G20

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I made quite clear in my responses to the noble Baroness, we are at a very early stage. Working groups have been set up and discussions are going on, but we are at an early stage, and we shall continue to talk to the Americans.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, the Statement omitted something that was in the G20 leaders’ declaration—nothing to do with Brexit, for once: the growing threat that antimicrobial resistance represents to public health and economic development. The leaders made various recommendations, of which an important one was a new R&D collaboration hub and examining how to give incentives to encourage new antibiotics on to the market. I declare an interest in that my husband survived—just—a very serious case of sepsis. More than 40,000 people a year in this country die of sepsis. He also chairs a London health trust which deals with TB patients. Half of TB patients with resistance are in G20 countries. What are the Government going to do to follow up on that aspect of the summit?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right. We made clear at the summit the imperative to tackle global health threats such as antimicrobial resistance, that research funding alone will not solve the problem and that we must in parallel develop incentives for pharmaceutical companies to bring new drugs to market. The publication of the G20-commissioned report, Tackling Antimicrobial Resistance, Ensuring Sustainable R&D, means that we have a clear way forward looking to the Argentinian G20 presidency next year and beyond. We will continue to work with our international partners on that. We have also committed £50 million towards a global AMR innovation fund, which will target investment in underinvested areas of research and development.