Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether her Department plans to provide £150 million funding to the Oxford Pandemic Sciences Institute.

The Department has no current plans to fund this. The Department of Health and Social Care holds the responsibility for future pandemic preparedness. Pandemic Preparedness is an area the government keeps under constant review and our strategic approach to pandemic preparedness evolves in response to new scientific information, lessons learned from prior pandemics, responses to other infectious disease outbreaks and rigorous exercising to test our response mechanisms. In addition, over £405 million has been invested to date to secure and scale up the UK’s vaccine manufacturing capabilities to ensure a robust response to COVID-19 and potential future health emergencies.