UK Parliament / Open data

Coronavirus Act 2020 (Review of Temporary Provisions) (No. 3)

My right hon. Friend makes a good point, which would be worth following up.

Conscious of your strictures, Madam Deputy Speaker, let me make a couple of final points. On the issue raised by the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) on vaccine passports, the Secretary of State gave half of the right answer, which was that the Government would have to persuade the House to introduce vaccine passports, and he confirmed that the House would have to vote on it. The final piece to come in his wind-up remarks is that that vote will come ahead of any decision to introduce vaccine passports, rather than there being only a retrospective vote after their introduction. If he confirmed that, he would do the House a powerful service.

The final point is to reinforce what the shadow Secretary of State was saying, and what I said in my intervention, about speeding up second doses and third doses for those who are immunosuppressed and, to release the pressure on the NHS, focusing on improvements in social care this winter. My local NHS trust—I have raised this issue with the Secretary of State privately—has made the point that some of the pressures are because it cannot get the people who have received all the hospital treatment they need out into the community, because of a lack of either residential social care or domiciliary social care. For it to deliver on clearing the backlogs of healthcare and to stop accident and emergency backing up, it must be able to get people out of the “back door” of the hospital into social care or back home. It is social care that will put the NHS under critical pressure this winter, in the next few weeks, so I urge my right hon. Friend to focus on the social care aspect of NHS pressure, not just on NHS pressure. With that, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will broadly obey your strictures and sit down.

3.43 pm

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
701 c660 
Session
2021-22
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Legislation
Coronavirus Act 2020
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