Ministerial and other Maternal Allowances Bill

Debate between Wendy Chamberlain and Patrick Grady

Committee stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 11th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Grady]

As I said, one of those deciding not to stand is Aileen Campbell, whom I consider a close friend. She was the first Scottish Government Minister to take maternity leave, and Fiona McLeod, an outstanding Minister, was appointed to cover for her. The hon. Lady is talking about the difficulties that Members have in this place. Her former leader, Jo Swinson, was very negatively impacted, because not only was there no proxy voting at that point, but her pairing was shamefully broken, either accidentally or on purpose. That shows the amount of work that still needs to be done in this place despite the points that are being made about the wider consequences for society.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I agree. It is interesting that the Government are now much more supporting of proxies than they have been. The challenge around the pairing arrangements is not only the risk that they might be broken—that was certainly a very bad experience for Jo Swinson—but that the role that we play in this place is potentially much more visible than it has been in the past through apps such as CommonsVotes. People in our constituencies judge us, and rightly so, on our voting records, and pairing does not give people the opportunity to have their views recorded.

International Covid-19 Response: Innovation and Access to Treatment

Debate between Wendy Chamberlain and Patrick Grady

Thursday 5th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I entirely agree. Dare I say it, but even the UK’s Prime Minister this week accepted that the isolate part of the test, trace and isolate system is not working. That is largely driven by the fact that people who have an economic need to continue to work will do so if the supports are not available, and that must be true in other parts of the world as well.

As I was saying, the most affluent countries will inevitably benefit, in terms of vaccines, access to treatment, some form of recovery and a return to aspects of day-to-day life, which we so miss in this place and beyond. For the majority of people in this world, that will, arguably, be a limited prospect; it would be a hollow victory indeed if we can get the virus under control while many people around the world continue to suffer. It would be a false victory, too. Let me go back to the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) that I mentioned at the start. In order for a vaccine to be effective, we need to suppress the virus both at home and abroad, because coronavirus does not respect national borders. No one is safe until everyone is safe. That approach has been endorsed by the UK Government. I thank them for recognising that covid-19 medical products need to be treated as global public goods and for making commitments to deliver on that.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate and apologise for the fact that we have not been able to field a Front-Bench spokesperson from the Scottish National party today. I endorse everything she is saying and the points she is making about the importance of global access to a vaccine, when it is developed. As she says, it should be treated as a common good. We have to seek assurances from the Minister that the UK Government will live up to that, given all the changes they have made to their foreign policy, with the merger of the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the risk to scrutiny from that, and the potential abolition of the Select Committee chaired by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion). We have to keep up that pressure on the Government, and I hope we will get a positive response from the Minister today.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

It is always good to find common ground with a fellow Scottish MP, and I absolutely endorse his comments. One reason my party was so opposed to that merger was exactly that: the UK is seen as a global leader in this regard and we do not want anything to risk the continuation of that.

I congratulate the Government on making commitments to deliver on covid medical products being treated as a public good, for example, by contributing to the covid-19 vaccine global access facility, which will help procure and equitably distribute vaccines for covid. I look forward to hearing from the Minister today, but I urge her that we must do more. We must ensure that what the Government are doing on behalf of their own citizens does not unintentionally undermine global efforts. There is simply not enough global co-ordination on equality of access, and the UK has a moral duty to engage further. It is the highest per capita buyer of future vaccine doses in the world; we have bought up 10% of potential doses, despite making up less than 1% of the global population. I wish to mention two steps—which I hope the Minister will consider and commit to—that will be vital in ensuring that equality of access for these treatments and technologies is delivered as they come to fruition.

First, the Government need to recognise that currently there are just a handful of vaccine candidates, which means that production capacity is limited. One important step the UK Government could take is to work through international institutions to help encourage reform of the patent system, given the exceptional circumstances of this pandemic. Currently, there are legal safeguards for members of the World Trade Organisation, which means that members can override patent monopolies if public health is at threat. Germany, Australia and Canada have already taken those steps. South Africa and India have also proposed at a recent WTO meeting that all intellectual property monopolies relating to covid-19 tools, medicines and vaccines should be waived. In these exceptional circumstances, the Government need to be engaging with those ideas.

It is also worth noting that many of the vaccine candidates are being produced or developed using public funds. According to the charity STOPAIDS, the cost of development of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, whose successful outcome we are all awaiting, is being covered by public money, from the UK Government and others. It is a public-funded exercise. Concerningly, STOPAIDS reports that from July next year AstraZeneca will have the ability to determine the future price of the vaccine. Given the timescales that I have outlined, as well as the ongoing uncertainty as we enter winter, with cases climbing again in many parts of the world—we are all too aware of that in this Chamber—clarity on this is essential. We cannot have nations crowded out during vaccine development and then priced out once the vaccine is available.

So much public money is being spent on covid-19 research and development, in all our interests, and it is therefore right that the Government ensure that the products created as a result of that spend are accessible to all. These reports give more weight to the idea of relaxing patents, and that leads me to my second point, which is transparency.

The Government should attach stringent conditions to future funding of covid research and development, to ensure that public money is not being invested into products that will go on to generate exorbitant profits for their owners who, as a result of public funding, have developed a vaccine at low or no cost or limited risk. Those steps will also help to speed up research and development, and will arguably make products more affordable, enabling generic competition, driving prices down and ensuring that people from all over the globe, from the wealthiest nations to the most disadvantaged, can access covid treatments in a swift and timely manner. I hope that the Minister will take those issues into consideration.

The developing situation of what is almost a vaccine nationalism must end. Let us start to engage even more fully with multilateral institutions and our allies. Let us work together to ensure that, this time next year, we are celebrating a pandemic in abeyance worldwide, rather than still being in the shadow of this deadly virus.