Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his Department's oversight of health policy of negotiations on an international agreement on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response..

We have been clear that the United Kingdom will not sign up to a pandemic instrument or any instrument that would compromise the UK’s ability to make domestic decisions on national measures concerning public health policy. Protecting states’ sovereign rights to determine and manage their approaches to public health is a guiding principle for negotiators of the pandemic instrument. Other Member States have also identified this as a priority.

The UK has been and will continue to play an active role in shaping this instrument to deliver on the UK’s global health priorities and protect the health of people in the UK and around the world. No content of the instrument has yet been agreed and Member States are still in the early stages of the negotiation process.