EU Coronavirus Vaccine Programme

Baroness Noakes Excerpts

Monday 13th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

I did not catch all of that question; the audio was a bit poor. If the noble Baroness is saying that we should continue to co-operate on an international level, I would completely agree with her. I set out earlier the reasons why we did not think it was right to participate in this particular EU initiative, but we do not rule out participating in other EU procurement initiatives and we are in discussions on how we might do that.

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, has my noble friend seen the comments of Oxford’s Regius Professor John Bell, who said that the Government’s decision was “sensible”, that the UK has

“a very, very coherent and good vaccine plan”

and that the UK is

“way ahead of Europe in the way we think about vaccines”?

Does he agree that if there is a loser from the UK opting out of the EU plan, it is the EU and not the UK?

[Lord Callanan]

I had not seen the comments that my noble friend refers to, but I agree with them. We do have a number of promising vaccine production methods going on. However, if there are future international collaborations, either with the EU or with other international partners, then we rule nothing out because we need to work together to find an appropriate vaccine.