International Covid-19 Response: Innovation and Access to Treatment

Lisa Nandy Excerpts

Thursday 5th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) for securing this debate, which could not have come at a more important time.

Our ability to rise to the challenge that Members have laid out so compellingly today is in many senses dependent on the outcome of the US election and the UK’s response to it. I think I probably speak for many in this House when I say that the approach the United States has taken to participation in global efforts to tackle covid-19 has been of serious concern to many of us. We know that a potential Biden Administration would mark a change in the approach of the United States, but do the Government have a strategy for a second-term Trump Administration? What is their strategy to convince the United States to change course? The UK is due to host the G7 next year. We cannot afford to see a repeat of what happened earlier this year, when despite all the talk of the special relationship, the Prime Minister was unable to persuade the United States even to participate.

The director general of the World Health Organisation said recently:

“The greatest threat we face now is not the virus itself. Rather, it is the lack of leadership and solidarity at the global and national levels.”

I think we all accept that the issues around vaccine, treatment and diagnostics have the potential to become a competition and to pit people against one another both within countries and between them, and that this poses a significant challenge for the Government.

At the beginning of this crisis, there was a chaotic and cut-throat global scramble for PPE and medical supplies. Some countries introduced export controls on vital equipment, even to neighbouring countries and allies. Prices were inflated as countries sought to outbid one another, and while scientists and doctors across the world have worked together to understand and fight the virus, they have too often done so in a vacuum of global leadership.

I hope the Minister will confirm today that she shares our view that this just will not do. There is a clear moral obligation that we must not shy away from in ensuring that some of the poorest people in the world are not shut out from access to treatment, diagnostics and vaccine, but there is also the reality that a second global wave would have disastrous consequences for Britain, for our health and for our economy.



This is not easy. There are going to be hard decisions and difficult trade-offs ahead. Decisions will have to be taken about who is first in line for a vaccine in the UK and how to ensure that it reaches the maximum number of our own citizens while extending it to people in every country across the world. That is why I hope that we will hear a clear strategy from the Government based on three principles. The first is clarity: who will be prioritised for access to a vaccine? The second is transparency and the reasoning behind those choices so that there is no implication of unfairness. The third is implementation: how will we ensure that sufficient quantities of a vaccine are produced and distributed equitably around the world?

A two-dose vaccine presents significant challenges in the United Kingdom, let alone in countries without infrastructure or with significant numbers of internally displaced people or people in refugee camps, which have already been seriously affected by covid-19. A vaccine that has to be stored at temperatures well below freezing also presents serious challenges in the United Kingdom, so we can imagine the challenge in other parts of the world.

We must learn from the mistakes that we have made so far. Too often, we have been too slow to act. We must have a clear strategy now from the Government, so that as soon as better treatments, diagnostics and a vaccine are available, we are ready to move.

We welcome the Government’s participation in COVAX, but sufficient progress has not yet been made. Will the UK use its position as a Gavi board member to ensure that COVAX has adequate doses to vaccinate priority groups, such as health workers in participating countries, and that the design is equitable, effective and genuinely global in scope?

I welcome the Government’s commitment to fund multilateral initiatives and institutions, such as the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and the World Health Organisation, but the Minister will be aware that there remains a multibillion-pound funding gap around the access to covid-19 tools accelerator and other initiatives. What is she doing to address that and what specific diplomatic efforts have been taken so that others around the world step up and play their part?

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham, I am enormously proud of the work that our life sciences and research institutions are doing here in the United Kingdom, but there is a significant challenge to ensure that intellectual property works for public health. Will the Government commit to transparency of all bilateral deals signed between the UK Government and pharmaceutical companies related to covid technologies and products? Will the Minister ensure that every deal agreed as part of COVAX is published in full, and that any agreement mandates transparency around all costs of development and production?

The success of COVAX depends on the ability of low and middle-income countries to afford co-payments. The Minister will be aware of concerns that the current proposed price arrangements may require some Governments to redirect money that is usually reserved for other immunisations or health services. Can she press for financing arrangements to be realistic and flexible to take into account the economic impact of the pandemic?

We welcome the commitments of some pharmaceutical companies to supply vaccines at cost, but there are reports that those pledges are for only a limited duration. Can the Minister tell us when the not-for-profit price commitment made by AstraZeneca as part of the deal with Oxford University is due to expire? If that decision is conditional on determining when the pandemic is over, who will make that determination?

What estimate has been made of the effect of the expiration of that commitment on the affordability of the vaccine for developing countries? Will conditions related to public health interests be attached to UK public funding? What work is being done to ensure that we are sharing technologies, know-how and data to allow us to deliver and upscale the manufacture of a vaccine across the world quickly?

Although the world has been slow to come together at a political level, the scientific community has been genuinely inspirational in reaching across borders to try to get us to global safety more quickly. The Chinese Government may have been slow to warn the world about the pandemic, but the same cannot be said for Chinese doctors and researchers who bravely blew the whistle on things that they saw happening in their communities. They have worked together in a difficult political environment, as tensions have been raised, and as the ramping up of hostilities between countries, particularly the US and China, has created a highly politicised, very risky environment for medical and scientific co-operation. Will the Minister tell us what efforts the UK Government are making to support those researchers, medics and scientists and the continued collaboration between them, and to de-escalate the rhetoric and tension among vital global partners?

This pandemic is a truly global crisis: it has reached every corner of the earth. More than 1.2 million people have died, with millions more suffering ill health, often for months on end. Just as here in Britain the virus has highlighted long-standing socioeconomic and racial inequalities, so covid-19 threatens to exacerbate the gulf between rich and poor around the world. It risks undoing decades of work to reduce poverty and tackle inequality globally, and many of the world’s vulnerable refugees, the displaced, those in conflict settings and those without access to adequate healthcare are exposed to the worst effects of the virus. We cannot stand for that, so there is no question but that the UK must rise to meet this unprecedented challenge. A global crisis requires a global response and now is the time to stand together and show leadership. If the Government are prepared to rise to the scale of the challenge ahead, I assure the Minister that they will have our full support.