Covid-19 Update

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Monday 29th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend is right to raise that, and I hope she will agree that the JCVI has acted very quickly since the emergence of this new variant. If there are other things that can be taken forward to help to vaccinate the population, we will certainly be looking at that with great interest.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

I think that the Secretary of State briefly mentioned hotel bookings in answer to an earlier question. He will be aware that over the weekend there have been reports of a shortage of quarantine hotel spaces. How will he ensure that this does not undermine his reasonable attempts at a rapid response to the new variant, and where can someone currently find reliable information about the capacity and availability of such accommodation?

[Sajid Javid]

The Department already had contingency plans in place for countries being rapidly added to the red list. I believe that more than 600 rooms were made available on Sunday morning, and that will rapidly increase during the next few days. I think it has already increased since then. I believe that most of the information is available on the Government website.