Sierra Leone: Ebola

Lord Giddens Excerpts

Monday 30th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Giddens (Lab)]

My Lords, I begin by expressing my admiration for the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, for her continuing dedication to and involvement in the future of Sierra Leone in the wake of this disaster. Building on what she said, four minutes is not long to speak about an epidemic that once caused headlines and panic around the world. If the same scenario had occurred in a developed country, one has to ask whether it would have drifted into such relative obscurity. I think not. I want to make a number of brief points and perhaps the Minister, who is already loaded up with questions, can respond to at least some of them.

First, Ebola has not disappeared. There will be new cases in 2017 in Sierra Leone and elsewhere. One of the most marvellous things that happened was the creation of an effective vaccine, but this covered only one strain of the virus. I would like the Minister to comment on the observation of one leading expert in the field, who says that we are just as vulnerable to an Ebola pandemic as we were in 2014.

As was said by the noble Lord, the economy of Sierra Leone was absolutely shattered by the impact of Ebola. Previously it was growing at 20% but I think the true figure of the collapse in the year that followed was minus 40%. The economic losses in Sierra Leone were more than twice those in Liberia or Guinea. How would the Minister assess the really core issue of the durability of the economic recovery? Is the UK continuing to make a direct contribution to what is needed in relation to this fundamental issue?

Some positives emerged from this horrendous episode—for example, the active attempts to develop local community care. Some of these were pretty innovative and, to add to what other noble Lords have said, the UK Government are to be commended for their efforts in this area, as in others. However, what is happening today with these endeavours? Does the UK continue to play a direct part in the evolution of these crucial local community involvements, not just to deal with the continuing consequences—Ebola survivors are still basically shunned by many people—but to further develop the resilience displayed?

As my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer said, corruption in the country is endemic at all levels. According to a BBC report this week, millions of pounds in funds raised to fight the virus have now gone missing. How much of this money has been traced?

Last week a national newspaper had the headline, “Foreign Aid: Let’s STOP it NOW”. The argument was that we should concentrate on the NHS and domestic problems. I hope that the Minister will respond very forcefully in repudiating such assertions. Commitment to overseas aid is not just a moral imperative; it is a material one for the UK. As other speakers have said, at one point there was the possibility of this outbreak becoming a pandemic, and I stress, as I said at the beginning, that the disease has not disappeared.

I have a final quick question. Did Nurse Cafferkey get to run her marathon? She was such a figure in all this. She said that she was going back to Sierra Leone to take part in the marathon, even if she had to do it in a wheelchair. I was unable to trace whether she succeeded—maybe the Minister can elucidate that.

West Africa: Ebola

Lord Giddens Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Giddens]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they assess the potential challenges of economic reconstruction in West Africa following the Ebola epidemic.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for International Development (Baroness Verma) (Con)]

My Lords, the UK has committed £54 million to kickstart the recovery in Sierra Leone, and is designing a £240 million programme to help drive sustainable economic growth. We will invest in the private sector and help to make transformative improvements in health systems and public services. We are co-ordinating with donors to ensure that the $5 billion committed towards regional recovery is delivered effectively.

[Lord Giddens (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that response. I hope that all noble Lords will join me in sending warm words of support for nurse Pauline Cafferkey as she struggles for her life combating Ebola for the second time. What a tragic situation.

The Ebola epidemic has devastated the economies of the three main countries involved and destroyed their health systems. Huge investment is needed to pull them around. A good deal of this will have to come from the global community, and the IMF and the World Bank have made large promises of investment. How much of that is notional and how much is real, and how much money has actually reached the three countries affected so far?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I join the noble Lord in wishing Pauline Cafferkey a speedy recovery. She is being remembered by all for the wonderful work she has done in Sierra Leone. On the noble Lord’s question about the pledge, it is right that we as a country should continue with our supportive work and urge other donors who have committed to the $5 billion to step up and deliver. But as the noble Lord is aware, this work is going to take time. The three countries involved have suffered quite badly, but we can rest assured that the work we are doing with the President of Sierra Leone and through our own programmes is not the short-term application of a plaster and will ensure a long and sustainable recovery.

