Recommendation 9

The glaring inequality in global access to vaccines has created the opportunity for autocracies such as Russia and China to seek to undermine the West and expand their influence by donating and selling vaccines. Even if these campaigns have fallen short on delivery, there is still a worrying potential to undermine UK influence overseas and harm its reputation as a force for good. We welcome the UK’s commitment to donate 100 million vaccines in the year to June 2022. However, this target falls far short of what is needed to meet the health challenge and protect British nationals from further outbreaks and variants, let alone meet our moral duty. We urge the Government to make every effort to achieve a significant increase in the speed and number of vaccines it donates through COVAX. Delays in vaccinating the world could mean irreparable damage to global health security, widening inequalities, undermining lower-income country health systems, and increasing the disease burden in the parts of the world that can least afford it. The UK should ensure that any bilateral donations are planned and timed to give real, sustainable and predictable support to other countries’ vaccination campaigns, rather than transferring small quantities that do more for the image of the donor than for the recipient. While a strategic approach may be appropriate for some foreign aid, lower-income countries in particular need predictable, needs-based vaccine supplies—this matters to us all. Ensuring there is low infection is key to ensuring there are few variants. In response to this report, the FCDO should set out a list of the countries that have and will receive bilateral donations from the UK, with dates, quantities, and the factors that went into each decision. The response should set out the FCDO’s role in selecting these countries, how this is coordinated with other Departments, and how it links to the objectives set out in the Integrated Review. We recommend that the Government sets out