Closed petition Stop the plan to spend £100bn of taxpayers' money on Operation Moonshot

Closed on 8 April 2021

If there are unlimited funds to address the pandemic, I want parliament to see all the scientific advice and debate options on the best use of taxpayers' money. I suggest supplementing existing infrastructure and growing testing capacity might be a more realistic, cost-effective alternative.

Though this is an ambitious plan, even if delivered in full the project has questionable rationale and limited benefits. It will siphon off huge amounts of taxpayer cash to a handful of big companies to complete a project that may not even be needed by the time it is complete (if a vaccine is found), and distracts from the work that needs to be done now to find a vaccine, control the virus and protect communities. If delivered this may even increase the spread by changing human behaviour.