Health and Care Bill

Debate between Lord Lexden and Lord Campbell-Savours

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Report stage
Wednesday 16th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

I now invite the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, who is taking part remotely, to speak.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, this is an important amendment. To me, it is the most important in the Bill. It concerns preservation of life in conditions of general pandemics. If you leave worldwide vaccine manufacturing programmes to the free market, you will never fully deliver. Profit will always trump the public good, unless the state intervenes in some regulatory form or another. This is basically why I am a Labour person.

With that in mind, it is clear that the more we are told that the current arrangements for licensing and manufacturing are necessary for reasons of quality control, the more I am convinced that this is not the only consideration in mind. There are other considerations—primarily the need to maximise profit. There is nothing wrong with profit if the justification is reasonable. It drives initiative and entrepreneurship. However, when there are wider issues involved, as in the case of a global pandemic which threatens the well-being of nations and the international economy, there must be a consideration of the wider public good and benefit. I am not convinced that, apart from the case of the AstraZeneca project, public benefit has been the driver.

In Committee, I set out in some detail a case wider than this amendment for worldwide licensing arrangements based on the original amendment of my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti. I remain confused by the Government’s position, which seems ever reliant on research and limited production at home, with volume production overseas. I would have thought that there are lessons to be learned about supply volatility from the case of oil from Russia. Equally, with both China and India leading the world in vaccine supply—at the same time as both countries remain reluctant to support us over certain areas of dispute and crisis in foreign policy—alarm bells should be ringing. I remain of the view that we in the United Kingdom should lead the world in this area of research, development, manufacturing, licensing and supply.

We are moving into an era of further pandemics as research-spawned accidental releases inevitably will reoccur, or perhaps they will not even be accidental in origin. There are huge foreign policy benefits to be gained arising out of being the world’s primary producer and licensee of these vaccines. When you help people, they remain indebted. That is the approach China is taking in many areas of its foreign policy.

I will give an example. The French Government funded my higher education in France 60 years ago. To this day, I remain indebted to France, with a lifetime feeling of obligation. This is often the case for foreign students. I believe that if we had been suppliers and licensees to the world over the recent period, in particular Africa and the third world, the payback would have been immeasurable, with huge implications for foreign policy.

I will exaggerate to make my case: suppose we had been supplier and licensee to China. Can noble Lords imagine what influence such beneficence would have had on Chinese public opinion and, perhaps ultimately, on Chinese foreign policy? A friend in need is a friend indeed—we should never forget that.

I appeal to the Government, even at this late stage in the current pandemic, to think long term, and create the vaccine supply, manufacturing and licensing programme that my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti is advocating. Her amendment seeks at least a temporary, time-agreed waiver. It is a start. I am using her amendment to argue a wider case, a new vision. Her excellent amendment puts in place a building block on which a longer-term strategy should be constructed. We should lead by helping others to help themselves. The rewards are inestimable.