Madam Deputy Speaker, with permission, I would like to make a statement on the UK COVID-19 vaccines delivery plan.

The plan, published today, sets out the strategies that underpin the development, manufacture and deployment of our vaccines against COVID-19.

It represents, Madam Deputy Speaker, a staging post in our national mission to vaccinate against the coronavirus.

And a culmination of many months of hard work from the NHS, our armed forces, Public Health England and every level of local government in our Union.

There are many miles to go on this journey, Madam Deputy Speaker, but armed with this plan, our direction of travel is clear.

And we should be buoyed by the progress we’re already making.

As of today, in England, 2.33 million vaccinations have been given.

With 1.96 million receiving their first dose, and 374,613 having already received both doses.

We’re on track to deliver our commitment of offering a first vaccine to everyone in the most vulnerable groups by the middle of next month; groups – it is worth reminding ourselves Madam Deputy Speaker – that account for more than 4 out of every 5 fatalities from the covid virus or some 88% of deaths.

But of course, this is a delivery plan for everyone, a plan that will see us vaccinate all adults by the autumn in what is the largest programme of vaccination of its kind in British history.

Madam Deputy Speaker, the UK vaccines delivery plan sets out how we can achieve that noble and necessary and urgent goal.

The plan rests on 4 key pillars: supply, prioritisation, places and people.

Turning to supply, our approach to vaccines has been to move fast and move early.

We had already been heavily investing in the development of new vaccines since 2016, including funding a vaccine against another coronavirus: the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, MERS.

At the start of this year, this technology was rapidly repurposed to develop a vaccine for COVID-19 and in April we provided £20 million of further funding so that the Oxford clinical trials could commence immediately.

Today, Madam Deputy Speaker, we are the first country to buy, authorise and use that vaccine.

Also in April, we established the UK government’s Vaccine Taskforce – or VTF for short – and since then, they have worked relentlessly to build a wide portfolio of different types of vaccine signing early deals with the most promising prospects.

It’s a strategy that has really paid off. As of today, we have secured access to 367 million doses – from 7 vaccine developers – with 4 different vaccine types including the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine – which we were also the first in the world to buy, authorise and use.

The VTF has also worked on our homegrown manufacturing capability, including what is referred to as ‘fill-finish’ process – in collaboration with Wokhardt, in Wrexham.

Anticipating a potential global shortage early on, we reserved manufacturing capacity to allow for the supply of multiple vaccines to the United Kingdom.

Like many capabilities in this pandemic, it’s one we’ve never had before – but one we can draw on today.

So much of that critical work – undertaken early Madam Deputy Speaker – has placed us in a strong position for the weeks and months ahead.

The second pillar of our plan is prioritisation.

As I set out earlier, essential work to protect those of the greatest clinical risk is already well underway because the basic principle that sits behind all of this, Madam Deputy Speaker, is to save as many lives as possible, as quickly as possible.

In addition, we are working at speed to protect staff in our health and social care system.

All 4 UK Chief Medical Officers agree with the recommendation of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation – the JCVI – to prioritise the first doses for as many people on the priority list as possible and administer second doses towards the end of the recommended vaccine dosing schedule of 12 weeks.

This step will ensure the protection of the greatest number of at-risk people in the shortest possible time.

Madam Deputy Speaker, the third pillar of our plan is places.

As of yesterday across the United Kingdom we have over 2,700 vaccination sites up and running. There are 3 types of site.

The first: large vaccination centres, that use big venues like football stadia.

You saw many of those launch today.

At these, people will be able to get appointments using our national booking service.

The second type is our hospital hubs, working with NHS trusts across the country.

And the third: local vaccination services are made up of sites led by GPs working in partnership with primary care trusts and importantly community pharmacies.

This mix of different types of site offers the flexibility we need to reach many different and diverse groups.

And importantly be able to target as accurately as we can.

By the end of January, everyone will be within 10 miles of a vaccination site and in a small number of highly rural areas, Madam Deputy Speaker, the vaccination centre will be a mobile unit.

It bears repeating, Madam Deputy Speaker, that when it is their turn we want as many people as possible to take up the offer of a vaccine against COVID-19.

The fourth and final pillar is, of course, our people.

I’m grateful to the many thousands who have joined this national mission.

We now have a workforce of some 80,000 people ready to be deployed across the country. This includes, of course, staff currently working within the NHS but also includes volunteers through the NHS Bring Back Scheme such as St John’s Ambulance, independent nurses and occupational health service providers.