Sub-Saharan Africa: Healthcare

Lord Giddens Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Giddens (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Boateng on having secured this debate and introduced it so effectively. I hope that I am not the only person present who feels distressed that there are so few contributors, as the Ebola epidemic still causes devastation across west Africa. As I discussed in a previous debate, the social and economic impact of the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone has been particularly severe. The country went from having one of the fastest-growing economies in the world to one that has shrunk by fully 25% of GDP. Rebuilding the healthcare system will require a great deal of direct financial aid, which can come only from the international community. In turn, a viable healthcare system cannot be built unless there is a sustained economic recovery.

The backdrop to this is not encouraging. We live in the most interdependent world ever. There was a point when people in many countries were perturbed about the Ebola outbreak. However, this is not a world that has effective global governance; the United Nations is probably at its weakest ever. In many fields one finds that pledges are made but no money is forthcoming. My great worry is that this will also be true in the case of the Ebola outbreak.

A meeting of the UN last week saw pledges of $3.2 billion to help the recovery in the three countries most directly affected by the epidemic. As the Minister will remember, I mentioned in a previous debate that the World Bank has pledged $1.62 billion. I ask, again, whether she knows whether those figures have any reality. To me, as someone who works on climate change, they sound eerily like the $100 billion a year that developed countries have pledged to the poorer counties of the world to help alleviate the effects of climate change. Virtually none of money has ever become real; this must not happen in the case of the Ebola epidemic.

Zoonotic diseases are on the increase in Africa and are in fact connected with climate change—the chief connection is deforestation. They can cause havoc and have global implications. As the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, mentioned, Ebola could have become a worldwide pandemic if it had happened to be an airborne virus. In Africa, the impact of the Ebola epidemic overlaps heavily with diseases that are already putting great strain on existing healthcare systems. Sub-Saharan Africa suffers from the crippling effects of HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. Over three-quarters of total malaria cases across the world are located in Africa and over 90% of malaria deaths occur in that continent. More than 20 million Africans are living with HIV/AIDS, a staggering number, although, it has to be said, about 70% are now obtaining antiretroviral treatment.

While most attention has naturally been concentrated on the three countries that have borne the brunt of the Ebola epidemic, states not directly involved in the epidemic have also been deeply affected, again with major economic consequences. For example, a recent survey of holiday operators found a decline of up to 70% in bookings, primarily because of fear of Ebola, including for countries quite remote from those directly affected, such as Kenya, South Africa and Mozambique. The overall knock-on effect economically, morally and socially across large areas of Africa has therefore been profound—and continues to be so.

If the Minister can overcome her terrible malady, I have three further questions to ask her. First, everyone now accepts that the response of the international community to the Ebola outbreak—and especially that of the UN agencies—was too slow and fragmented. What are the main reforms that the Government would like to see put in place before the next potential global pandemic? We are in a situation where everybody is drawing lessons but the theorem that I mentioned at the beginning applies. These are mostly abstract; it is hard to see where the beef is—where the substance is. This is really dangerous, I think, for possible future pandemics. Any information that the Minister has on that point would be valuable. What would be the best reforms to produce a more effective response on the part of the international community to the next global pandemic? Any such pandemic will likely be zoonotic, as I have mentioned, but could be much more lethal.

Secondly, there has to be a step change—as I think the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, mentioned—in the training of medical personnel. When the epidemic started, Sierra Leone had only one doctor for every 70,000 people; compare that to Britain, where there is one doctor for every 360 people—and now they are going to have to work seven days a week. How could this process happen quickly? I cannot see any way except by the sustained involvement, again, of the international community, which means medical personnel being in the affected countries and surrounding countries for a sustained period—at least five years further. What contribution will the UK make to that and has it got that kind of timeframe? To me it seems absolutely necessary.

Thirdly, however, I think that there is a theorem of hope around. This is a period of fundamental innovation in medicine, largely because of the digital revolution. For the first time ever in human history, I think, cutting-edge technology is going directly to the poorer countries of the world. A major example is mobile phones and smartphones. The case of Nigeria, which my noble friend Lord Boateng quoted, is really interesting because Nigeria contained Ebola partly by means of text messages sent directly to millions of citizens daily to alert them to the actions needed so that the disease did not spread. This would not have been possible even 10 years ago.

