Liz Truss – We can guarantee UK’s vaccine supply
The European Union’s attempt at vaccine procurement has not been its finest hour. Concerns about lack of supply across Europe prompted the EU Commission to consider how it might override Pfizer and AstraZeneca’s prior commitments and commandeer the output of their Belgian factories for the bloc’s own internal use. Signalling that the EU might block the export of the jabs, many of which had been intended for use in the UK, triggered an immediate backlash, and the EU eventually climbed down. The International Trade Secretary Liz Truss spoke to Andrew Marr, who asked her if she could be certain that the UK would be receiving its expected doses in full:
LT: Yes I can. The Prime Minister has spoken to the President of the European Commission. She has assured him that there will be no disruption of contracts that we have with any producer in the EU… and furthermore, we are absolutely confident that our vaccine programme is on track.
We need to move away from ‘vaccine nationalism’
Marr asked if the hostility engendered as a result of this recent debacle could lead to a trade war between the UK and the EU. The EU had inflamed matters by announcing that it would invoke Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol, which would have introduced the border checks that years of Brexit negotiations had been aimed at avoiding, before U-turning hours later. Truss did not seek to add fuel to the fire:
LT: I’m very pleased that the EU have said that it was a mistake to mention invoking Article 16… What I want to do now is work with fellow trade ministers to keep these supplies open and to move away from the idea of ‘vaccine nationalism’… The only way we’re going to recover our economy after Covid is by more trade.
The Asia-Pacific is the future of UK trade
Marr pursued the theme of trade further, questioning Truss on whether her plans to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (or CPTPP) would make up for the volume of trade forecast to be lost with the EU as a result of leaving the single market. In particular, Marr singled out work by Truss’s own department which showed the impact of trade deals to be less than spectacular:
AM: You’ve done trade deals with New Zealand and Australia, and… the effect on GDP is really really small…
LT: What [that report] doesn’t look at is the future growth of these economies… We know in the future, it’s going to be the Asia-Pacific countries in particular, where the big markets are, the growing middle class markets are for British products.
‘You cannot hermetically seal’ our borders
Truss also spoke to Sophy Ridge, who challenged her on the government’s lack of ability to halt Covid at the borders:
LT: We have been very tough on the borders. If you remember last year, we put in place the travel corridors, we banned travels from particular countries, we put in a pre-travel testing regime… We need to protect live and livelihoods… You cannot hermetically seal the UK borders.
Long term predictions ‘are not wise’
Ridge asked Truss to respond to reports that a sub-group advising the government’s SAGE committee had warned that unless the cumulative impact of the vaccines reached an effectiveness level of 85 per cent, then the UK might have to get used to social distancing for next Christmas and New Year’s celebrations as well:
LT: I don’t want to make predictions about the situation in the autumn. I think it’s far too far away, but we have to take this on a step by step basis… I think long term predictions… are not wise.
Micheál Martin – Ireland ‘was blindsided’ by the EU’s decision
The Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin also spoke to Marr about the potential diplomatic crisis that was almost instigated over the past week. It came to light that the EU had not consulted the Irish government before announcing that it would trigger Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol, as part of the plans to introduce extra border checks. Martin denied that he had first heard about the EU’s gambit via Boris Johnson, but it was clear that his government had been taken by surprise:
MM: People were blindsided by the decision that was taken… There are a lot of lessons to be learned from how all of this transpired, because it took four years to put the [Northern Ireland] Protocol together… and to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland… It certainly wasn’t an act of hostility.
Rachel Reeves – Teachers should be vaccinated after mid-February
Marr spoke to the Shadow Cabinet Officer Minister Rachel Reeves about Labour’s policy of moving teachers further up the vaccine queue, so as to ensure children can return to schools earlier:
RR: We’re not saying [that teachers should be vaccinated] in Phase 1. Phase 1 should be completed by the middle of February. We’re saying in the second phase, can we bring teachers in?… When schools went back in the beginning of September, within a couple of weeks 25,000 teachers were out of the classroom having to self-isolate.
We should ensure people get the vaccine ‘around the world’
Ridge challenged Reeves over Labour’s calls for the government to sign up to the EU’s vaccine procurement scheme, which in hindsight would have proved to be a fatal mistake. Reeves applauded the rollout of the vaccine, but asked the government to make sure that it committed to deliver the vaccine more widely:
RR: The UK has done a fantastic job in procuring vaccines, and I give credit to the government in doing that… But in the end… we’ve got to ensure that people, especially vulnerable people, around the world get the vaccine so that we can protect ourselves at home as well as protecting people around the globe.
Susan Hopkins – All vaccines will be ‘50 per cent’ effective against latest variant
Professor Susan Hopkins of Public Health England told Marr that there were reasons to be hopeful that the latest and most worrying mutation of the coronavirus discovered in South Africa can be combatted to some extent by the vaccines currently on offer:
SH: The Janssen and the Novavax vaccines suggest that [they were] at least 60% effective against the South African variant, so I think that is reassuring news… I expect that all of the vaccines… would have at least 50 per cent effectiveness, maybe even more.
EU’s actions ‘foolish’ and ‘unacceptable’
And finally, Ridge asked Tony Blair, perhaps one of the EU’s greatest champions, for his perspective on the Commission’s recent faux pas:
It was a very foolish thing to do and fortunately they withdrew it very quickly… It’s absolutely vital that we protect the [Good Friday Agreement], and that’s why what the European Commission did was unacceptable.
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