Covid-19 Update

Michael Fabricant Excerpts

Wednesday 5th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It is very important that everybody should get the ambulance service that they need. That is why we are investing £55 million more and that is why there are 500 more people on the ambulance staff than there were in 2018.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that the eyes of the world are literally upon us, with The New York Times and newspapers in France, Germany and Israel, among others, talking about the Prime Minister’s bold initiative in sticking to plan B and recognising that omicron is less serious than previous variants? They say that Britain was the first to recognise that, and that we were the first to start a vaccine programme in Europe and also the largest testing programme in Europe. Will my right hon. Friend still, however, maintain a watching brief on other variants, because there may be more serious variants in the future—we just do not know? Will he also take this opportunity, again, to correct what the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) said and say that we are not cancelling any cancer operations?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes indeed. I really think that she should withdraw that because it is not—[Interruption.] She did say that. [Interruption.] She did, and it was totally untrue. It is because we are the most boosted and the most tested, and because we have the most antivirals of any European country, that we are able also to be the most open. That is thanks to the efforts of this Government, but also hundreds of thousands of people up and down the country—millions of people—who are doing the right thing.