We know that in Africa it has been possible to produce a kind of leapfrog effect with mobile phones—that is, African countries have gone directly to a phone system without having the stage of fixed telephone lines. It is possible that the same thing could happen with medical treatment if there is an effective response by the international community. In other words, that community should continue to bring front-line treatments, even experimental treatments that have not been fully tested, to west Africa and other parts of the continent potentially affected. It is at least conceivable that there could be a kind of breakthrough effect, because it is not just a matter of training medical personnel. If we could bring medical innovation on a large scale on that kind of model directly to poorer countries in Africa, it could be transformative in its potential impact.

Sierra Leone

Lord Giddens Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Giddens (Lab)]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, has indicated, the fact that the Ebola outbreak in west Africa has gone from being everywhere in the news to nowhere is an example of the capricious nature of the media. This debate is, therefore, very timely, because we have to keep public attention focused on the issues, and I congratulate the noble Baroness for having initiated it so ably.

Unless aid and assistance continue to flow to Sierra Leone and other affected countries, far more people could die from the knock-on effects of the epidemic than have perished from the disease itself. The level of disruption to infrastructure, including but not limited to the health system, has been quite staggering. This is in spite of the wonderful work of overseas volunteers, to which other noble Lords paid tribute, including from this country.

A sustained economic recovery will be crucial but will be very, very hard to achieve. Of the three countries affected by the epidemic, Sierra Leone has suffered by far the most on an economic level. In 2013, having recovered from years of internal strife, Sierra Leone ranked second in the world in terms of GDP growth. It was an extraordinary moment. The country started from a low base of course; nevertheless, to achieve a ranking of second in the world in terms of economic growth after all those years of disruption was a quite remarkable phenomenon.

Since then, the country’s economy has more or less collapsed. According to the World Bank, this year Sierra Leone faces an acute recession, with a negative growth rate of no less than 23.5%, which I can assure noble Lords is catastrophic in terms of its size and implications. Let us compare that with, for example, Liberia, which is projected to have a positive growth rate of 3%. In the case of Sierra Leone, foreign capital has mostly fled the country, as have some of its richest citizens.

I have three sets of questions that I would like the Minister to comment on, recognising that she will not necessarily be able to answer all of them. First, in April this year the World Bank promised no less than $1.62 billion for Ebola response and recovery. What is the status of this money? Is it merely a promise? Does the noble Baroness know how much of that sum is there? On the surface, it is a substantial amount but I was not able to discover its exact status. What is the timescale by which it will be invested? It is clear that upfront investment is needed and that a great deal is needed very rapidly. What proportion of that money is likely to go to Sierra Leone? I could not find that in the World Bank literature either. If the UK is making a direct contribution to that sum, how much is it contributing, and how would the questions that I have just asked in relation to the World Bank apply to the UK’s contribution?

Secondly, the presidents of the three countries affected by the outbreak have requested that international donors cancel their debts. Has any progress been made on this? It is quite crucial because the level of aid was substantial. If this could be done, it would provide enormous economic leverage for Sierra Leone. If the UK Government have a position on this issue, it would be good to know it.

Thirdly, a recent UNDP report rightly emphasises that women need to be at the centre of all efforts to achieve recovery. Women made up a large majority of the labour force prior to the outbreak of the epidemic, and, as in many other countries but especially in Sierra Leone, were doing two jobs: looking after the family and working pretty much full time, especially in small-scale micro-entrepreneurial enterprises. The female labour force was absolutely crucial to the statistics that I gave earlier, which showed that the country was entering a period of quite significant economic take-off before the epidemic broke out. The latest figures show that more than 40% of women in the labour force at the time of the epidemic have withdrawn. Many have gone back to their families, devoting themselves to care rather than to the economy. Most of the women who have left the labour force were in agriculture, which is still the backbone of the economy in Sierra Leone. What strategies does the Minister know of that are in play to target investment efforts specifically at women in the labour force?

If you put these three things together, the international community seems on the surface to be coming up with substantial resources, but, as we know from many other situations, these tend to evaporate in the face of actuality. Therefore, is there anything that the Minister can say about the reality of these sums of money, especially the World Bank investment programme, which is designated as a sort of Marshall plan for the country? If that had some substance, it could be very important for Sierra Leone’s future and recovery.

