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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps the Department is taking to support British domestic capacity to produce future vaccines.

The Government has invested over £300 million to secure and scale-up the UK’s manufacturing capabilities to be able to respond to this pandemic, as well as any future pandemics. This includes:

a) Facilities that have come online:

• £65.5 million for the early manufacture of the University of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine;
• £8.75 million for the set-up of the rapid deployment facility at Oxford Biomedica in Oxfordshire;
• £8.6 million to the Centre of Process Innovation to develop GMP-ready mRNA manufacturing capability;
• £4.7 million for skills training through the Advanced Therapies Skills Training Network, which will be delivered through both virtual and physical centres; and
• Funding for fill and finish through a contract with Wockhardt in Wrexham, North Wales, which is currently providing fill and finish capabilities to the University of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.

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

• £140.6 million to accelerate the completion and expanded role of the Vaccines Manufacturing Innovation Centre in Oxfordshire;
• £127 million for the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult in Braintree, Essex; and
• Funding for the expansion of the Valneva factory in Livingston, Scotland.