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 22 June 2020 to Question 59764 on Vaccination: Research, what progress the Vaccine Taskforce has made in accelerating vaccine development outside of Oxford and London.

The Government is taking a portfolio-based approach that monitors the landscape of coronavirus vaccine development, both here in the UK and internationally. Our approach is to develop vaccine candidates across the main potential technologies, including adenoviral vaccines, mRNA and nucleic acid vaccines, adjuvanted protein vaccines and other approaches, including whole inactivated viral vaccines. We cannot comment on negotiations with industry at present because of commercial confidentiality, but will be announcing developments in due course.