Covid-19: Vaccination Programme

Baroness Sugg Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her question, which relates to shelf life. Decisions on donation are driven by the availability of vaccines from domestic supply. Once the Health Secretary is confident that vaccines are available to donate, the Foreign Secretary prioritises how they are shared. Avoiding vaccine expiry and the wastage of vaccines is a UK core objective, determining when and where we share and deploy our doses. For all bilateral donations, we have sought assurances that recipients have the capacity to roll out the quantity of doses in line with the national vaccination programmes ahead of their expiry date. Vaccines delivered by COVAX are delivered in consultation with countries and distributed in line with the WHO’s equitable allocation framework.

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

My Lords, the price point of how we declare our donated vaccines as overseas development assistance matters here, and the Centre for Global Development has a robust calculation showing that the average price the UK has paid is $4.40. This is less than the OECD’s DAC ODA amount of $6.72, but we can indeed charge what we pay for them. Can my noble friend the Minister reassure me that the Government will not make any profit from the vaccines that we donate, which were, of course, originally bought for the UK? Charging poorer countries more than we paid for these vaccines not only is morally wrong but will reduce our international development spending further.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for her question. She is right: the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee secretariat has now provided guidance for reporting donations of excess Covid-19 vaccine doses in 2021 in ODA. The UK is considering this guidance together with our other commitments and obligations and is actively engaging with the Development Assistance Committee secretariat on valuing Covid-19 vaccines in ODA assistance in 2021. The DAC secretariat will review its methodology for donations in 2022, and all donations to date have been to ODA-eligible countries.