Covid-19 Update

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 14th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I can tell my right hon. Friend that when the Government or any Government make decisions that have such an impact on people’s liberties, even if those decisions are made for all the right reasons—in this case, of course, to deal with this pandemic—they should be working with the House and working with colleagues. On any measures that are significant, of course the Government will come to the House and seek a vote of the House.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State talked about international work, and unless we tackle this issue across the world we are going to be in a pandemic forever. When he was at the G20, he shared with other countries what we are doing to help tackle it internationally, so could he please share with the House what is being done to tackle vaccination rates across the globe?

[Sajid Javid]

I can tell the hon. Lady that there was significant discussion about that with my G20 colleagues, but not all of them have, let us say, behaved in the same way as the UK in offering donations to poorer countries of vaccines. The hon. Lady will know that we are committed to offering 100 million doses to international friends, and that we have already provided or donated 9.2 million doses, most of those for the COVAX programme. We remain committed to that programme, and one of the things we are trying to do internationally, including through the Foreign Secretary, is encourage more countries to honour their commitments to COVAX and encourage those who have not joined the COVAX commitment to come forward and help in that way.