Covid-19: Vaccinations and Global Public Health

Lord Oates Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Oates (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-chair of the APPG on Vaccinations for All, and I thank the secretariat for the briefing they provided to me and other noble Lords. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, in particular for bringing forward this important debate.

Some months ago, at the beginning of the vaccine programme, Nicky Tyler and her husband, my noble friend Lord Tyler—Paul Tyler—contacted me, because Nicky felt when she got her vaccination that she wanted to be able to donate to people who had not. We worked together to get a facility where people could donate individually to COVAX. As a result of that fundraising effort and with the assistance of the then Lord Speaker and noble Lords from across the House, including the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence, we managed to raise some funds. We did not raise huge amounts because, unfortunately, the Government and NHS bureaucracy could not get in gear to offer people that chance at point of use, but it was useful revenue none the less.

But all the time the frustration was that we knew that while money was going to be needed, money was not actually the key issue. The key issue was supply. The problem was not only that we in the West, in the UK and other countries, were hoovering up vaccines; we have heard all the statistics. But now we hear—the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, and the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, cited the figures—that, absolutely disgracefully, we were taking from COVAX as well: 539,000 doses, as has been said. That was more than went to Africa in that month. So, not only did we screw up the way things were supposed to work by all our bilateral deals; we then went and effectively stole from the multilateral vehicle—heads we win, tails you lose. That is not just bad policy; it is morally bankrupt and callously wicked policy. Whoever the Ministers are who signed that up should hang their heads in shame.

It is easy to talk about vaccines in terms of billions of doses and hundreds of thousands taken from COVAX, but the reality is that this is about people. It is about people in these African countries who are not getting vaccinated, who are getting sick, and many of whom are dying. It is utterly wrong, and I hope the Minister will take up the questions from noble Lords and assure us not only that we will not take from the COVAX Facility anymore but that we will return those doses.

The lack of vaccines impacts not only people’s health but the economies of those countries. Shortly before the Recess, I chaired a meeting on behalf of the Royal African Society and the APPG for Africa about the impact of Covid on the tourist and wider economies of Africa. As I mentioned in the debate on Africa yesterday, we heard about the triple whammy on African economies. First, we hoarded vaccines, meaning that their economies could not get back on their feet because people were not vaccinated. We then imposed travel restrictions against them, and then, not content with that, we slashed the aid budget well below what it would have even gone down to under the 0.7% rate.

The Government have to approach this in a way that addresses all these factors, because if we are taking out an estimated $168 billion in tourist income from Africa as a result of the travel restrictions that have been imposed, that impacts health. It impacts people’s lives, and African economies will not recover. We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, about the importance of allowing those countries which have the manufacturing facilities to be able to get on and start delivering. That must happen now, and we should be assisting it. On the issue of intellectual property, again, it is completely wrong, at this time of global crisis, that we are denying people access to those vaccines by hanging on to that outdated thing.

I conclude by reinforcing this point: every day that we delay, more people die, more people get sick and more economic damage is done. We have to stop, and start acting with moral responsibility.