Mr Calvin Bailey

Mr Calvin Bailey

Labour — Leyton and Wanstead

Speaking in the House of Commons on 2 June 2026

Debate

Preparedness for National Emergencies

Contribution

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Barker. I want to focus on two areas of national resilience. The first is hospital capacity. The covid inquiry highlighted the lack of surge capacity within the NHS, and NATO recognises the lack of medical capacity as a critical vulnerability. The UK has an opportunity to address both challenges together through better integration of civilian and military capabilities. The second area is supply chains for essential medicines. China now controls about 85% to 90% of global production of the antibiotic precursor 6-aminopenicillanic acid or 6APA, on which many common antibiotics depend. There is only one remaining producer of it across Europe and within the NATO area. That is a strategic dependency that should concern us all. Indeed, it especially matters because of the NATO article 3 commitment to national resilience, which is becoming increasingly important. We are targeting the 1.5% spending on the resilience component, so resilience is far more than defence.

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