Ebola

Lord Giddens Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Giddens (Lab)]

My Lords, I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, for securing this debate and introducing it in such compelling fashion. I join noble Lords in paying tribute to Pauline Cafferkey as she struggles for life in a hospital not far from where we are today. The latest report on healthcare workers who have died from Ebola puts the number at 500 rather than 400, which shows the awful toll it is taking in so many different areas.

I will concentrate on the economic consequences of the epidemic, to which the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, alluded. There is another tragedy unfolding alongside those of a medical and humanitarian kind. Prior to the Ebola episode, all three main states involved experienced strong economic growth following years of war and inept or tyrannical rule. Growth rates have already halved in Sierra Leone and Liberia and could even turn negative in Guinea. Tourism has come to a halt, as the noble Lord mentioned. Restrictions on mobility severely hamper trade. Agricultural production—a key area in all three countries—is way down. Rising food prices have helped create steep inflation—a very unpleasant economic scenario—which was running at more than 13% in Liberia in 2014. That situation could quite easily get completely out of hand. Meanwhile, investors are running scared and there is a serious risk of capital flight from these countries. Economically, this has the makings of a truly tragic situation.

The emancipation of women is a key aspect of economic development in emerging economies. Many women in the labour market have turned instead to the care of sick family members or others in the community. In Sierra Leone, for example, women were heavily represented in cash crop production, local trade and microenterprises. Many had to quit and most are highly unlikely to re-enter the labour force at any time soon.

As a result of this, I have three basic questions for the Minister to comment on. Like the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, and other noble Lords, my great fear is that if and when Ebola is effectively contained in west Africa, the international community will lose interest in the countries affected. Can we avoid them sinking back into despair and perhaps fragmentation? The possibility is very real that these countries could be worse than back to the point zero of some years ago when they were racked by war. These are, as every noble Lord knows, among the poorest societies on the face of the Earth. We must ensure that the international community does not lose interest if it appears that the epidemic can be contained—although some medical specialists now say that it could become endemic, which is an additional worry.

Secondly, how will the Government assess the success or otherwise of the World Bank in the budget support it pledged to facilitate trade, investment and employment in the three countries involved? The World Bank promised substantial sums of money. Does the Minister have any information about whether any of that money has been forthcoming? As we know, promises are easy to make. The sums involved were very large and it would be good to be updated on that if the Minister has that information.

Thirdly, it is clear that regional aid and investment will be crucial, coming from surrounding African states. How much progress has been made with the fund for renewal set up by the Economic Community of West African States? Any western intervention concentrated on the three principal countries must also seek to involve other African countries, and perhaps fund them in addition so that they can help the three countries most affected.

Ebola

Lord Giddens Excerpts

Thursday 6th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Giddens (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Kinnock on having introduced this debate so ably. I confine myself to posing a number of questions to the Minister.

First, there are signs that the number of new cases of Ebola in west Africa is levelling off—especially in Liberia, less so in Sierra Leone. Do the Government have a view on this? If so, I hope they will bear in mind the words of a seasoned observer who said, “I’m terrified that the information will be misinterpreted”—in other words, that relaxation will follow. It absolutely must not.

Secondly, could the Minister comment on the secondary health crisis fast developing in west Africa, alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Fowler? This is the result of already rudimentary medical resources being concentrated on Ebola. It involves a surge in cases of untreated malaria as well as other serious health hazards. Large-scale resources need to be injected here—and very rapidly. Where will they come from? Are the UK Government contributing?

Thirdly, these problems add to the horrendous economic costs of the Ebola epidemic to already impoverished societies. The damage inflicted to date is estimated at $32 billion in Liberia and Sierra Leone alone. How can we counter the very real danger that, if and when Ebola is contained in west Africa, the rich countries of the world will lose interest? What representations are the Government making to the World Bank and the IMF on this issue?

Fourthly and finally, the threat posed by Ebola to countries with advanced health systems is low. However, would the Government agree that a certain level of global risk remains? The key country in question is China, given its extensive involvements in west Africa. Some 9,000 people from areas where Ebola is concentrated have entered Guangdong alone since August. The standard of care in Chinese hospitals is quite low. Perhaps the noble Baroness would like to comment on that.

Health: Ebola

Lord Giddens Excerpts

Wednesday 15th October 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Giddens]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the progress of international efforts to contain the spread of the Ebola virus.

