Health: Ebola

Debate between Lord Giddens and Baroness Northover

Wednesday 15th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[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.