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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Answer of 12 February 2021 to Question 148771, on Vaccines: Manufacturing Industries, what steps he has taken to increase offline vaccine manufacturing infrastructure since the beginning of the covid-19 outbreak.

The Government has provided funding to establish Centres of Excellence for vaccines to expand the UK’s manufacturing capacity and associated advanced therapeutics. The aim is to respond to this pandemic as well as increase the UK’s pandemic preparedness for the future.

Investments which will contribute to our future preparedness include:

• £93 million to accelerate the completion and expanded capacity of the Vaccines Manufacturing Innovation Centre in Oxfordshire;

• £127 million for the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult in Braintree, Essex;

• £8.6 million for the Centre of Process Innovation (CPI) to develop Good Manufacturing Process (GMP)-ready messenger RNA (mRNA) manufacturing capability;

• As recently announced in the Budget, a further £5 million for the CPI to support their creation of a “library” of mRNA vaccines developed to tackle emerging COVID-19 variants;

• Funding for the expansion of the Valneva factory in Livingston, Scotland; and

• £4.7 million for skills training through the Advanced Therapies Skills Training Network which will ensure that the UK has the skills and expertise to operate existing and upcoming facilities.