Covid-19 Update

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, Teesside is playing it part. In fact, earlier today I met Ben Houchen, the newly re-elected Mayor of Teesside, to talk about what more we can do to invest in Teesside—in the NHS in Teesside, and in life sciences, such as vaccine production, on Teesside. He is doing a fantastic job of taking the voice of Teesside right into the heart of Whitehall—as is my hon. Friend, of course.

My hon. Friend is quite right to raise this point about the Novavax vaccine, which is going to be manufactured on Teesside. Of course, we will study its impact against the new variants, but we have a high degree of confidence that the Novavax vaccine has a broad coverage. In fact, one of its attractions is that it has that broad coverage, not just against the variant that it was precisely designed to deal with but against a wide range of variants. That is part of the theory of the technology that underpins that particular vaccine. It is a very modern vaccine, it is very exciting, and it is terrific that it is being made on Teesside.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab) [V]]

We are not safe until everyone is safe. Following President Biden’s announcement that the US Government will support an intellectual property waiver to help scale up the volume of safe and effective covid-19 vaccines globally, can the Secretary of State explain why the British Government are still blocking the agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights—TRIPS—waiver at the World Trade Organisation?

[Matt Hancock]

Because we have a better approach. Our UK approach has led to the vaccination of 400 million people. The hon. Gentleman should take enormous pride in that. We have been able to do that while protecting the intellectual property rights that will lead to the development, for instance, of the new vaccines, the new technologies and the variant vaccines that are going to be necessary in the future. It is that combination of the protection of intellectual property rights plus the giving away of this vaccine at cost to the developing world—to lower and middle-income countries.

I reiterate the point I made earlier, which I hope the hon. Gentleman will take pride in: of the 54 million vaccine doses delivered through the COVAX facility, of which we are a major funder, 53 million have been of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, delivered with no charge for the intellectual property. That is the approach we should be taking. That is what we will do, and I urge everybody around the world to follow.