Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of civil servants working on the (a) development and (b) distribution of a covid-19 vaccine.

The Department has not made an estimate of the number of civil servants working on development and distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine because it is a cross-Government effort, covering all aspects of vaccine development and delivery, and includes people from a wide range of departments and organisations, led by the new Vaccines Taskforce.

This includes, but is not limited to, civil servants in the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy, the Department of Health and Social Care, the Department for International Development, Her Majesty’s Treasury and Cabinet Office. This is in addition to people in the Medical Research Council looking at early stage Research and Development, the National Institute for Health Research supporting clinical trials, the Office for Life Sciences on working with industry, and those in Public Health England working on areas such as vaccine procurement, contracting, and training.