Covid-19: International Response

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, apparent national interest has so often trumped international needs in this pandemic, even though no country can be safe until all are safe. Clearly China has much to answer for. I have sympathy with the WHO, which sought to elicit the information it needed. This clearly drove it to soft pedal the Chinese origin and significance of the infection. The WHO has only the power, resources and will that member states give it. All should now be able to see that strengthening the WHO is in everyone’s interests, yet the United States, far from seeking to bring countries together, threatens the WHO’s funding. There is no superpower leadership there.

We have seen countries competing for equipment and supplies. We may see that with the vaccine. I am glad that the United Kingdom continues its commitment to 0.7% of GNI for aid, and we have long had outstanding scientists in global public health. But development is going backwards, and some leaders are exploiting the crisis to take authoritarian measures. We see misinformation—in which Russia has specialised—now being pumped out by China as well. A dangerous new cold war seems to be building between the USA and China. There has been encouraging co-operation across Africa, with lessons learned from Ebola, but community spread now exists in a number of countries and hunger may not be far behind, as informal incomes are destroyed by economic collapse.

Does the noble Baroness agree that, given the vacuum of leadership from China and the USA, we must work with our European allies to build a more co-ordinated response to the current situation and for the future? As Dr Tedros, director-general of the WHO, said:

“We’re all in this together. And we can only succeed together.”