Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to support the scale-up of covid-19 vaccine manufacturing capacity in Low and Middle Income countries.

The UK is committed to rapid, equitable access to safe and effective vaccines. The UK has committed £548 million to the COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC), which is an international initiative whose volume guarantees encourage manufacturing capacity to be scaled up to produce and deliver vaccines at the scale needed to support global equitable access to vaccines.

The FCDO is working closely with key development partners in vaccines, such as the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), along with development finance institutions, regional institutions, and the private sector to catalyse investments into vaccine manufacturing in low- and middle-income countries.