Roger Gale
Main Page: Roger Gale (Conservative - North Thanet)Department Debates - View all Roger Gale's debates with the Cabinet Office
(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con) [V]
I share the view expressed by the Father of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), at the start. I am proud to be a member of a party which, in its last manifesto, said that it would spend 0.7% of gross national income on overseas aid, but we all know that because of the fall in GNI, the 0.7% represents less money than it did a year ago. Now is not the time to cut our aid to Yemen or to withdraw our support for voluntary services overseas, so will my right hon. Friend consider bridging the gap by additionally donating extra supplies of the world’s finest, safest covid vaccine—the Oxford vaccine—to developing countries?
The Prime Minister
I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for his suggestion. I remind him of what I said about the commitment of this country to overseas aid, which is enormous by any objective view. On the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, this is the only vaccine in the world, under the terms of the deal struck between the UK Government, the Oxford scientists and AstraZeneca, that is sold at cost around the world. I thank him for raising that, because it is another reason for people in this country to be proud of the outward-looking, engaging, fundamentally compassionate attitude of the British Government and people.