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 for Northern Ireland and I continue to hold regular discussions with Cabinet colleagues as part of the Government response to covid-19. This includes regular meetings with the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and, of course, the First and deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland.

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 has been pivotal in delivering the successful vaccine rollout right across the UK which has seen over 995,493 of the adult population in Northern Ireland receive both doses of the vaccine. It will be important that we maintain this collective approach as we seek to recover from the pandemic.