Birmingham could be left without Covid-19 vaccines as stocks run low and with the city yet to receive the Oxford jab, local leaders say.

Labour and Conservative politicians say doses of the Pfizer vaccine are due to run out on Friday with "no clarity" over when further supplies will arrive.

Writing to Health Secretary Matt Hancock, the Birmingham leaders criticised a lack of clarity over the vaccination programme in the city.

"We acknowledge that the vaccination rollout is in its early days, but we have also learned today that Birmingham has not yet been supplied with any AstraZeneca stock, while current Pfizer stocks are scheduled to run out on Friday this week with currently no clarity on when further supplies will arrive."

They added "it remains unclear who is responsible for overseeing the vaccination programme in Birmingham, and whom we should hold accountable for progress and delivery".

The letter is signed by Labour leader of Birmingham City Council, Ian Ward, Liam Byrne MP, Labour's candidate for the West Midlands mayor, and by Conservative MP and ex-minister, Andrew Mitchell.

Politically, the government is responsible. But operationally, in England, the NHS is in charge of delivering an unprecedented logistical challenge – immunising the country against the coronavirus.

A Whitehall official explains: “Ultimately the government is in charge of the vaccine rollout. It’s a Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) programme. We lead on the policy and the NHS leads on the operational delivery of that plan. So it’s an NHS vaccination programme – it will be delivered by the NHS. But who’s responsible for it? Ultimately ministers are responsible for it.”

So if things go wrong as the rollout unfolds – for example, if parts of the country don’t receive enough doses of the vaccine – then ministers will be held to account for that by parliament, just as they have been for the many failures of the government’s £12bn test and trace programme.

Zahawi will temporarily relinquish responsibility for most areas of his brief at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Under the interim arrangement, he will serve as a joint minister between BEIS and the Department for Health and Social Care.

The health and social care secretary, Matt Hancock, tweeted he was “delighted” Zahawi had been appointed, adding: “We’ve an enormous task ahead with the NHS rolling out coronavirus vaccines across the UK.”

Simon Stevens was just on TV saying that the vaccine rollout is like setting up a nationwide supermarket chain overnight. It's astonishing that people are surprised at glitches considering how complex this is. It's not a time to be moaning about politics and blaming this that or the other individual. We are in the middle of a disaster.

When a city with over 1,000,000 inhabitants doesn't know when its' next delivery of vaccine is due, with only 24 hours supply left, then I'd say that's more than a "glitch" .....

Incidentally, the article does say "A full vaccine deployment plan is due to be published on Monday." so it does appear that many engaged in the deployment are indeed still 'left in the dark' ..... "in the middle of a disaster".

For once I don't blame the government because they could not have planned for the variant and the mess it's causing.