My Lords, yesterday, in a perhaps intemperate intervention, I expressed frustration over the Government’s vaccine manufacturing strategy. However, the Minister’s response—characteristically frank and generous—left me both alarmed and even more concerned. The noble Lord, Lord Bethell, said that
“we make hardly any vaccine at all. It is not for us as a nation to manufacture the vaccine. Where we have contributed is, first, through the science—particularly the AstraZeneca vaccine—and, secondly, through global leadership.”—[Official Report, 15/6/21; col. 1785.]
I profoundly disagree with this strategy.
In February last year I challenged the policy on mask supply, and I now challenge the strategy on vaccine supply. I am using this SI as a peg on which to hang my case. WHO stats indicate vaccination rates of less than 5% across much of the globe. The world is becoming increasingly reliant on China, with its hugely expanding export programme, for vaccine supplies.
India, with a vaccination rate of perhaps 6%, is struggling to deal with its own Covid crisis. Covishield, under licence from AstraZeneca, Covaxin, under licence from Bharat Biotech, and potentially Sputnik are all
needed to deal with the Indian crisis—there are a third of a million deaths already, and Indian vaccines are now subject to an indefinite export ban.
Therein lies the problem. Diverse vaccine ingredient supply arrangements cannot be relied on at a time when world demand is soaring. We need to ramp up our own ingredient and wider vaccine production capacity. The current vaccine shortages are an alarm call. A policy based on fortress Britain scouring the world in the future for precious ingredient supplies has huge implications for foreign policy, stability both at home and abroad, and the third world.
The answer is for the UK to change course and follow a more adventurous strategy. We should lead the world in vaccine supply with a manifold, substantial increase in full-spectrum-of-ingredients vaccine production capacity, here at home. We would win the respect of the world if we were to follow that course.
We need to listen to Gordon Brown when he stated last weekend:
“At least 11bn vaccine doses are needed to guarantee all countries the same levels of anti-Covid protection as the west. Without that … the disease will continue to spread, mutate”.
I hope we are all listening to those very wise words.
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