THE DECISION to scrap a contract with a Scottish vaccine plant was “short sighted”, the former UK Government vaccine tsar has claimed.

Dame Kate Bingham told MPs today that Westminster’s decision to cancel the deal for 100 million Valneva Covid-19 vaccines may also hinder the country’s resilience to future outbreaks.

Speaking at a meeting of the Science and Technology Committee today, Dame Kate explained that the Valneva site in Livingston had “a whole-virus based manufacturing capability” and added: “One of the things that we were keen to do was to make sure the UK has flexible, state-of-the-art manufacturing capability to deal with whatever potential current or future pandemic virus comes along. And so by cancelling the contract, that means we lose that capability.”

“To me it was short-sighted to cancel [that] capability.”

Alba MP Neale Hanvey said the former vaccine taskforce chief’s evidence was “damning”.

He said:“ Kate Bingham’s evidence is absolutely damning and exposes the economic and public health incompetence at the heart of the UK Government’s Covid planning.

“ She rightly highlighted the importance of the Valneva contract and their state of the art manufacturing facility in Livingston.

“ Her evidence clearly demonstrates the irresponsible, short sighted and ham fisted nature of the UK Government’s decision to cancel Valneva’s whole virus vaccine development programme, losing their unique agile capability to tackle emerging variants as well as it having the edge over other vaccines.”