My Lords, I endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Patel, has said about the excellent speech of my noble friend Lady Sheehan. I support her arguments and those of all the previous speakers. I could never hope to bring the level of expertise that the noble Lord, Lord Patel, does to this subject.
I want to focus, very simply, on what happens next—and what happens next is based on what has happened so far. Proposed new subsection (2)(d) in Amendment 19 is an affirmation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which was first passed in 1966 and the United Kingdom Government ratified 10 years later in 1976. My first question, therefore, is to ask the Minister: do the UK Government still stand by that covenant, or is it another piece of international legislation that can be broken in certain limited and specific circumstances? I think that noble Lords will want to hear the Minister say very clearly that the Government are still committed to the full meaning of that covenant. If he does, I hope he will also acknowledge that the key feature of that covenant is that it requires access to medical care and treatment to be affordable and available to all. That is exactly what the second part of Amendment 19 is talking about. It aims to give teeth and real substance to that covenant and to make sure that medicines and treatment are indeed affordable and available to all.
What is the risk that we are guarding against? Why do we need to do this? The noble Lord, Lord Patel, also focused on those questions. Although there are many risks, the leading risk which this amendment deals with is greedy pharmaceutical companies. The story of Gilead selling its drug in the United States for £2,300, when it can be manufactured with a profit for £9, was drawn to our attention by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on Monday. That is just one of many examples of companies unscrupulously using their monopoly to reap profits at the expense of those who need the treatment. Sadly, there have been many other examples of it. In the current worldwide search for a vaccine, the pressure on companies to deliver a treatment, and the pressure from communities throughout the world to receive it, means that the risk of profiteering and gouging are very much higher.
Of course pharmaceutical companies are fully entitled to recover their costs, and that should include the costs of their research, including for the research on products which they cannot bring to market for one reason or
another; and of course they should be entitled to make a profit as well. But in the case of Covid-19 vaccines, nearly all the money has been pumped into the research from the public via Governments around the world. Hundreds of millions of pounds from the United Kingdom Government have gone to these firms. The Government therefore have some really powerful levers to pull to make sure that there is fair and equitable pricing by those companies and fair and equitable sales around the world.
Of course, the truth of the matter is that we have a WTO TRIPS agreement that protects pharmaceutical companies’ monopoly purchasing. But attached to that is the Doha declaration of 2001, which gives Governments the right to step in to prevent that profiteering and price gouging. Under the declaration, the United Kingdom has in principle the right to grant compulsory licences so that other manufacturers can make the product in an alternative way at an alternative price. We need to hear from the Minister today that the UK Government will use the powers available to them in the Doha declaration to prioritise the safeguarding of access to medicines for all right round the world. “All” has to mean all, not just within the United Kingdom but worldwide, as my noble friend Lady Sheehan made so clear, especially in low and middle-income countries.
The role of the United Kingdom in ensuring that an effective worldwide response to Covid actually happens may well require compulsory licensing using the basis provided by the Doha declaration. Certainly, having that basis, and having this amendment passed, gives the Government a credible threat that they will indeed make sure that medicines are available for all. I look forward to hearing the Minister agree that, if not Amendment 19 itself, at least a loud and clear commitment from the Government to implement their powers under the Doha declaration is very much a part of their armoury in tackling the current situation.
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