Britain gave Dutch factory £21m... but EU wants to block it from sending us vaccine

TORY MPS have ridiculed the EU after it threatened to ban jab exports from a Dutch factory funded in part by £21million from the British taxpayer.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock gave the green light for the investment last April with the millions of pounds going to the Halix factory in Leiden.

But it came with the condition that the UK would receive some of the AstraZeneca doses it produced – a plan thrown into disarray by the EU’s recent threats.

Thierry Breton, the EU’s internal market commissioner, said ‘zero’ jabs made at the plant would be shipped across the Channel until the company first fulfilled its commitments to Europe.

Deputy chairman of the Covid recovery Group Steve Baker said: ‘We invested in this plant. We have contractual entitlements to vaccines.

‘Even in my worst Eurosceptic moments, I would never have dreamt the EU would behave like this.’

Tory MP Craig Mackinlay said it was ‘ bizarre’ that major EU member states had banned the AstraZeneca jabs over small blood clot risks, yet were ‘up in arms that they haven’t got enough of it’.

A leaked letter also showed that Oxford University scientists had urged the Netherlands to invest in the plant last year but a deal was never signed. The agreement could have led to the EU securing millions more AstraZeneca doses, sources told The Daily Telegraph but instead the bloc has not given a single cent towards the factory. Vaccine talks between No 10 and the EU are expected to continue next week. EU chiefs are furious with the Anglo-Swedish firm for missing its delivery targets to the bloc by tens of millions of doses. This, they claim, breaches its contracts. Mr Breton told the Financial Times that EU-made doses must be reserved for member states to make up for the shortfall. He said: ‘If [AstraZeneca] does more, we don’t have any issue, but as long as it doesn’t deliver its commitment to us, the doses stay in Europe – except for Covax (the global scheme to deliver Covid-19 vaccines to poorer countries).’

UK Government sources said his comments were ‘disappointing’ and accused him of ‘not respecting lawful contracts’. AstraZeneca refused to comment. An Oxford University spokesman said: ‘We are not aware of any formal letter sent by Oxford University to the Dutch government. However, the vaccine team did approach a wide range of potential funding partners in early 2020 before the partnership was struck with AstraZeneca.’

Last week European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen introduced tougher export rules on countries with higher vaccination rates such as Britain.