HIV Transmission

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Wednesday 15th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for that question. I too would like to pay tribute to the late Baroness Masham, to the work she did with the APPG on HIV and AIDS, to her work as a disability campaigner and to her career as a paralympic athlete. She will be sadly missed.

I agree that the preliminary results of the pilot are promising. We will be considering the full evidence from the first year of the programme alongside the data on progress towards our ambition of ending new HIV transmissions in England by 2030, in order to decide whether further to expand opt-out testing in areas with high HIV prevalence—that is, those with more than five cases per 1,000 people.

[Lord Fowler (CB)]

My Lords, I agree with what the noble Lord said and I too pay tribute to Baroness Masham, who, right from the beginning, was a great and very effective campaigner on HIV and AIDS. One of her concerns was the unacceptable stigma suffered by those with HIV, in spite of all the medical advances made since the 1980s. Will the Government initiate a new drive to combat such stigma? They might even consider calling it “Sue Masham’s campaign”.

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord for his excellent question. I agree with him; it is an excellent idea and I will take it back to the department.