TRIPS Agreement: Vaccines Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord McNicol of West Kilbride
Main Page: Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord McNicol of West Kilbride's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
(2 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberThe position is as I repeated to my noble friend Lady Sugg: all vaccine dose donations will be reported as overseas development assistance and be included within the 0.5%. I think the noble Lord is being very unfair about the UK’s support. We are in fact a leader of international support in response to the pandemic; we have spent more than £2.1 billion since 2020 to address its impacts and that includes up to £829 million to support the global development, manufacture and delivery of vaccines, treatments and tests in lower-income countries.
My Lord, the deal agreed at the WTO conference obviously fell short of what was initially proposed. Even after 18 months, discussions on extending the waiver to treatments and tests have been postponed again by another six months. Surely sharing clinical data and research on vaccine production is in our own self-interest, but a poor substitute would be having a relationship with or speaking to the pharmaceutical industry. Have Her Majesty’s Government had any representations with British pharmaceutical corporations to try to bypass the obstacles that exist?
The UK Government have regular meetings with pharmaceutical companies. Of course we want to see the maximum amount of support offered to lower-income countries. I just outlined the support we are providing, but we agreed at the meeting to a consensus-based decision that does not waive IP rights but streamlines the processes for developing countries using compulsory licensing to produce and export Covid-19 vaccines.