Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether there is a material difference in terms of (a) medical and (b) public health effect between covid-19 vaccines administered overseas and those administered domestically by the NHS.

Comparisons between vaccines administered across the world are complex due to differences in vaccine trials and monitoring. When a vaccine receives a marketing authorisation or conditional marketing authorisation from a medicines regulator, certain factors or conditions are specified by the national regulator in order to ensure the product is of the highest quality, safety and efficacy for authorisation.

We are currently considering which regulators and associated vaccines we would be confident to recognise in the United Kingdom.