Intellectual Property Rights: Affordable Drugs

Debate between Lord Grimstone of Boscobel and Baroness Sheehan

Monday 30th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

The noble Lord makes an excellent point. There are flexibilities in the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement. WTO members can use these to ensure access. We actively encourage less-developed countries to look at this, because by taking advantage of these flexibilities they can bring real benefits to their citizens.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, history tells us that reliance on the good will of pharmaceutical companies is misplaced. For example, swathes of the world still lack access to HIV/AIDS medicines. Given that the development of Covid-19 vaccines is largely taxpayer-funded, will the Government back the WHO’s support for a temporary waiver to parts of the TRIPS Agreement?

Saudi Arabia: Arms Sales

Debate between Lord Grimstone of Boscobel and Baroness Sheehan

Friday 10th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel]

The assessment of whether an incident created a possible breach or serious violation of international humanitarian law is a complex matter. In order to review that, we were required to draw on all available sources of information, including some that were—I am sure noble Lords will understand this—necessarily confidential and sensitive. We are therefore not able to go into the details of individual assessments.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the bombing of weddings, funerals and hospitals in Yemen clearly constitutes a pattern of very bloody violations by Saudi Arabia. For Liz Truss to say that it is okay to resume arms sales because these were “isolated incidents” is tantamount to saying that one can be “a little bit pregnant”. Earlier this week, 20 Saudi nationals close to the Saudi regime were designated under the Magnitsky regulations for the heinous murder of Jamal Khashoggi. How can we be a force for good when we sell arms to a country with a sustained record of human rights abuses?

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel]

We indeed have assessed that there were a small number of incidents that have been treated, for the purposes of the analysis, as violations of IHL. However, these were isolated incidents that did not display any particular pattern, and our analysis shows that Saudi Arabia has a genuine intent and the capacity to comply with IHL in the specific commitments that it has made.