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, the UK is playing a leading role in response to the Ebola outbreak in west Africa, having already committed £125 million to it. We are also mobilising our Armed Forces in the effort to defeat the disease, but the scale of the outbreak is unprecedented, and more needs to be done. We are very actively encouraging other countries to join the international response.

[Lord Giddens (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that response. I put down this Starred Question a month ago. Since that time, the situation with Ebola in west Africa has deteriorated markedly to become a tragedy of horrible proportions whose tipping point could become a catastrophe. That catastrophe could have global implications far beyond those we have seen so far. As Anthony Banbury, the head of the UN Mission for Ebola, said yesterday, major changes and major transformational policy on a global level are necessary by 1 December,

“or we face an entirely unprecedented situation”.

How is it possible to make these changes in such a short period of time? There are only six weeks in which we have to get a radical uplift in global policy.

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Lord is absolutely right; he was absolutely right to put down this Question. The situation has indeed got a lot worse since he did so. If this does not make the case for aid in terms of our own self-interest, as well as a moral case, I do not know what does. The epidemic is moving rapidly ahead of us in west Africa, as he points out, and he talks about a tipping point. The United Kingdom is leading a major effort to tackle the disease in Sierra Leone; the United States is doing that in Liberia and Guinea, and France is doing that in Guinea. However, a lot more needs to be done internationally and the UN is absolutely right about the need for unprecedented global action. The noble Lord is right about that.

Ethical and Sustainable Fashion

Lord Giddens Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Giddens]

My Lords, fashion is a huge global industry, as other noble Lords said, with a large carbon footprint. It has left behind it a trail of eco-destruction. Now, fortunately, efforts are being made to counter the existing structures of the industry. As usual it is the Scandinavians and not us who are in the lead, as they always are on environmental issues. I commend to noble Lords the work of the Nordic Fashion Association, which was briefly touched on in other speeches. It has a very wide range of projects and amazing coverage in the Scandinavian press. One of the main emphases of the NFA is eco-design: integrating sustainability into garments at the design stage.

Among high-profile figures in the UK, I commend in particular Vivienne Westwood for her work on climate change. A couple of years ago I went to speak at a literary festival in Hanover. I gave my speech on climate change. It was followed by the Handel opera “Semele”, performed in the same long, elegant gallery where Handel first presented it. This was “Semele” with a difference. It was called “The Semele Walk” and featured models parading in Vivienne Westwood costumes. All the singers in the opera were also dressed in Vivienne Westwood clothing. It was a brilliant adaptation. She chose “Semele” because it is about the battles of the gods, and climate change is about our battles with the immense forces that we have created.

Sustainability is becoming important in the fashion industry around the world. There are many initiatives in North America. The annual Eco Fashion Week debate has been going for six years and attracts 2,000 people from the industry. Even more important is China, where the picture is very mixed. In some respects this echoes what my noble friend said about another part of the world close by. The turnover of the garment industry in China is about $60 billion a year. Most of the money is earned from exports, mainly to the West. There are massive contradictions here. On the one hand, children work all hours to produce cheap garments for the western market. The film “China Blue” is a very good exposition of this. On the other hand, sustainable fashion is now talked of as widely in Hong Kong and Shanghai as it is in London. I admire the designs of Ma Ke, who makes beautiful, traditional clothing.

There are two questions that I would like to ask the Minister arising from this. First, all this is worthwhile but it seems to be nibbling at the edges of the global garment trade and it could degenerate into eco-chic concentrated at the high end of the industry. Is it possible to generalise it to the industry as a whole? Secondly, how do we get the big corporations more involved? As far as I can see, there are many corporations involved, but mainly their corporate responsibility department, which is usually a minor part of the business. We surely need companies to be much more integrated in the whole design process to transform it, and I would welcome the Minister’s comments on that.

Universities: Impact of Government Policy

Lord Giddens Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Giddens]

To call attention to the impact of government policy on universities; and to move for papers.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, I remind the House that the next debate is also time limited. With the exception of the noble Lords, Lord Giddens and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, and my noble friend Lady Verma, all speeches are limited to six minutes.

[Lord Giddens]

My Lords, it is a privilege to introduce this debate on a topic of such importance to the future of the country. This is a Labour-sponsored debate, and I am a Labour Peer, but I speak here primarily as an educator who has spent virtually the whole of his adult life in universities and was for some while the head of a major university institution. As such, I feel deep disquiet about the Government’s policies, as I did about the Browne report on which those policies are based.

