Global Vaccine Disparities

Debate between John McDonnell and Navendu Mishra

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[John McDonnell]

There is a lesson I thought we had learned decades ago, which is that when we have viruses such as this, whether it is polio, covid or others, unless we treat the world, eventually we will become vulnerable again. That is exactly the experience we are going through now. Even with covid, we are going through it again. As we know from information from the past month, a new covid variant has arisen, and from what we hear, that variant is more transmissible than anything we have experienced. On all those issues, unless we have a global strategy to vaccinate the world, unfortunately we will not be able to isolate ourselves from future infections and future tragedies.

Let me return to the issue of the TRIPS waiver, which a number of hon. Members present have raised in various debates. It is worth reminding the House that there was a call from most countries to waive the rules during the pandemic. The tragedy for us was that the British Government were implacably opposed to the waiver. Britain was one of the last countries standing, and only on the last day did Britain sign up to the World Trade Organisation’s very poor compromise on the waiver. I will be frank: I think that is disgraceful. It is disgraceful for a Government of a country that had all the vaccines we needed. The onus was on us to do everything we could to prevent this infection from spreading, and to do all we could to assist poorer countries.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his important contribution to the debate. On the one hand, the Government are currently negotiating a free trade agreement with India. On the other hand, they blocked the proposal from India and South Africa for a TRIPS waiver at the World Trade Organisation. Does my right hon. Friend think that is the right approach to take to the issue of fair distribution of vaccines, and to our relationship with India?

[John McDonnell]

The issue that my hon. Friend raises is something that we have raised before. I commend India and South Africa for the work they did in lobbying so hard to try to get international agreement on the TRIPS waiver. We need to learn some lessons from this period, and one of them is that when the Government act unilaterally in this way, they contaminate future relationships—whether they are over trade or other matters of co-operation. I think that is the anxiety that many of us have. It is a disgrace that we actually sought to prevent others from making the drugs that they needed.

Many countries around the world are shocked at the way they have been treated by this country, and they want to start to do things differently. South Africa has set up an mRNA hub to try to crack this revolutionary technology, which we think can be used not just to prevent severe cases of covid, but potentially to create treatments for a wide range of diseases, such as HIV, malaria and certain types of cancer. The big corporations still refuse to share their know-how, but South Africa has worked out how to make mRNA vaccines and—even better—is sharing this know-how with other countries patent-free. A couple of weeks ago, President Biden’s Administration announced that they would work with the hub to help it. Many European Governments have offered funds, but Britain has done nothing. The Government must support those efforts and protect them from the pressure that will come from the industry. This is a new model of how medicines can be developed, and it deserves our support.

It is not just about covid. I believe that the way we produce medicines is broken. I ask the Minister to talk to Lord Jim O’Neill, who has been trying to get the pharmaceutical corporations to produce the antibiotics that our medical establishment has depended on for many years. He has been trying to engage in a dialogue to change practices within the pharmaceutical industry, but the corporations have done nearly nothing. Look at HIV/AIDs. We now have the means to wipe out HIV through pills that stop transmission. New injectables have just come online. Again, the countries that most need them are being overcharged or shut out of the market altogether. It goes on and on.

We have an industry committed to making huge amounts of money, but not to making and sharing the medicines that humanity needs. We have to change that, and conversations are happening across the world about how to do it—except here, where the Government’s commitment to shareholder return appears sacrosanct and is prioritised above saving lives and reducing human suffering. My warning is this: it is not only ethically obscene; it is bad for us, too. It means that the British taxpayer is getting a terrible return on their investment in new medicines, that the NHS is overpaying for medicines such as covid vaccines, and that we are not developing the medicines we need to prevent the next health epidemic.

There are huge healthcare disparities, because many people still lack adequate public, universal healthcare systems. Sadly, however, the UK Government, like the World Bank, is still pushing a deeply inadequate private, market-based healthcare model in many countries. It is telling that some of the hospitals that were supported with British development funds refused to treat covid-19 patients in the first wave of the pandemic. Many died, and many were left destitute by this model. It is time for the Government to stop pushing that failed model and start helping to build national health services for all.

Let me come to the specific requests for the Government. A coalition of different organisations, which includes Just Treatment, Global Justice Now, Oxfam, STOPAIDS and many others, is calling on the Government to demonstrate support for the World Health Organisation’s mRNA technology hub initiatives. The hubs will help to end the covid-19 pandemic for all by increasing manufacturing capacity for treatments and technologies.

More broadly, the hubs will support self-reliance, independence and health equity in lower income countries. They will ensure that we are adequately prepared for the next pandemic. The UK Government must provide financial support to the hubs and ensure that pharmaceutical companies share their manufacturing know-how and refrain from undermining the success of the hubs with intellectual property barriers.

As the new Administration is formed under a new Prime Minister, will the Minister, first, now back the coalition’s request that the Government use their influence to encourage Pfizer, Moderna and BioNTech to share their technology and know-how, and urge companies to remove intellectual property barriers to the production of mRNA products and related technologies? Specifically, the UK Government should call on Moderna to revoke the patents they hold in South Africa and prevent other pharmaceutical companies from similarly undermining the work of the new mRNA hubs.

Secondly, will the Government make a public commitment to support and finance the €92 million that mRNA hubs need to fund the initiative over the next five years? Some 59% has been raised so far from other countries, but not this country.

Thirdly, will the UK stop blocking the trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights waiver at the World Trade Organisation? Will the Government ensure that the TRIPS waiver has a minimal duration of five years and includes all forms of intellectual property, including medical tools beyond vaccines, treatments, and diagnostics?

I hope that, with a change of Prime Minister and Administration, there is a window of opportunity for the Government to think again on the vital issue of how to prevent the loss of life and human suffering that has taken place on a global scale, which we have done so little to assist in tackling.

I expect the Minister will repeat the Government’s response to the petition that was lodged on this issue by many members of the general public, restate the various contributions and donations that have been made and compare us to others. The reality is that the financial contributions do not go anywhere near what is necessary. More importantly, the issue that must be addressed is the blocking of the local production in lower income countries of the means by which we can tackle the pandemic. If it is not, that will be a stain on this Administration.