World AIDS Day

Debate between Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park and Lord Paddick

Thursday 1st December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My right honourable friend the Chancellor has long been a champion of UK Aid. I very much hope that, as a consequence, in his current capacity he will be able to do more than that. I hope that he will be able to return us as quickly as possible, as soon as the fiscal situation allows, to 0.7%. With 0.5%, we are still one of the most generous countries in the world, but it also inhibits some of the areas where we showed real leadership in the years up to that decrease. I have every confidence that the Chancellor will wish to do everything he can in his current post to bolster our position of global leadership through our deployment of aid, and part of that of course is having rigorous targets and ensuring that we have value for money.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, is not one of the major issues around HIV the stigma attached to people who are HIV positive? It is not widely understood but, with effective treatment, viral load can be undetectable, and those people cannot transmit the virus to other people. What are the Government doing both in the UK and globally to reduce the stigma associated with HIV?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The noble Lord makes an important point, and he too has been a vocal champion both in the domestic context and beyond. The UK itself as a country is a champion of human rights around the world, and we are committed to the principle of non-discrimination on any grounds, including on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity—the issues that are often conflated with the issue that we are discussing today. The noble Lord is absolutely right to point to the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS and his point around the facts of the issue will have been recorded for posterity—the facts of the efficacy of current treatment and the removal of danger that that results in.