Lord Kakkar
Main Page: Lord Kakkar (Crossbench - Life peer)
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
I will do my best to answer the noble Baroness’s question, but it stretches into the health brief somewhat. On protection for the very vulnerable, on Monday we announced the rollout of the programme for the second booster for the vulnerable and the over-75s. It is not possible to predict what the long-term vaccine programme will look like, but undoubtedly there will be another vaccine in the autumn. We already have contracts in place for vaccines that we believe will be effective against any future variants and those trials have already started. Given the way the UK is approving these vaccines, with a rolling programme of research going to the regulatory authority, they can be approved very quickly and could even be introduced by September or October this year.
Lord Kakkar (CB)
My Lords, I draw attention to my registered interests. Is the Minister content that we are retaining sufficient capacity and infrastructure for testing and, in particular, genome sequencing of the virus in positive cases? This will inform a better understanding of the emergence of new variants, which will ultimately inform the development of new vaccines.
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
The noble Lord asks a very good question; unfortunately, I do not think I will be able to give him a proper answer. I suggest that I speak to my colleague in the Department of Health and get him a written answer, which we will make available to all noble Lords.