7. Welsh Conservatives Debate: The supply and roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:28 pm on 27 January 2021.

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Photo of Jenny Rathbone Jenny Rathbone Labour 4:28, 27 January 2021

I want to welcome Angela Burns to the health portfolio, as I'm sure she would not have crafted this motion quite in this way. On point 2, we are supposed to be grateful that the significant supply of vaccines provided by the UK Conservative Government is being given to all home nations. I mean, is it not the job of the UK Government to deliver vaccines to the different nations and regions of the UK? That is their job. Why we should have to be grateful? Obviously, in other departments, they have treated Wales in a discriminatory way, in the way in which they distribute aid to Bristol Airport but not to Cardiff, or they renege on the Brexit promises that Wales would not be worse off financially, which is absolutely not true, or the billions that they're giving to HS2 but are not electrifying the south Wales main line beyond Swansea.

The Tories' five-point plan seems to be scoped to guarantee maximum chaos and minimum impact on the success of the Welsh vaccination programme. I have had many people suggesting that we ought to go along with the Tories' proposal for a vaccinations Minister, but in which case, which ministerial portfolio would you want to abolish? As Angela Burns well knows, the number of Ministers is restricted to 12; the alternative logic is that we have an online learning Minister, an active travel Minister, a bovine TB Minister. That is just not how Government operates. The second point is that you want all pharmacists and retired or former health professionals to be able to administer the vaccination. They are already doing that, but obviously they have to be vaccinated themselves before they start meeting lots of people, otherwise they'll be spreading the disease themselves. That's not a very good idea.

The final, genius idea is for a 24/7 vaccination centre across the country. How many people in the top four priority groups are going to be wanting to go along to have their jab at 03:00? How would they even get there when there are no buses running? There might well be demand for a 24/7 vaccination centre once we're vaccinating adults in their 20s—they can pop down there on their bikes; but not now. I'm fully aware of the concept of postcode lotteries, and indeed the inverse care law that applies to the disadvantaged, but the Tories have provided absolutely no evidence that this is what is happening with vaccinations in Wales. It's just false news thrown out to try and confuse the fact that the Welsh Labour Government is actually getting on with the job. And thank goodness there's very little chance of the Tories ever getting their hands on running the NHS in Wales.

I just want to point out that all the residents of the care homes in my constituency have already been vaccinated, and the remaining ones in Cardiff will have all been visited by the mobile vaccination unit by the day after tomorrow. All these care homes have already been—