Covid-19: Vaccines and Further Variants

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister was so right to say that the best way to fight variants is to defeat the virus worldwide. I am grateful for what she said about donations but, in the scale of things, they are a drop in the ocean. Can she update the House on the Government’s position in the current negotiations at the WTO around the TRIPS waiver and can she say whether, in the negotiations with the drug companies that she referred to, we are using our leverage to ensure that they share their know-how with countries in the global South that could produce generic vaccines for their populations?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I can confirm that all those questions are considered in the round with the vaccine manufacturers we are in discussions with. As to the noble Baroness’s initial question, I shall write.