Commons Sense

House of Commons · Ministers' Questions

Vaccine Development and Evaluation

Tuesday 11 July 2023 · 2 questions

Summarised by AI from the official record, so it can contain mistakes.

Read the full transcript on Parliament.uk

At a glance

Answered 1 Partly answered 1 Not answered 0

Key points

  • The vaccine development and evaluation centre at Porton Down, funded with 65 million, has been operational since early last year.
  • The centre supported vaccine roll-outs in autumn and spring.
  • Four approved vaccines were deployed in the recent spring campaign.

Topics (select to filter)

Questions & Answers

Q1 Neale Hanvey
NHS
Context

The question arises in the context of establishing a vaccine development and evaluation centre.

Question

What steps his Department is taking to create a vaccine development and evaluation centre.

Answer from Maria Caulfield

The vaccine development and evaluation centre, backed by £65 million for state-of-the-art facilities, at the Porton Down site has been operational since early last year. It supported the autumn vaccine roll-out and the spring vaccine roll-out earlier this year.

Answered
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Q2 Neale Hanvey
NHS
Context

The question comes in the context of growing public concern and mounting clinical and scientific evidence about mRNA vaccines, and the need for a broad portfolio of vaccines.

Question

In November 2021, Dame Kate Bingham rightly called the decision to withdraw support for the Valneva whole virus vaccine “inexplicable” because a broad portfolio of vaccines is important as we move forward against future variants. The British Society for Immunology states that there is an urgent need for second and third-generation covid vaccines, including universal mucosal vaccines with longer-lasting protective immunity. With growing public concern and mounting clinical and scientific evidence of vaccine injury from mRNA, why is the UK not seeking to harness the power of all technologies instead of establishing an inexplicable exclusive relationship with Moderna?

Answer from Maria Caulfield

I confirm to the hon. Gentleman that, in the recent spring campaign, we deployed four approved vaccines—Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Novavax and Sanofi-GSK—as part of our roll-out. We are using a range of vaccines to protect us from the pandemic.

Partly answered

Not addressed: The specific question about the Valneva whole virus vaccine and the exclusive relationship with Moderna was not directly addressed.

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