Universities are not just an extension of school; they are not some sort of finishing school for a group of privileged individuals to get into good jobs. All universities combine research and teaching; they are centres of creativity and innovation, which have a massive impact on the society at large. This impact is in some part economic; universities in this country have a turnover of something like £30 million—in other words, about one-third of the size of that gigantic institution, the NHS. They create about 750,000 jobs and are often integral to the local community’s economy of which they are a part.

However, I stress strongly that their impact goes well beyond the economic sphere. Universities have an extraordinarily far-reaching impact on our civic life and our culture. They are important for teaching citizenship and diffusing norms of citizenship, for technological innovation and the arts and culture in our society. Universities in this country rank very highly in world terms; according to the Times Higher Education Supplement listing of world universities, we have three such universities in the top 10 and 12 in the top 100, second only to the United States. Our universities are a massive source of attraction for overseas students, in which again we are second only to the US in world rankings.

I stress strongly that the attraction of British universities to overseas students is not simply a matter of economics. Of course, it brings a lot more money into the country, but it is really important to recognise that our large number of overseas students has a tremendous impact on the countries they come from when they go back to them. They carry with them their experience of this country and its institutions. They normally carry with them an affection for this country, and they form a kind of friendly worldwide diaspora. Nowhere is this clearer than in the case of the LSE, an institution of which I used to be the director.

My point in saying these things is not simply to praise universities; it is to argue that these points are crucial to understanding the flaws in government policy. Universities are, above all, public institutions with a massive public impact. As with the National Health Service, the Government seem to be carrying out policies of a sort of ill-considered, untutored radicalism that is not based on in-depth research and with imponderable outcomes. In both cases, these are real-life experiments with little supporting research to back them up. No other country will have a health system structured along the lines that are being proposed for the UK. For universities, Britain—or, rather, England, given the exceptions applying to Scotland—will be a global outrider. It will have one of the very lowest levels of public support for the university system in the industrialised world. That includes the United States. When people think of American universities, they often think of the private universities, which are indeed very important, but they educate only a minority of American young people. Public and state universities in the US are very much larger, and have a confirmed and continued public role in American education.

The Government are fond of saying that the Browne report was commissioned by Labour, and then saying, “Ha ha ha, what would you have done?”. Well, I am not primarily a politician, I am an educator, but here is what I would have done; and I hope that, had Labour been in government, it is what they would have done. I would have had four parts to a framework for the future of universities. First, I would have denied and rejected the ideological thrust of the Browne report, which seems quite alien to what universities are all about. Universities are not a sort of supermarket where education can be chosen like a washing powder off the shelf. Students are not simply consumers, making day-to-day purchasing decisions. They will make a one-off decision. The whole apparatus of a marketplace in which you have consumer-led enterprise seems alien to what universities are and should be about.

Secondly, fees should have been increased progressively, not in the big-bang fashion in which they trebled overnight, with dramatic consequences for the young people affected. Thirdly, as a consequence, I would have preserved a larger chunk of state funding, precisely because universities are public institutions with a massive impact that goes beyond the simple experience of learning as such. Finally, if I had been either a petty dictator or in the right position in the Labour Government, I would have given far more thought to the knock-on consequences of university reforms for job creation and growth, as well as for the wider culture of the country.

This leaves me with a range of questions for the Minister, and I hope that she will respond fulsomely to every single one. They flow more or less from the analysis I have just presented. First, there is a convergence between government policy on universities and government economic policy. A cut is not a cut unless you work out its knock-on implications for employment, welfare spending and growth. The same applies to a massive transfer from public to private funding, which is characteristic of the Government’s proposals for universities. I ask the Minister what modelling has been done of these knock-on consequences. If it has been done, where can I find it? Without it, we simply do not know what the consequences of the reforms will be.

Secondly, the Minister for Universities, Mr David Willetts, wrote a justly well regarded book, The Pinch, a little while ago about the relationship between the generations. In it he argues persuasively that the older generation has accumulated most social and economic resources unto itself, and the younger generation in our society is hence excluded from many of the benefits monopolised by older people—the majority of people above age 40 or 50, or the “baby boomers” as he calls them. Will the Minister tell me how the reforms are compatible with this approach? Loading up massive debt on the younger generation seems to be exactly the opposite of what Mr Willetts is arguing that a just society should be: one where the older generation, being more affluent, helps to support the younger generation.

