Covid-19: Vaccination Programme

Lord Londesborough Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd February 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Londesborough]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what financial support they will provide to the global Covid-19 vaccination programme in 2022; and how many vaccine doses the United Kingdom has donated to date.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, the UK has committed up to £1.4 billion to help end the Covid-19 pandemic and address its impacts. This includes funding for COVAX, which has now delivered more than 1 billion vaccines worldwide. We are working with partners on how to finance Covid-19 vaccines more sustainably for 2022 and beyond. To date, the UK has donated 32.2 million doses; 29.5 million have been delivered to recipient countries. COVAX is in the process of allocating and delivering the remaining 2.6 million doses.

[Lord Londesborough (CB)]

I thank the Minister for his detailed response, but we are way behind the WHO’s target of vaccinating 70% of the world by September. Just 6% of people across low-income countries are fully vaccinated, while 3 billion people have not received a single dose. Last month, the Prime Minister was warned by 300 leading scientists that wealthy countries were pursuing

“a reckless approach to public health”.

Will the Government step up and further commit to the UK’s £1 billion fair-share contribution towards the urgent $23 billion funding needs of the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator, and help to address this moral and economic dereliction of duty?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, the UK is in total agreement with the noble Lord that vaccine inequity is shocking. We are committed to supporting global vaccination and equitable access in the poorest countries. That is why we used our G7 presidency in 2021 to push for more commitments and continue to play a leading role with COVAX and other partners in strengthening procurement and delivery efforts with partner Governments. We have delivered £548 million to COVAX’s advance market commitment, which will help to deliver up to 1.8 billion doses for developing countries in 2022. To date, more than 1.19 billion vaccines have been delivered globally through COVAX to 144 participants, including 1 billion doses to almost all of the AMC-eligible countries. Some 86 of those countries are eligible, and 44 of them are in Africa.