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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent discussions he has had with vaccine manufacturers in the UK on a policy of prioritising orders for countries with low vaccine rates; 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.

We are not able to disclose details of vaccine deliveries to the UK, due to the commercially confidential nature of the contracts between the Government and vaccine manufacturers and for national security reasons.