Thirdly, although Mr Willetts denies this, the arts, humanities and social sciences are especially vulnerable as a result of government reforms, and I speak as a social scientist myself. This will be especially true in middle to lower-level universities. It is difficult for me to see that, when you load up fees so quickly, many students will turn away from subjects that do not have a clear vocational outcome, especially in the lower-level universities. The top universities will do all right; most people want a degree from those universities because it confers market advantages. When you get lower down the system, you have to ask whether students will incur a debt of £30,000 or £40,000 to read history at a university that is, say, 75th in the British league of universities. This is very much open to doubt.

I therefore see government policies potentially producing chaotic consequences, and ask the Minister what the Government will do if departments are forced to close. Will they simply accept that? That would involve the loss of an awful lot of irreplaceable expertise. Suppose student fashion changes two or three years down the line. You cannot simply reinstate those departments. What will the Government do if universities are forced to close down, since some such universities are likely to be in poor, multicultural areas? Are the Government happy that they have a business model in which such universities will simply be forced out of business, with all the consequences for those communities? As I have stressed throughout, universities are not simply a form of economic enterprise. They are crucial for business and the economy, but their functions range so much more widely than that.

Fourthly, the Government seek to contain inequality and promote social mobility in the context of their reforms. However, it is blindingly obvious that these reforms, because of their dramatic nature, will have a negative impact on inequality. This is likely to be so both at the bottom and at the top of the university population. It will surely deter a large number of poorer students from applying to university at all. They will not be covered by the policies that the Government have introduced. It also seems equally obvious that it will increase inequalities at the top, because surely affluent parents will pay off the debts of their children up front, thereby further accentuating the very inequalities among the top levels of our society that we see widening everywhere. Does the Minister disagree that this is almost certain to be the case?

Finally and fifthly, the impact of the immigration cap looks to be seriously damaging to universities, not just in student recruitment but by denying the country the very creativity and academic innovation that are the lifeblood of the university system. On 3 October, a group of Nobel prize winners in the sciences wrote a letter to newspapers about the effects of the immigration cap, in which they said that it is a sad reflection of our priorities that it looks as though Premier League footballers might get exemptions whereas high flying academics might not. However, this is a much more serious issue than that statement implies, because if we look at the history of our universities and our national intellectual culture we see that migrants have played an absolutely fundamental role in science and other areas of university thinking and research. If such people can no longer come, we are simply shooting ourselves in the foot. I repeat what the Nobel prize winners said—it is a sad reflection of our priorities.

I hope that other noble Lords will pursue issues that, for the purposes of time, I have not had the chance to cover. There are many of them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Giddens]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have participated in this debate. It has been of a level commensurate with the distinguished nature of contributors. I ask the Government to think seriously about their policies on universities, which, in my view, will be seriously damaging and counterproductive for our society as a whole. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion withdrawn.

Women in Society

Lord Giddens Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Giddens]

First, I congratulate all those Members who have given such excellent maiden speeches today. There was a terrific cornucopia of speeches. One might say that it was a bit different from the House of Lords in the past. There is a good story about the Earl of Melrose—in case there is a current Earl of Melrose I shall have to say that this was an earlier one—who said, “I fell asleep and dreamt that I was giving a speech in the House of Lords. Then I woke up and, by God, I was”.

I congratulate, in particular, my noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon on her outstanding maiden speech, delivered with great eloquence and good humour. From a part-time shop assistant in Sainsbury’s to your Lordships’ House is quite a journey. She brings a great wealth of experience to this House, and is very well known for her work on the third sector and local communities. One might say that she was a forceful advocate of the big society avant la lettre, and she is very well esteemed for her work in this area. She is quite right to place so much stress on education, which I say as an educator myself, and helping to bring about social equality. It is also important to mention her work in the area of animal rights. It is my great pleasure to welcome her to your Lordships’ House and I am sure that we all look forward to many incisive contributions from her in the future. I hope that noble Lords will join me in giving her a hearty welcome.

