Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lexden]

My Lords, we are fortunate that my noble friend Lord Fowler has brought these immensely important international health issues before the House today. My noble friend has been a tireless champion of the global fund, whose crucial role he has underlined once again. The fund embodies a remarkable international partnership, bringing together Governments and private-sector organisations and uniting them in an unrelenting campaign to overcome the world’s pandemics.

We are united this evening in believing that the fund can be even more successful in the future than in the past. There remains so much for it to do, as we have heard from speakers in this debate. It is a matter of considerable pride that our country, under both the previous Government and this one, has been the third largest contributor to the global fund. Like all those who have taken part in this debate, I look forward to hearing what my noble friend the Minister has to say about our future contribution.

I hope that she will be able to allay widespread concerns that government support for research into new treatments and advances in prevention is about to be cut significantly. Continued funding is essential if recent scientific progress is to be carried forward steadily by those involved in highly regarded, not-for-profit public/private partnerships, such as the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. This works with more than 50 academic, industrial and governmental organisations around the world to research and develop AIDS vaccines. There could be no more important work.

At the same time, it is accepted by the global fund and by all those who back it that at a time of severe pressure on the public purse everywhere, contributions from individuals, corporations and private foundations must be encouraged. That point was made forcefully in a recent report from the influential Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. It needs strong emphasis in this debate.

If the global fund is well equipped and resourced, as we hope strongly, as a result of a combination of public and private support, it will still labour under a formidable handicap. However successful the fund and the efforts of the vast numbers of people working to end the pandemics may be, they will not be able to reach and relieve all the suffering with which they contend. That is because homosexuality is a criminal offence in some 78 countries. Where homosexuals are criminals, HIV cannot be fully relieved or curtailed. The statistics are stark. In Caribbean countries where homosexuality is not against the law, of every 15 men who have sex with other men, one is infected with HIV. In Caribbean countries where homosexuality is criminalised, the rate of infection is one in four. So we come back to the deep-seated problem of criminalisation, which is and always should be a prominent feature of our debates on these issues.

We naturally direct our concern principally to the countries of the Commonwealth. In 42 of the Commonwealth’s 54 member states, homosexuality is a criminal offence. The Commonwealth’s collective institutions produced clear evidence in 2011 that where homosexuality had been decriminalised, HIV infection had fallen. To the infinite sadness of us all, that has not led to a widespread acceptance of the case for decriminalisation. In some countries the situation has got worse. Last week the Nigerian Parliament passed a harsh anti-LGBT Bill that is bound to fuel prejudice and hatred in other countries.

On moral as well as on health grounds, the Christian churches in Commonwealth countries ought to be at the forefront of efforts to stem the tide of oppression and extend basic human rights to all LGBT people. In fact, as we know well, all too often the churches are to be found in the forefront of militant antigay activity. The Church of England, which is my church, has great influence in many Commonwealth countries. I end with a fervent plea that it should consider issuing a strong public statement utterly condemning the criminalisation of homosexuality. If it did that, it would confer an inestimable boon on those working, through the Global Fund and other remarkable, selfless organisations, to end the pandemics that so disfigure the world today.