An important update: the government has announced that COVID-19 vaccines *will* be brought within the Vaccine Damages Act 1979 regime. gov.uk/government/new…
Some comments on the subsidy/State aspects here (this is the clearest and probably, given @tconnellyRTE’s record and deep understanding of the issues, one of the most reliable, accounts of the current state of play).
What seems to have happened is that the EU has agreed that a subsidy need not be cleared first by an independent regulator before it can legally be granted.
That is a key aspect of EU rules - albeit very importantly tempered in practice by block exemptions that automatically approve aid falling within them - in normal years the overwhelming bulk of aid is granted that way.
Other questions: is it really appropriate in a democracy for those who are accountable to us to choose the time at which they are prepared to be made accountable?
I don’t like legal inaccuracy: a lawyer’s professional deformation. But I particularly dislike it when the subject is vaccines, and Ministers like @NadineDorries are going to be asking us for trust. Nothing destroys trust more than inaccuracy and puff.
The UK is still entirely within the EU medicines regime. Under that regime, licensing of the Covid-19 vaccines is reserved to the EMA (technically the Commission advised by the EMA, but let’s simplify): only the EMA can license biotechnological products for medical use.
However, the Medicines Directive (2001/83) allows national medicines regulators (the MHRA) to approve unlicensed products for use in response to the spread of pathogens (Article 5(2)). That is what the MHRA has done here.
One point worth making, because I think there could be some confusion about this (the point is implicit in Jon’s article but not spelt out). It’s about what sort of vote there will be.
As Jon points out, there is no requirement for an “meaningful vote” (on the principle of the deal). That requirement only arose in the last Parliament because that Parliament insisted on one in relation to the Withdrawal Agreement (and wrote it into the EU Withdrawal Act).
The current Parliament has placed no such requirement on the current government. Funny, that.
Hypothesis 1: a sub-national approach to COVID-19 restrictions works well where the decision is actually taken by sub-national governments. Means that restrictions are well tailored to local circumstances and priorities.
Hypothesis 2: A national government can’t effectively operate different rules in different regions because it cannot ever fully justify differences of treatment. No objective mathematical formula can work: and judgment will always be questioned by those who feel worse treated.
Germany (or the UK when thinking about 🏴 vs 🏴 🏴 and NI) may illustrate hypothesis 1: England when considered on its own may well illustrate hypothesis 2.