G7 vaccine agreement is ‘missed opportunity’, says Gordon Brown

Gordon Brown has said the G7 summit “will go down as a missed opportunity” due to the lack of a plan to deliver 11 billion vaccine doses.

The Labour former prime minister said the summit could be seen as an “unforgivable moral failure” due to the gap in vaccinations between rich and poor nations.

The group of seven leading industrialised nations have collectively agreed to provide a billion doses of Covid-19 vaccine in an effort to end the pandemic in 2022.

The UK is expected to contribute 100 million doses within 12 months as part of the pledge.

G7 leaders gathered in Carbis Bay, Cornwall, are expected to formally announce the vaccine agreement on Sunday afternoon.

Speaking to Sky’s Trevor Phillips on Sunday programme, Mr Brown said: “When we needed 11 billion vaccines, we’ve only got offered a plan for one billion.”

He added: “I think this summit will also go down as an unforgivable moral failure, when the richest countries are sitting around the table with the power to do something about it.

“Now that we’ve discovered the vaccine, we have not delivered the comprehensive plan that will deliver vaccination by the middle of next year.”

Mr Brown continued: “We will have a huge problem of a division between the richest countries that are safe and the poorest countries that are not safe.

“But then the problem will come back to haunt the richest countries because we will have contagion spreading that will hurt even the people who are vaccinated because of mutations and variants.”

US President Joe Biden has already promised to donate half a billion Pfizer vaccines for 92 low and lower-middle income countries and the African Union.

The G7 leaders will also set out a plan to expand vaccine manufacturing in order to achieve that goal.

Earlier, Zoe Abrams, executive director at the British Red Cross, said the promise on vaccines is “heartening”.

However she added: “While every commitment must be welcomed, more needs to be done, and fast.”