Covid-19: Vaccines and Medical Equipment

Lord Patel Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, we have extremely detailed and energetic plans to deal with misinformation, which is based on confusion, and disinformation, which is based on malice. It would not be right for me to go through those plans in detail at the Dispatch Box, but I reassure my noble friend that they are in place and are being characterised by a degree of consideration for those who have concerns about the vaccine. It is a grave undertaking to have an injection such as that. People naturally have searching questions they would like to ask, and we are trying to meet those questions with a degree of thoughtfulness and to answer them in the spirit in which they are asked.

[Lord Patel (CB) [V]]

My Lords, my question follows on well from the previous one. The development of highly effective vaccines against Covid-19 is a remarkable scientific advance. It is crucial that the public have absolute confidence and trust in their use, which they should. This will be reinforced when the scientifically-led process of market approval by the regulator and scrutiny by the wider science community is completed, following publication of the peer-reviewed data. Can the Minister assure the House that there will be no political interference in any way to speed up that process before the vaccines are made available to the wider public?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for the opportunity to make this crystal clear: the MHRA is an independent regulator, its work on vaccine approval has no political interference whatever and there is no pressure on either time or outcome. I pay tribute to those at the MHRA, who are extremely dedicated to the cause. We are going to approach the entire process with a spirit of transparency for exactly the reasons the noble Lord identified. Public trust is essential, and the only way we can gain the public’s trust is by being open and honest about how we go about these approvals. That is the way we will pursue the process.