And there are similar schemes across the devolved administrations. As well as trained vaccinators, non-clinical support staff – such as stewards, first aiders, administrators and logistics support – will play their part.

Moreover, we are drawing on the expertise of our UK armed forces whose operational techniques – we heard Brigadier Phil Prosser bring to life at the press conference a few days ago with the Prime Minister – have been tried and tested in some of the toughest conditions imaginable.

I’m sure the whole House will join me in thanking everyone who has played their part in getting us to this point as well as all those who will play an important role in the weeks and months ahead.

Madam Deputy Speaker, we recognise that transparency about our vaccines plan will be central to maintaining public trust and we are committed to publishing clear and simple updates.

Since 24 December, we have published weekly UK-wide data on the total number of vaccinations – and the breakdown between over- and under-80s for England.

From today, we are publishing daily data for England showing the total number vaccinated to date – and the first daily publication was this afternoon.

And from Thursday – and then on a weekly basis – NHS England will publish a more detailed breakdown of vaccinations in England – including by region.

Madam Deputy Speaker, this continues to be a difficult time for our country, for our NHS and for everyone, as we continue to live under tough restrictions.

But we’ve always known that a vaccine would be our best way out of this evil pandemic and that is the road we are now taking.

We’re under no illusion as to the scale of the challenge ahead – the distance still yet to travel.

In more normal times, Madam Deputy Speaker, the largest vaccination programme in British history would be an epic feat.

But against the backdrop of a global pandemic – and a new more transmissible variant – it is a huge challenge.

Yet, with this House – and indeed the whole nation – behind this national mission I have every confidence that it will be a national success.

I commend this statement to the House.

Christine thank you very much, I want to thank you and I want to thank Emmanuel for organising this One Planet Summit, because I think it’s an absolutely crucial subject.

After all, we’re making a lot of progress as humanity in finding the technological solutions to tackle climate change and reduce carbon. Clearly there’s a huge amount still to do but we’re starting to see a way forward since the Paris Summit five years ago which was I think a huge success, we can see that humanity can do this.

But the problem is that we are destroying species and habitat at an absolutely unconscionable rate. I think we’ve lost about 500 species in the last century, of all the mammals in the world – the biomass of mammals – I think I’m right in saying that 96% of mammals on our planet are now human beings or oxen or pigs or the livestock that human beings rely on. 70% of all the birds in the world are chickens.

In other words, there has been a total or near-total destruction of wildlife. Only 4% of the mammals in the world are now wild mammals, from whales to monkeys, to you name it.

That in my view is a disaster. We’re seeing a parallel loss of habitat, of forests and plant species of all kinds. So that’s why the UK is pledged to protect 30% of our land surface, 30% of our marine surface, to create marine protected areas – vast protected areas – which is something by the way an objective that we share very much with France, with Canada – we’re all engaged in this same effort.

And of the £11.6 billion that we’ve consecrated to climate finance initiatives, we’re putting £3 billion to protecting nature, whether it’s marine life, or timber conservation or sustainable food production.

I think that as global leaders, we must go further and I’m very pleased therefore that so many countries have signed up to the UN Leaders Pledge for Nature so that we have really hard-edged targets for the preservation of species and wildlife, but also the re-wilding of our planet in the way that Sir David Attenborough has suggested.

And I would like to see a world in which we give real meaning to those Aichi targets that were set so many years ago at Kyoto and I hope that our Chinese colleagues will be pushing that agenda at their Biodiversity Summit in Kunming. I know that we will be working with colleagues under the auspices of the UN to do that at the COP26 summit in Glasgow.

Obviously it’s right to focus on climate change, obviously it’s right to cut CO2 emissions, but we won’t achieve a real balance with our planet unless we protect nature as well. One final thought, don’t forget that the coronavirus pandemic was the product of an imbalance in man’s relationship with the natural world.

Like the original plague which struck the Greeks I seem to remember in book one of the Iliad, it is a zoonotic disease. It originates from bats or pangolins, from the demented belief that if you grind up the scales of a pangolin you will somehow become more potent or whatever it is people believe, it originates from this collision between mankind and the natural world and we’ve got to stop it.

And that’s why I think that this summit is so important and this focus on the natural world and on biodiversity is absolutely critical. Yes we must tackle climate change, but climate change must be seen as part of an overall agenda to protect the natural world and I think the One Planet agenda is completely right.

