Covid-19: Vaccinations and Global Public Health

Baroness Sugg Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

My Lords, the vaccination effort, here in the UK and in many parts of the world, has been nothing short of incredible, with 5 billion vaccines developed, manufactured and distributed. Of course we must pay tribute to the scientists, health workers and all involved in that but, as the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, set out so powerfully, this incredible success has not been equitable across the world. I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving us the opportunity to debate this today.

I will add a further disturbing statistic to the noble Lord’s: 50% of the world’s vaccine supply has been bought by high-income countries, which account for just 16% of the world’s population. So the vaccine rollout has not been equitable, and indeed has exacerbated existing pre-pandemic inequalities.

The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted every corner of the world and, to avert further public health and economic disaster, we must address this vaccine inequality. It is in our enlightened self-interest to do so, as well as being the correct ethical thing to do. While the UK is gratefully reaping the benefits of a successful vaccination programme, that is not the case in the rest of the world. We know that economic recovery will be longer in poorer economies, compared to advanced ones, and that low-income countries will now face longer-term debt. We will see an increase in poverty and a reduction in spending on health systems. Unless we address this inequality of distribution, we will see the reversal of many of the impressive gains in development we have seen over the last few decades. Achieving the sustainable development goals by 2030 will be well out of reach.

The moral and ethical case for vaccine equity is clear; if that is not enough, so is the case for it being in our enlightened self-interest. It is right that wealthier countries should do more. Immunising many people in just a few countries, while in large parts of the world the virus remains unchecked, will simply allow more variants to emerge in these places. When variants appear, they will end up in the UK, in the end. We can close our borders and try to buy ourselves more time but, at some point, if the variant has sufficient biological advantages, it will spread around the world and into every nation. This is a global problem that must be dealt with globally.

It is clear that more must be done. In the United Kingdom, we have high vaccination rates, relative wealth, the presidency of the G7 and a desire to be a force for good in the world, so we in the UK must do more. We are rightly proud of our involvement in the development of the AstraZeneca vaccine, our early activity and our funding for COVAX. But, as we have heard, COVAX is struggling to deliver its objectives, given the practice of high-income countries such as ours to make deals directly with manufacturers. This has been exacerbated by high-income countries using COVAX for their own vaccinations. As we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, in June alone the UK received around 539,000 vaccine doses from COVAX—more than double the amount sent to Africa that month. Not much surprises me these days, but I was genuinely taken aback when I heard that. While COVAX is open to higher-income countries, given the supply issues it is facing, we should surely not be using its precious doses in our own country.

As I understand it, the UK has another 27 million doses on offer from COVAX and we are not the only country involved in this activity although, under public pressure, Canada has returned some of the doses it got from COVAX. We are not the only country but, given that we have 27 million additional doses on offer, will my noble friend commit the UK not to take up the option to withdraw any further vaccines from COVAX, so that the vaccines that it has can go to countries with far lower vaccination rates than ours?

I welcome the fact that the Prime Minister put global vaccination on the agenda for the G7 summit in Cornwall, and I would welcome some updates on progress following that. While falling well short of the 11 billion doses that the WHO said are needed, we saw pledges for 870 million doses via COVAX, half of which will be delivered before the end of the year. The UK’s part in this was 100 million doses, with 30 million going before the end of the year. We all know that time is of the essence, so can my noble friend tell me how many of those doses have been delivered and whether we are on track for that 50%?

The G7 summit communiqué also pledged to create the appropriate frameworks to strengthen our collective defences, so I ask what progress has been made on that and whether the task force to which we committed is up and running. The G7 also agreed to “engage constructively” with discussions at the WTO on the intellectual property issue; can my noble friend share an update on that? Finally, will the Government back calls, at the United Nations General Assembly this month, for a global summit to ignite urgent global action to end the pandemic?

I look forward to my noble friend’s contribution at the end, setting out what the UK has done so far. That is not insignificant, but the UK has a responsibility and opportunity to contribute more to end the global pandemic. I hope the Government will do so.