TRIPS Agreement: Vaccines Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Browne of Ladyton
Main Page: Lord Browne of Ladyton (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Browne of Ladyton's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
(2 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberTo ask Her Majesty’s Government how, and to what extent, the temporary waiver of provisions of the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), agreed at the World Trade Organization’s Ministerial Conference on 17 June, will expand access to current and new vaccines, given that it does not include a waiver of trade secrets.
My Lords, the consensus-based agreement reached at the WTO’s 12th ministerial conference streamlines compulsory licensing processes for developing countries to manufacture and export Covid-19 vaccines while preserving the incentives to innovation that the international IP system provides. We welcome that the agreement does not undermine the existing IP framework, which has been key to the effective response to the pandemic.
My Lords, regrettably, the Minister’s Answer—I do not blame him for this as he was probably following his brief—did not address the issue that, without the inclusion of a waiver of trade secrets, essential access to critical manufacturing know-how and clinical data, and therefore to the ability to manufacture new vaccines, is denied. Why is this our Government’s policy, and why did our negotiators, who spent 18 months resisting this waiver completely, try to weaken the text further by requesting the deletion of the reference to the possibility of expanding the agreement in TRIPS on Covid-19 to include therapeutics and diagnostics in six months’ time? Who on earth instructed them to do that?
I disagree. This is a very good agreement, and the Government have seen no evidence that IP rights, including the protection of undisclosed information or trade secrets, are any barrier to accessing treatments for Covid-19. The problem now is that we are seeing supply effectively outstrip demand, with the current level of vaccine production. There is evidence—reports of a South African Covid-19 vaccine plant being at risk of closure because it has no orders, and the Serum Institute of India halving production of AstraZeneca’s vaccine due to no new orders.