Mr Speaker,

Before I begin, I’m sure the whole House will join me in wanting to send our very best wishes to my Right Honourable Friend the member for Old Bexley and Sidcup.

I’ve been fortunate to work closely with him, and he is one of the nicest and most decent people in politics, a fantastic Minister, and a tireless advocate for his constituents.

We all look forward to a speedy recovery and seeing him back in this place as soon as possible.

Mr Speaker,

Last week, the Prime Minister set out the actions we must take to control the spread of coronavirus.

With your permission, today I’d like to update the House on the economic situation we currently face, the action we are taking to support the British people and businesses through this crisis, and the factors influencing our outlook.

Mr Speaker,

As the House knows well, coronavirus has already caused significant harm to our economy.

The scale of this impact bears repeating. GDP fell by 18.8% in the second quarter of 2020.

And while the economy grew as the country opened up over the Summer, it remained 6.7 percent smaller than it was before the crisis.

The OBR’s November forecast showed GDP falling again in the final quarter of last year, and also forecast the largest fall in annual output for over 300 years.

Even with the significant economic support we’ve provided, over 800,000 people have lost their job since February.

And while the new national restrictions are necessary to control the spread of the virus, they will have a further significant economic impact.

We should expect the economy to get worse before it gets better.

Mr Speaker,

In response, the Government has put in place a comprehensive economic plan.

We have provided a fiscal stimulus of over £280 billion.

To fund our Plan for Jobs.

To support public services like the NHS.

And to provide financial support for millions of people and businesses.

1.2 million employers have furloughed almost 10 million employees.

Almost 3 million people have benefitted from our self-employment grants, taking total support for the self-employed to nearly £20 billion.

Over 1.4 million small and medium sized companies have received government-backed loans, worth over £68 billion.

Tens of billions of pounds of tax cuts, tax deferrals and cash grants have been delivered to businesses.

And the United Kingdom government has guaranteed at least £16.8 billion of additional funding for the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

In response to the new national lockdown, we are extending and increasing our financial support.

We are providing a bridge for people and businesses until the economy reopens, and to give them the chance to rebuild productive capacity.

To do that, we have extended the furlough scheme to April.

We’re supporting self-employed people with a fourth income grant.

And we’ve announced, alongside the introduction of new restrictions, an extra £4.6 billion to protect UK jobs and businesses.

All business premises in England which are legally required to close – including in retail, hospitality and leisure – can now claim one-off grants of up to £9,000 for each of their business premises, benefitting over 600,000 businesses and coming on top of the existing grants worth up to £3,000 paid each month.

We’ve also made available discretionary funds of half a billion for local authorities in England to support local businesses in those areas on top of the £1.1 billion of discretionary funds we’ve already provided to local councils.

Sadly, we have not, and will not, be able to save every job and every business.

But I am confident that our economic plan is supporting the finances of millions of people and businesses.

Across almost all areas of economic policy, we are providing comparable or greater support than all our international peers.

And, as the Office of Budget Responsibility, the Bank of England, and the IMF have all recognised, our economic response is making a difference saving jobs, keeping businesses afloat, and supporting people’s incomes.

Mr Speaker,

Now, looking forward, there are signs of hope.

Firstly, with the vaccine, we can start to see a path out of coronavirus.

Vaccine rollout is our most important economic lever, so and we’ve made available over £6 billion.

We’ve now administered over 2.4 million vaccine doses across the United Kingdom.

And by February the 15th, we aim to have offered a first vaccine dose to everyone in the top four priority groups identified by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.

And the data shows there are potential sources of underlying resilience in our economy. In aggregate we have seen the household savings ratio reach record levels and, taken as a whole, corporate sector cash buffers have improved.

And, of course, we have now agreed a new trading partnership with the European Union.

We have removed that uncertainty from businesses and can now start to do things differently and better. Not least in financial services, where in November I outlined for the House our plan to reinforce the UK’s position as a globally preeminent financial centre.

Mr Speaker,

While the vaccine provides hope, the economy is going to get worse before it gets better.

Many people are losing their jobs.

Businesses are struggling.

Our public finances have been badly damaged and will need repair.

The road ahead will be tough.

Now it is time for responsible management of our economy; taking the difficult but right long-term decisions for our country.

But Mr Speaker, I am confident that with the comprehensive support the Government is providing and, above all, the determination, enterprise and resilience of the British people we will get through this.

And I commend this statement to the House.