fridges ran out of Pfizer demonstrates that we are getting through this as fast as we can, but supply is the rate-limiting factor on vaccination—it always has been—and on that the team have done a pretty amazing job, and I support them to go as fast as they possibly can over the weeks to come. That is what we will get done.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Across our country, alarming numbers of people not only forecast that this extension would happen, but increasingly believe that they are never going to see true freedom again—freedom from these restrictions, which the Secretary of State has promised us. What more can he say about the conditions under which we will get to step 4, to reassure those people that this Government will actually set them free and indeed in due course set them free from all the paraphernalia of the management of this pandemic?

[Matt Hancock]

I want to get rid of all the restrictions that have been put in place to manage this pandemic, and we will get there. My hon. Friend will have noticed that the link we have explicitly made is to the rate of vaccination and getting the vaccines done over these four weeks to come. Of course it is my duty to recommend to the Prime Minister the actions I think are necessary to keep people safe—as a Health Secretary, that is my duty—but I am also a parliamentarian who represents constituents who want these restrictions removed as soon as safely possible. That is our goal, and this is a difficult balance. I think we have got the balance right, unfortunately, today—I say “unfortunately” because I wish it was easier. It is not, but we are able to make some progress and I very much hope we can make the full degree of progress that my hon. Friend wants to see in the not-too-distant future.