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 13 September 2021 to Question 41806 on Coronavirus: Vaccination, what the (a) minimum, (b) maximum and (c) average number of days is before the expiry dates of UK donated doses of covid-19 vaccinations; how many doses of covid-19 vaccine the UK has disposed of as a result of them not having been used before they passed their expiry date; and if he will make a statement.

UK vaccine supply continues to be an efficient distribution process, where vaccine is procured, supplied and deployed to meet UK requirements to offer all those eligible the opportunity to be vaccinated as soon as possible and as efficiently as possible. We have put in place robust mitigations throughout the vaccination programme to reduce wastage, manage expiry dates, and avoid vaccine destruction, including, where there is data to support it, looking at the extension of expiry dates. We have been assured by NHS England that unused stock which remains ‘in date’ should not be destroyed locally and that efforts should be made to vaccinate eligible patients.