Pandemic Preparedness

Lord Bishop of Leeds Excerpts

Monday 15th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

Excuse me, but I think we will find that Britain was a world leader in developing a vaccine and making it available all round the world on a not-for-profit basis. If any noble Lord can come up with examples where countries have done more than we have in this space, I would be delighted to hear them. I, for one, am proud of what we did.

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords—

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, why did we block the TRIPS waiver?

[The Lord Privy Seal (Lord True) (Con)]

The noble Baroness knows better than to shout at another Member when other Members before her are also trying to get in to ask a question.

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, do the Government have a preprepared communications plan for the eventuality of another pandemic—which could be next week, next year or whatever—so that it is not made up on the hoof? We remember that, in 2016, there was a big exercise in London which was forgotten about when we got to the actual pandemic. Are those provisions being put in now and preparations being made?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

That is all a part of what I referred to as having a toolkit for a flexible response. The problem always in these things is that you tend to fight the next war on what happened in the last one. We have to be careful in what we do and that we are not trying to fight the next pandemic on the last one, because inevitably it will be different. Having a flexible and scalable response, including communications, is vital.