Former Covid vaccine tsar warns UK ‘dismantling’ systems for fighting future pandemics

Britain losing leadership position and falling behind EU on preparedness for outbreaks, says Kate Bingham

Britain’s former coronavirus vaccines tsar has accused the government of “dismantling” the systems she put in place to defend the country against future pandemics.

Dame Kate Bingham warned that the UK has “lost its leadership” on vaccine research, development, manufacturing and procurement, and is now trailing behind the European Union in preparedness for a new outbreak.

She warned the government’s plan to join the Pacific-region CPTPP trade bloc could be “catastrophic” for UK vaccine production because it would involve signing up to a different intellectual property regime from the EU.

In her role as head of the Vaccines Taskforce, Dame Kate was credited with making Britain the first country in the world to start inoculating its citizens against Covid-19 in December 2020.

But she told a joint hearing of the House of Commons health and science committees that since her departure there had been “no expert or leader” put in place to coordinate preparations for a potential new disease.

“Everything from vaccine innovation scale-up to landscaping, figuring out where the new variants may come from, the new potential pandemic viruses, people that understand manufacturing, scaling up clinical development, regulation - all of that has gone,” she said.

“Maybe there’s someone secret out there that is doing that, but not as far as I can see.

Dame Kate, who was picked to lead the vaccine drive after a long career raising venture capital for life science start-ups, told the panel of MPs: “We need to improve the quality of the vaccines – the durability, the ability to stop transmission, lots of things need to be improved.

“That’s not going to happen in a vacuum, and that’s where we need to bring together the capabilities that we have got - working in partnership as we did effectively in 2020 - to actually make sure we stay ahead of the game and are not constantly looking in the rearview mirror.”

Dame Kate’ s comments come shortly after the director of Oxford University’s Pandemic Sciences Institute, Professor Sir Peter Horby, warned that ministers had not delivered the investment to back up their “political rhetoric” about preventing another Covid-style outbreak.

Public health expert Prof Gabriel Scally, of Bristol University, told The Independent that ideological opposition to the so-called “nanny state” had fuelled a “criminally negligent” failure to take the measures necessary to mitigate future pandemics.

“The public health infrastructure in England has been systematically degraded since 2010, and contrary to what might be expected, the Covid pandemic has accelerated that trend,” said Prof Scally.

“Effective vaccines are a cornerstone of the control of infectious diseases. The loss of the capacity to develop and deploy vaccines, alongside degrading the public health structures and the NHS, is criminally negligent in an era where novel and lethal infectious diseases can and undoubtedly will emerge."

Dame Kate said she was “baffled” by a series of ministerial decisions on pandemic preparedness, including the sale of the state-funded Vaccines Manufacturing and Innovation Centre in Oxford to US company Catalent, which subsequently moth-balled the facility.

Cobra Biologics, which was a “key part” of early vaccine manufacturing”, had been sold to another American pharmaceutical company, which was transferring operations to the US, she said.

And ministers had ignored the taskforce’s recommendation to appoint an individual with deep experience of pandemic preparation to head a new Covid Vaccine Unit, opting instead for an official with a background in climate change and defence.

She criticised a “dumb” decision - later reversed - to shut down a registry of volunteers for clinical trials.

“To begin with, I thought it was a lack of experience from officials, since we don’t have a lot of people within Whitehall that understand vaccines,” Dame Kate told MPs.

“But actually, I’m now beginning to think this is actually deliberate government policy, not to invest or not to support the sector. Because I cannot explain why we haven’t appointed somebody that can actually bring all of this together.

“We’ve got capability and yet, systematically, things are being dismantled that we put in place.”

Raising alarm bells over the CPTPP trade deal, Dame Kate told the hearing: “Anything that puts us in contravention of the European patent convention would be catastrophic.”

Speaking to German newspaper Die Welt, ahead of Wednesday’s hearing, Dame Kate contrasted the UK’s record with the EU’s creation of a Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA) with a €6bn (£5.2bn) budget and a 10-year global strategy

“Europe is now thinking about pandemic preparedness in a systematic, professional, effective way,” she said.

“They continue to engage constructively with vaccine companies. And the UK has gone the opposite direction.”

Thanks to HERA, the EU is “much further ahead in their pandemic preparedness plans”, while the UK “seems to have lost its leadership approach in vaccine R&D, manufacturing, and procurement,” she said.

“In 2020 we were clearly world-leading. But the UK went back to business as usual.“

Peter Liese, a German member of the European parliament’s public health committee, told Die Welt: “A pandemic can hit again any time. We need to better prepare for this.

“Which is easier for a European Union with 27 members, as they can join capacities. Alone by herself, this is a financial challenge for the United Kingdom.

“Therefore, the British government runs a big risk of neglecting pandemic preparedness. Brexit could cost bitterly yet another time.”

Liberal Democrat health spokesperson Daisy Cooper said: “We have seen time and time again just how underprepared the Conservative government were for the pandemic, and now - despite everything we’ve all been through - it’s unforgivable to hear that they’ve clearly learnt no lessons for the future.” But Rishi Sunak’s official spokesperson said the prime minister did not accept Dame Kate’s characterisation of the government’s approach.

He pointed to the creation of the UK Health Security Agency, the Covid Vaccine Unit and the mRNA Innovation and Technology Centre, as well as the £13m Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre, which opened on Wednesday.

“We have significantly changed our approach both to looking for future pandemics and to responding to them.” said the PM’s spokesperson.