A Bolton MP has demanded that members of the government, including the Prime Minister, be investigated for corporate manslaughter over the handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Yasmin Qureshi, MP for Bolton South East, asked this question to the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, a day after Boris Johnson's former aide, Dominic Cummings, made scathing allegations, including that Mr Hancock should have been sacked early on in the pandemic for lying.

Mr Hancock has denied these allegations, but also claimed in parliament that Bolton is carrying out "tens of thousands" of vaccinations every day while praising the town for its efforts in dealing with a spike in cases over the last few weeks.

Ms Qureshi asked: “When will the Prime Minister and others be investigated by the police for alleged corporate manslaughter?”

She said: “Last week my constituents were wrongly accused of vaccine hesitancy and then we had a quasi-lockdown that no-one knew about and many people’s travel plans were thrown in(to) chaos.

“My constituents can forgive the Government for that, but I am sure that I speak for the country when I say that we cannot forgive tens of thousands of people who died and didn’t need to die – the chilling words of Dominic Cummings.

“Will the Secretary of State tell me, when will the Prime Minister and others be investigated by the police for alleged corporate manslaughter and why did we not follow the example of New Zealand where they managed to control it with a minimum number of deaths?”

Health Secretary Matt Hancock replied: “No, but what I would say to the people of Bolton is that – the people of Bolton have again risen to this challenge.

"The number of vaccinations happening in Bolton right now is phenomenal, tens of thousands every single day and it is heartening to see the queues of people coming forward.”

The most vaccinations carried out in a single day, according to Bolton health leaders, has been around 3,000.

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