Nicola Sturgeon accused of siding with EU over vaccinations

Nicola Sturgeon has been accused of siding with the EU in its battle with the UK over vaccine doses, with the Scottish First Minister pledging to publish confidential vaccine data despite warnings that the information could jeopardise the UK's supply.

Ms Sturgeon promised to publish the data – which reveals how many vaccine doses her nation expects each week – to counter claims that she is failing to roll out the vaccine in Scotland at speed.

It led to allegations that Ms Sturgeon was "showboating" and "attempting to curry favour" with the EU. Boris Johnson urged her to reconsider, warning that UK must "continue to have national security of supply".

Douglas Ross, the Scottish Tory leader, argued it would be "deeply irresponsible" for Ms Sturgeon to put her politics ahead of the people of Scotland and them getting vaccinations.

The timing of her announcement came as the EU and UK were locked in battle over access to the vaccine.

Watch: EU sharpens knives in battle for vaccine

Brussels has demanded that millions of British-made vaccine doses are diverted to the EU after AstraZeneca, the company which makes the vaccine, announced that the EU orders were delayed.

On Thursday, the EC instructed Belgian officials to carry out a raid of an AstraZeneca plant in Belgium and accused the company of breaking its contract.

Michael Gove insisted that there would be "no interruption" to the UK's supplies, but the European Commission is expected to hit back on Friday by adopting new rules that threaten Britain’s supply of Pfizer vaccines from Belgium with an EU export ban.

Companies will be forced to ask national customs authorities and the commission for permission to export vaccines out of the bloc, under the plans for the “export transparency mechanism”.

Britain has deals with AstraZeneca to supply 100 million doses and Pfizer to provide 40 million doses. Regulators have also approved the Moderna vaccine and the UK has 17 million doses on order but they are not expected to arrive until the spring.

Britain is on the brink of approving a fourth coroanvirus vaccine, after a jab trialled in the UK was shown to be highly effective against the Kent variant in what the Health Secretary hailed as a “breakthrough”.

The Novavax vaccine, which Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi was himself injected with as part of the trial, was shown to be 89.3 per cent effective in preventing coronavirus in participants.

The vaccine is currently being considered by regulators and the UK has 60 million doses ordered.

However, ministers have always refused to publish details of how much vaccine supply the UK expects from its manufacturers each week partly out of concern that EU nations could put pressure on the companies to divert doses if they felt the UK supply was plentiful.

But Ms Sturgeon said the figures relating to Scotland will be published from next week "regardless of what they say" in the UK Government about the disclosure potentially jeopardising the UK's supply.

Ms Sturgeon's health secretary was forced to apologise to Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, earlier this month for publishing detailed forecasts of weekly supplies to Scotland, from which it was easy to extrapolate the UK's figures for each vaccine.

The First Minister performed an abrupt about-turn after Ruth Davidson, leader of the Conservative Party in the Scottish parliament, questioned her about the slow rollout of the vaccine. Just 462,000 people in Scotland have received a first dose of the vaccine. Ms Davidson claims Scotland has been allocated one million doses but is failing to use them.

Ms Sturgeon accused the UK Government of double standards by briefing the million figure "through spin to the media", while insisting that she keep supply information secret.

She added: "I have said to my officials regardless of what they say, I think we will just go back to publishing the actual supply figures from next week, so that we all have transparency around that."

Boris Johnson urged her to reconsider amid intense concern in Whitehall that publication of the UK's much larger supplies will lead to AstraZeneca coming under more pressure from the EU to divert British doses.

Speaking on a visit to Scotland, the Prime Minister said he favoured "maximum possible transparency" but argued this could not compromise "national security of supply".

He also offered to help Ms Sturgeon increase the pace of Scotland's sluggish vaccine rollout, which is lagging behind England's, and argued her independence plan was "irrelevant" in the face of the pandemic.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, accused Ms Sturgeon, who wants Scotland to leave the UK and join the EU, of "showboating to try and curry favour" with the bloc.

Mr Ross said: "The First Minister must think again and stop trying to distract from the SNP's slow vaccine rollout."

So far, 11.5 per cent of England's population has been vaccinated, compared to only 8.5 per cent in Scotland.

But a spokesman for the First Minister said: "These ludicrous attacks are beneath contempt – the Tories are now openly trying to politicise the delivery of life-saving vaccines, and that says far more about them than it does about the First Minister or the Scottish Government.”

However, senior UK Government insiders said there was a major difference between disclosing how many doses Ms Sturgeon already has (which the EU cannot take away) and the future supply schedules previously published by the SNP.

Watch: What UK government COVID-19 support is available?

Speaking on a visit to a new UK Government base in Edinburgh, the Prime Minister said: "We're in favour of the maximum possible transparency that is compatible with security of supply, that's the crucial thing.

"We've got to make sure that we continue to have national security of supply."

Pressed whether the UK could offer the EU some supplies after all the priority groups over 50 are completed, he said some would be distributed to other countries "as soon as the UK population is properly immunised, properly protected".

Sir Iain said Ms Sturgeon "should for once in her life thank the UK Government, for having vaccines so people in Scotland have a better chance of surviving coronavirus than if it was stuck in the EU, which is her dream."

David Jones, deputy chairman of the European Research Group of hardline Tory Brexiteers, accused Ms Sturgeon of "trying to ingratiate herself with the EU, in the hope that if she won a referendum, Scotland would be allowed to join".

He added: "She's doing absolutely nothing for the security of the UK vaccine supply. It's pretty reprehensible."