Matt Hancock compared the production of the Covid-19 vaccine to making your own bread.
He told the Commons: “The rate-limiting factor is the amount of the actual juice available, the actual vaccine.
“Which is not manufactured like a chemical, it is effectively … it is a biological product.
“It’s a bit like if you bake your own bread, Madam Deputy Speaker, I don’t know if you do, but I sometimes do, and it is a bit like the creation of and growth of yeast.
“It’s probably the best way to think of it, it is a complicated and difficult task and … that is the rate-limiting factor.
“I pay tribute to those who are engaged in the manufacturing process.”
Hancock's comments come just hours after Boris Johnson said the easing of England's third national lockdown will be 'gradual'.
He warned there would not be a “big bang” where all the curbs on freedoms were removed at once.
Addressing MPs after the recall of the Commons from its Christmas break, Mr Johnson said there was now a race between the spread of the virus and the delivery of vaccines to the most vulnerable.
Mr Johnson said: “Our emergence from the lockdown cocoon will not be a big bang but a gradual unwrapping.”
The regulations run until March 31 “not because we expect the full national lockdown to continue until then but to allow a steady, controlled and evidence-led move down through the tiers on a regional basis”.
The Prime Minister told MPs there would be “continuous review” of the measures with a statutory requirement to look at them every fortnight and a legal obligation to remove them if they are no longer necessary.
“We are in a tough final stretch, made only tougher by the new variant,” Mr Johnson said.
“After the marathon of last year we are indeed now in a sprint, a race to vaccinate the vulnerable faster than the virus can reach them.
“Every needle in every arm makes a difference.”
