Select committee: Foreign Affairs Committee
Recommendation 5
Fifth Report - Global Health, Global Britain
Published 30 Sep 2021
Paragraph 16
Addressed to Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Foreign Affairs Committee Global health security All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
Without a full and transparent investigation into the origins of covid-19, we are at greater risk of a disastrous new outbreak. By impeding efforts to trace the origins of the virus, Beijing is endangering its own population along with the rest of the world. Even with a full investigation, the limited access to data and to key sites in China in the early days of the pandemic makes any investigation more difficult—this must be addressed for any future outbreaks. The Government should work with other countries to increase the WHO’s powers to independently access countries where an outbreak has been reported, mirroring the work of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)—including through reform of the International Health Regulations, if necessary. The Government should build a partnership of nations to investigate the virus’ origins and should make clear what measures it will take to support countries that are facing intimidation from Beijing over their backing for an independent investigation.
From: Foreign Affairs Committee, Fifth Report - Global Health, Global Britain (HC 200), paragraph 16, 30 September 2021
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 16 December 2021 (deadline 30 November 2021).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government sets out action across the Committee's recommendations, supporting a pandemic treaty and WHO reform while saying it is "yet to see evidence" for a single, non-renewable term for the WHO Director-General.
- On WHO funding, it says it has led calls in the WHO working group for more flexible, reliable funding and for an increase in Assessed Contributions, and it announced a £340m, four-year flexible funding programme that is "now live".
- On vaccines, it says it will "donate a total of 100 million doses by June 2022", with 80% of doses going through COVAX.
- On the BBC World Service, it states that the BBC is editorially independent, so additional services to tackle disinformation are "for the BBC World Service to decide". It cites an £8 million uplift for 2021-22, of which £3 million was for disinformation.
- On aid cuts, it describes the reduction to 0.5% of GNI as temporary, saying it will return to 0.7% "when the fiscal situation allows". It will publish a Health Systems Strengthening Position Paper before the end of the year, with decisions on publishing a global health strategic framework "in due course".