Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that any UK-based research breakthroughs on a covid-19 vaccine are prioritised for mass production by the UK's pharmaceutical sector.

The Government has established a Vaccines Taskforce to coordinate the work going on across Government, academia and industry to accelerate the development and manufacture of a COVID-19 vaccine.

Work is proceeding at pace, with the support of industry and academic partners, to ensure that the United Kingdom has capacity to deliver across different vaccine types while those vaccines are still under development.

As the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has said, we are working closely with the industry-led BioIndustry Association Manufacturing Taskforce. It brings together a range of businesses keen to use their expertise to ensure the UK can produce a vaccine at scale, once it has been found.