Lord Loomba
Main Page: Lord Loomba (Crossbench - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Loomba's debates with the Cabinet Office
(3 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberAgain, there are obviously two strands here. There is the strand of international discussion about enabling international travel, which is subject to a review being conducted by my right honourable friend Mr Shapps, and there is the current review addressing the issues that noble Lords have been speaking about. As I have said, these are very early days—the review was announced only last week—but, as the Prime Minister said, we will seek the best scientific, moral, philosophical and ethical viewpoints on the way forward. Obviously, public opinion will be part of that.
My Lords, a Covid variant first identified in Brazil has been found in the UK. Some variants, like this one, appear to be more contagious, and there are concerns that current vaccines may not work as well against them. The UK Government have already announced a deal with the biopharmaceutical company CureVac to develop vaccines against future variants, with a pre-order of 50 million doses. Can the Minister tell us what steps the Government will take to ensure that no vaccine will be approved unless the expected high standards of safety, quality and effectiveness are met as those new vaccines will be developed in as short a time as possible?
My Lords, obviously I am not the lead Minister on vaccines, but what I do know, and I think the public know, is that our standards in this country in terms of assessing vaccines are among the highest in the world, if not the highest. The Government would never in any circumstances do anything that would jeopardise the safety of the public.