Preparedness for National Emergencies Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Cabinet Office
Calvin Bailey
Main Page: Calvin Bailey (Labour - Leyton and Wanstead)Department Debates - View all Calvin Bailey's debates with the Cabinet Office
Preparedness for National Emergencies
Calvin Bailey Excerpts(2 weeks ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Calvin Bailey (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Barker. I want to focus on two areas of national resilience. The first is hospital capacity. The covid inquiry highlighted the lack of surge capacity within the NHS, and NATO recognises the lack of medical capacity as a critical vulnerability. The UK has an opportunity to address both challenges together through better integration of civilian and military capabilities.
The second area is supply chains for essential medicines. China now controls about 85% to 90% of global production of the antibiotic precursor 6-aminopenicillanic acid or 6APA, on which many common antibiotics depend. There is only one remaining producer of it across Europe and within the NATO area. That is a strategic dependency that should concern us all. Indeed, it especially matters because of the NATO article 3 commitment to national resilience, which is becoming increasingly important. We are targeting the 1.5% spending on the resilience component, so resilience is far more than defence.