Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what his Department’s plans are to increase the UK’s vaccine manufacturing capacity to meet future demand.

The Government has invested over £300 million to secure and scale-up the UK’s manufacturing capabilities to be able to respond to the pandemic, including:

a) Facilities that have come online:

• £4.7 million for skills training through the Advanced Therapies Skills Training Network, which will be delivered through both virtual and physical centres;
• £8.75 million for the set-up of the rapid deployment facility at Oxford Biomedica in Oxfordshire;
• £65.5 million for the early manufacture of the University of Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine;
• Fill and finish through a contract with Wockhardt in Wrexham, North Wales which is currently providing fill-finish capabilities to the University of Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine; and
• The expansion of the Valneva factory in Livingston, Scotland, which will also provide longer-term UK capacity.

b) Facilities that will come online later this year, to help provide longer term UK capacity:

• £93 million to accelerate the completion and expanded role of the Vaccines Manufacturing Innovation Centre in Oxfordshire; and
• £127 million for the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult in Braintree, Essex.