The oppression of women in contemporary society is as much psychosexual as it is economic. It focuses on the body, self-identity, sexuality and the swirl of emotions that surround these things, especially in young women. I think we can say that in our society many women suffer from a veritable tyranny of the body. To illustrate this theme I shall discuss the rise in eating disorders in our society, such as anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, and so on. I spoke on this topic about five years ago in a speech in commemoration of women’s day and I take this opportunity to bring what I said then up to date.

I shall say how I became interested in anorexia in particular. One day, for some reason, I bought two Sunday newspapers rather than one and each had a colour supplement. On the front of one of the colour supplements was a photograph of a young black woman who was emaciated and starving to death in Africa. On the front of the other one there was a photograph of a young white American woman who was starving to death in the United States. One of the women was starving because of lack of food—the classical origins of starvation. The other was starving to death in a society where for the first time there is far more food to go around than anybody could possibly consume. Both died but the dynamics of the cases are completely different. I therefore became interested in the history of anorexia and eating disorders.

When we look at the history of traditional cultures we find that what we call eating disorders are rare. There are examples of women who fasted to death but they normally did so for religious reasons—to get closer to God. The rise of eating disorders as a mass phenomenon—I can assure noble Lords that it is a mass phenomenon today—is relatively recent. It dates only from the late 1950s or early 1960s. What explains the massive expansion of eating disorders and the turmoil that they bring? Although about 10 per cent of anorectics are men, the large majority suffering from extreme eating disorders are women.

There are two factors to explain that. One is the rise of supermarket culture. I mentioned Sainsbury’s, but with the advent of supermarkets more generically, diet is severed from locality and becomes severed from tradition. You have to decide what to eat in relation to who to be and what kind of identity to assume. Secondly, it impacts with particular force, especially on young women, partly because of the rise of a new body image and the desirability of slimness in women, but also from something a bit more profound. There is a notion of perfectibility of the female form and a feeling that if you do not get close to that you are almost stigmatised. That is a tremendous secular change in the experience of women in contemporary societies and many other kinds of pathology stem from that.

What has happened since the first time I spoke on these issues? First, in this country the incidence of serious eating disorders has got much worse than it was even five years ago. Today, something like three times as many women suffer from serious eating disorders—not just moderate forms—as suffer from schizophrenia. It is a very significant and indeed growing issue in our society.

Secondly, you have the extension of eating disorders through the lifespan. Previously, most women who suffered from eating disorders were teenagers or early adults. However, now eating disorders extend down to a very early age, so you have young girls of six or seven obsessed with their body image and putting themselves on a rigorous diet. Anorexia and other eating disorders also extend much more through the lifespan.

Thirdly, there is an amazing expansion of eating disorders across the world. This has happened only in the past 10 or 15 years. These are diseases not of poverty but of affluence. They are to do with striving and with possibility. They are not to do directly with deprivation. If you look around the world, you find that China has had a tremendous expansion of eating disorders, almost wholly among young women. The same thing has happened in India in the urban centres and in Africa. In Africa you have the coexistence of the very two things that I found on the front of the colour supplements—classical starvation on the one hand and this very new form of deprivation, especially in the cities and the metropolitan areas, taking root.

What are the practical solutions? This is the tip of the iceberg for women. About 95 per cent of women say that at some point they have been on a diet in order to improve their body image, so we are talking about a tip of an iceberg which affects most women in some sense in our society. What can one do practically about it? First of all, one has to recognise that, although severe forms of eating problems are medical disorders requiring medical treatment, their origins are not medical or biological. They cannot be, primarily, because of the tremendous difference between the existence of this as a mass phenomenon now and its relative absence before. We are dealing with something that is social and structural; therefore the remedies have to be social and structural.

Secondly, traditional mechanisms of attacking sexism and patriarchy are relevant to eating disorders among women. For example, think of cases in the City where women quite rightly have brought legal cases pointing out that they have been discriminated against, have been assessed on the basis of appearance, and have had to face sexist remarks rather than be evaluated in terms of their capabilities. If you improve equal opportunities in those circumstances, it certainly does something. However, my third point is that it does not do a lot. This is not a traditional problem of patriarchy. This is a problem of how we live now. It therefore presumes, in my view, fairly radical intervention, which would have to be to a large degree in the advertising industry, especially in relation to advertising which is targeted at young women. In concluding, I ask the Minister whether she can imagine such radical measures being introduced and, if so, what form they might take.