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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether his Department has undertaken an impact assessment on potential economic costs for the UK in the event that the proposed World Trade Organisation TRIPS Waiver is not approved.

The UK Government does not consider waiving IP 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. The incentives and access mechanisms provided by the IP framework have been integral to this success, without which we would not have seen the impressive surge of R&D and the unprecedented scaling up of production.