Covid-19 Vaccines Deployment

Lord Haselhurst Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the Welsh for hitting that remarkable number. I thank the noble Lord very much indeed for bringing it to the House’s attention. I absolutely assure him that distribution of the vaccines is done in very close concert between the four nations. These numbers are assessed and gone through in great detail on a weekly call on Thursday evenings between the Secretary of the State and his opposite numbers. The JCVI and Emily Lawson, who is running the vaccination programme, are in close contact with their DA counterparts. The figures I have seen suggest that the supply to the nations is more than the target numbers that we had originally planned.

[Lord Haselhurst (Con) [V]]

My Lords, is it not the case that, however brilliantly successful the vaccine rollout has so far been, we still know too little about transmissibility for it to be wise to switch at a stroke from lockdown to the previous normality? While this uncertainty persists, will the Government put caution before risk in their approach to the lifting of restrictions?