Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has undertaken an impact assessment on public health implications for the UK in the event that the proposed World Trade Organisation TRIPS Waiver is not approved.

The Government has made no such assessment and does not consider waiving intellectual property rights to be an appropriate course of action to boost the manufacturing of safe, effective and quality vaccines. The existing intellectual property framework has mobilised research and development to deliver a host of new medicines and technologies, to detect, treat and defend against COVID-19.