Oral Answers to Questions

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend very much for his question and I will do my utmost—he has invited everybody, and I hope that a lot of people will be going to Lincoln. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport will have listened carefully to what he had to say.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

Q6.   “Inexplicable” is how the former vaccine taskforce chair Kate Bingham described this Government’s decision to cancel their contract with Livingston-based vaccine developer Valneva—a company that the Prime Minister has himself visited. She also noted how shoddily Valneva had been treated and how damaging his Government’s decision had been for UK life sciences, exports and jobs in my Livingston constituency, where a state-of-the-art vaccine manufacturing plant now lies unfinished. There has been no apology for the incorrect statements in the House, so will the Prime Minister please meet me and representatives of Valneva, and will he tell me whether his Government have tabled proposals to reach the amicable resolution that was promised from the Dispatch Box? If not, when will they do so?

[The Prime Minister]

I was personally very disappointed when we could not get approval for the Valneva vaccine in the way that we had hoped, and I know how disappointing that was to colleagues in Scotland. I will certainly ensure that the hon. Member gets the relevant meeting. What we are doing is investing massively in this country’s vaccine capability across the country so that we are prepared for the next pandemic, and I very much hope that Valneva will be part of that.