Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, whether her Department is taking steps to promote competition in the vaccines market.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin
Healthy vaccine markets are essential to provide adequate supplies of vaccines at affordable prices for poor countries. This, in turn, improves availability and drives demand for immunisation. The UK supports healthy vaccine market competition through our investment in Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
A core part of Gavi’s mission is to promote competition and reduce the cost of vaccines. Gavi now supports 17 manufacturers to provide critical vaccines at a lower cost. Many of these manufacturers are now based in low and middle income countries. This has successfully generated over US$764 million in cost savings in 2017 alone and has reduced the cost of immunising a child by 17% since 2016.
The UK also supports Gavi’s Advanced Market Commitment for Pneumococcal Vaccines (AMC), an innovative approach to fostering market competition. By incentivising investment in research and development in the pneumococcal vaccine, the AMC has expanded manufacturing capacity and helped develop a healthy pipeline for vaccine production. This has helped enable 143 million children in 58 countries to be vaccinated against severe pneumonia.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to increase price transparency for vaccines.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin
The UK recognises the importance of providing affordable vaccines for the poorest nations. Through UK support to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the price of common childhood vaccines has reduced by 17% since 2016. Bringing down vaccine prices is part of a wider strategy in Gavi to increase access to vaccines and our significant investment supports global initiatives to increase vaccine transparency and help ensure their affordability.
Gavi helps secure the lowest price for vaccines for 68 of the world’s poorest countries. Gavi procures its vaccines through UNICEF, which makes public its historic, current and future prices for vaccines. For countries who are not eligible for Gavi-subsidised vaccines, the UK also advocates and supports its partners to make prices publicly available online. This helps establish benchmark prices so countries can negotiate better deals.
Outside of Gavi supported countries, the UK is supportive of the World Health Organisation’s Global Strategy and Plan of Action and Roadmap for Access to Medicines. These plans help increase global price transparency whist also encouraging innovation that is crucial for future vaccine development.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what funding her Department has allocated to the promotion of universal health coverage.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given on 11 April 2019 to Question 241478.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to encourage developing countries to investing in their health care systems through domestic resources.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given on 11 April 2019 to Question 241479.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that child survival is on the agenda at this year’s high-level global meetings.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin
The UK is a strong advocate for the achievement of universal health coverage to ensure child survival, though strengthening health systems – a key issue for this year’s UN General Assembly. The UK invests around £1 billion per year through bilateral aid programmes in reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health, and our support to Gavi, the vaccines alliance, has contributed to the safe vaccination of over 700 million children. The UK will host Gavi’s replenishment in 2020, a demonstration of our continuing commitment to support efforts to save children’s lives from preventable diseases.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for International Development:
What steps her Department is taking with the World Health Organisation to achieve the sustainable development goals to (a) end preventable child deaths and (b) establish universal health coverage.
Answered by Alistair Burt
The UK supports WHO’s leadership on health systems and work to achieve Universal Health coverage, including ending preventable child deaths and addressing global health security, and I commend WHO’s leadership on the recent Ebola outbreaks in DRC. DFID funds WHO to provide technical assistance, develop global standards and norms, strengthen country health systems and support health and wellbeing for all.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what progress has been made by Government Departments on the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin
The UK played a key role in establishing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and we are determined to be at the forefront of delivering them - both at home and around the world. All Government Departments have embedded the SDGs in their planned activities, supported by the Single Departmental Plan process. Departments will report progress on their planned activities in their Annual Reports.
Furthermore, the Government will present a Voluntary National Review of the UK’s progress towards the SDGs at the UN in 2019. We are committed to an inclusive process, and have launched a website inviting input from people and organisations around the UK. The website can be found at: www.gov.uk/sustainabledevelopmentgoals.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps the Government is taking to support developing countries to achieve universal health coverage and develop programmes to prevent diseases such as pneumonia.
Answered by Alistair Burt
The UK supports countries to build the strong and resilient health systems needed to achieve universal health coverage. DFID provides technical assistance and financial support directly to countries, promotes the technical leadership of the World Health Organisation, and funds research and new products that increase access and reduce prices for essential quality medicines and other commodities. Through health partnerships, we share UK experience and expertise in providing UHC through the NHS. Stronger health systems are better able to address all causes of ill health, including pneumonia.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, if her Department will use its position at international fora such as the World Health Organisation to champion healthcare policies on universal health coverage.
Answered by Alistair Burt
Achieving universal health coverage (UHC) and Global Goal 3 is a UK priority. DFID and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), which leads on our relationship with the World Health Organisation (WHO), work closely to promote the steps to achieve UHC internationally. At the 2018 World Health Assembly, the previous Secretary of State for Health and Social Care stressed the importance of universal access to basic healthcare. We supported the WHO’s thirteenth General Programme of Work and its strong focus on UHC. We are promoting UHC through international forums such as the G7 and G20 to ensure greater collective action is agreed at the 2019 UN High-Level Meeting on UHC.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what progress her Department has made on implementing reforms to prevent sexual abuse and exploitation in aid agencies.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt - Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons
DFID has introduced enhanced due diligence standards related to sexual abuse, exploitation and harassment for organisations we fund. The standards cover partner policies and processes on safeguarding, human resources, whistleblowing, risk management, codes of conduct and governance.
We are working closely with governments, charities, independent experts, suppliers and affected individuals in this country and the countries where we work to identify which further reforms will make the most difference in preventing sexual abuse and exploitation and improving the response when it does occur. We will bring representatives of these groups together at an international conference in London on the 18th October to agree a package to deliver lasting change across all aid agencies and the whole sector.