Oral Answers to Questions

Angela Crawley Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend raises an extremely important point about PTSD in the NHS, and NHS staff, who do an amazing job treating us all. I will certainly look at the particular recommendation that she now makes; but clearly, as part of the £52 billion package of investment in the NHS that we have been making in the last year, we will be ensuring that we support the mental health of staff working on the frontline, and making sure that they have all the health and wellbeing helplines, all the advice and counselling, that they need to get through what has been, for all of them, a really difficult time.

[Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP) [V]]

Yesterday, the Scottish Government announced that they would go further than the Prime Minister and introduce a comprehensive system of supervised quarantine for those entering the country. It is evidently clear that countries that have employed effective international quarantine measures are now reaping the rewards of reopening their economies and reducing the unnecessary loss of life. Faced with the overwhelming evidence that importing new cases of variants could undermine our efforts again, why is the Prime Minister watching, waiting and hoping for the best, when we know that his dithering on crucial decisions has already had catastrophic consequences?

[The Prime Minister]

I do not think anybody wants to take any lectures on speed of roll-out or delivery of programmes from the Scottish nationalist party, but I want the hon. Lady to know that the Government will be very happy to help with accelerating the roll-out of the vaccine programme, as we said yesterday. The offer is there. The vaccination of the people of this country is the single most important thing that we need to do now, together, to beat this pandemic.