Extracts from Parliamentary proceedings - Feb 23

Wednesday, 24 February 2021 08:09

Extract from Lords consideration of Commons Reasons and Amendments to the Trade Bill Lord Polak (Con):...The Jewish festival of Purim takes place on Thursday night and Friday of this week. This is a day of untold celebration when we read the Book of Esther. In a nutshell, the Jews were living in the lands of the Persian Empire when a young Jewish girl called Esther became queen to King Xerxes and, through her bravery, appealed to the king to save the Jewish people and thwart an attempt to...Request free trial

Extract from Lords consideration of Commons Reasons and Amendments to the Trade Bill

Lord Polak (Con):...The Jewish festival of Purim takes place on Thursday night and Friday of this week. This is a day of untold celebration when we read the Book of Esther. In a nutshell, the Jews were living in the lands of the Persian Empire when a young Jewish girl called Esther became queen to King Xerxes and, through her bravery, appealed to the king to save the Jewish people and thwart an attempt to slaughter all the Jews. Purim will be celebrated —I hope in a socially distanced way—throughout the Jewish world this week to commemorate Esther’s courage in saving the Jewish people living in Persia 2,000 years ago from extinction...

To read the whole debate, CLICK HERE

Extract from Health and Social Care questions

Covid-19 Vaccination: Vulnerable Groups

Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
What estimate he has made of the level of covid-19 vaccination among (a) black and (b) white people in the most vulnerable groups.

The Minister for Covid Vaccine Deployment (Nadhim Zahawi)
Overall, we are encouraged by the vaccine uptake in the most vulnerable groups, with more than 17.7 million people in the UK having now received their first vaccination. To date, black people, who account for around 3% of the population, make up 1.7% of those vaccinated, while white people, who account for 86% of the population, make up 82% of all those vaccinated in England. We appreciate that there is still work to do, and our vaccine uptake plan addresses that.

Ms Abbott [V]
Will the Minister speak to Public Health England and ensure that local directors of public health make this information and other information in relation to specific cohorts available at a borough level to local MPs? He will be aware that the danger is that we could be hitting our vaccination targets overall, but certain groups are left behind. Many local MPs want to have some transparency about what is happening locally.

Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful for the right hon. Lady’s question. She and I visited the Hatzola first responders, who did an incredible job that Saturday night of vaccinating 364 people from not only the Haredi Hasidic Jewish community but the Muslim community as well. Our uptake plan has four key enablers: working in partnership with local government and directors of public health; removing barriers to access—in other words, access being available at the time and place that people need it; data and information, which we share with directors of public health, and we want to share it in more granular ways; and, of course, engagement, engagement, engagement.