No 10 breaks promise to get 100 million jabs to poorest

Government accused of 'profiteering' by charging countries for surplus vaccines through the aid budget

- JON STONE

The government has broken its promise to deliver 100 million surplus Covid vaccines to poor countries, after sharply cutting international aid spending. At a G7 meeting in June last year, Boris Johnson pledged to send the vaccines to developing countries within a year to help close the global vaccine gap and "vaccinate the world".

But a year later the government has delivered barely a third of the number of promised jabs, with just 36.5 million deployed as of the end of May - a deficit of 63.5 million doses. Figures published by the government also show that ministers have effectively charged developing countries for the leftover jabs by deducting them from existing aid, and even added a mark-up on the UK's original purchase price.

The backdrop to the failure to deliver is a stark vaccine divide across the world, with just one in five Africans having received a single dose compared to 65 per cent of all people worldwide. The World Bank expects 198 million people to be pushed into poverty across the globe this year as a result of the pandemic.

The prime minister pledged to parliament last year that the vaccines would not be funded by taking money from the existing aid budget - a vow he appears to have broken. Statistics for aid spending in 2021 show that £100.4m was taken out of the UK aid budget to cover the cost of the surplus coronavirus vaccines sent abroad.

Labour accused the government of "profiteering" from the pandemic because ministers have counted each vaccine as £4.50 of aid spending, despite paying just £2.30 for doses in the first place, according to the British Medical Journal - a mark-up of 95 per cent.