Covid-19 Update

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I certainly hope so; that is one of the things that we are talking about with the NHS. For now, that is not possible. We of course have extra emergency capacity in the Nightingales, and the testing regime has allowed the NHS to restore many of its services, so that in places such as Worcestershire it is able to carry on with almost all the necessary activity, including the electives and the cancer work, even through this second peak. I pay tribute to the NHS in Worcestershire for the work that it has done, with the support of the testing regime, and I really hope that the vaccine allows that to improve again, once we have got enough of the people who are most vulnerable to this disease vaccinated.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

The Nottingham Post website is reporting today that 72 areas in tier 2 now have a higher covid rate than tier 3 Nottingham. Since we came out of the national lockdown and went into tier 3, our situation has improved on all five indicators, but we still do not know whether the improvement is enough to allow us to move down a tier later this week. Will the Secretary of State spell out the thresholds that will be used, and will he commit to publishing the rationale for his decision making?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes. We have set out what statistics we look at, and we publish the statistics. I think Nottinghamshire, including Nottingham, has done a very good job in getting its cases down.