Question to the Northern Ireland Office:

What recent discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on co-ordinating a UK-wide response to the covid-19 outbreak.

The Secretary of State and I continue to hold regular discussions with Cabinet colleagues and Ministers in the Northern Ireland Executive on this important issue.

Although each devolved administration controls its own public health policy, we have been coordinating our responses to Covid, seeking alignment in policy and approach where appropriate, to ensure we were able to tackle the pandemic.

This joined up approach resulted in the UK-wide vaccine rollout for which over 75% of Northern Ireland’s adult population have received at least one dose of the vaccine. It will be important that we maintain this collective approach as we seek to recover from the pandemic.