HIV Testing Week

Debate between Florence Eshalomi and Karin Smyth

Thursday 13th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)]

It is a pleasure to serve for the first time under your chairship, Dr Allin-Khan. This is such a marvellous debate to be part of. The Secretary of State asked me to respond to it on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton), who has been attending events this week and unfortunately could not be here today. I have known her a long time and I know that she will be a fantastic champion in this area, coming to the Department every day to do battle on people’s behalf.

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) for securing this important debate and for his continued work in this area. I join my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Paul Davies) in commending the work of the APPG. I know that many hon. Members are caught in the dilemma of the two debates today, and many other people would be here, but I know that they will be listening to the debate with great interest on the fourth day of National HIV Testing Week.

This debate gives me the opportunity to thank all the amazing charities and organisations that are playing such a huge part in making this week a success—the Terrence Higgins Trust, National AIDS Trust, and the Elton John AIDS Foundation, which we have heard about today, to name just a few. I also want to add my voice to the enthusiasm I have seen in my time—nine years now—across all parties on this issue. There has been a long period of cross-party collaboration. I hope that that continues and that we continue to base our work on evidence and care. It is what has got us here today. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham and Beckton (James Asser) made that point very well and asked for more resources, so well done him. I will perhaps come on to some of that.

In national testing week, we are making great strides towards the goal of no new transmissions in England by 2030. We are, as many members have said, at a crucial point in that journey. HIV testing has been revolutionised. It is now fast, free and available in the privacy of our own homes—even when our home is No. 10 Downing Street, as the Prime Minister showed us on Friday. I know that that is a powerful message not just in this country but globally, as my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Steve Race) highlighted.

When we normalise testing, we normalise prevention, treatment and care—and we normalise saving lives. I thank every colleague who attended Tuesday’s drop-in. It is so important for all of us in this place and elsewhere to help smash the stigma however we can, transform perceptions, and drive us closer to no new transmissions.

[Florence Eshalomi]

I thank the Minister for making an impassioned speech; she is doing an excellent job. She has highlighted the importance of testing and the fantastic work all the different organisations do in pushing it. Does she agree that for us to reach the vital goal of no new transmissions by 2030, we should be following Wales’s example of having year-round access to online testing to help more people test and to eradicate HIV by 2030?

[Karin Smyth]

I thank my hon. Friend for her comments and her great leadership in her work through the APPG. Some of that work looks very successful, and I will comment on it shortly, because we do need to learn and share from each other.

When it comes to reducing stigma, we have all exposed how old we are in this debate today. I am as old as the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale and perhaps the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and some others. I worked in the health service through the late ’80s. It was a gay man who started raising awareness to me about stigma around HIV and AIDS, and we have come an awful long way. The hon. Member for Strangford and my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) rightly talked about the role of the stigma, and that iconic moment with Princess Diana was so important. It was so long ago but to some of us it seems like yesterday.

I can give some updates to colleagues. So far this HIV testing week we have given out 13,308 testing kits. That is 13,308 people who now have the power to know their status, take control of their health and contribute to the fight to end new HIV transmissions in England. Last year, National HIV Testing Week delivered more than 25,000 testing kits, achieving great results among communities disproportionately affected by HIV. For example, the uptake of testing kits for black African communities has tripled since 2021. My hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) made excellent points about that.

The right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale and my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West tempt me to comment on the Scottish Government’s role in this area. Politics aside, they highlighted a serious point about sharing good practice. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Mr Barros-Curtis) made that exact point about the role of the Terrence Higgins Trust. I do not think I knew that Terrence Higgins was Welsh, and I am married to a proud Welshman—something that we share, Dr Allin-Khan —so that looks bad on me. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West made an excellent point about the role of Terrence Higgins’s leadership and the people that came after him to lead that organisation. We need to learn from and work with each other. On behalf of the Department, I commit to continue our work across the United Kingdom to share and learn from best practice. I think that my colleagues across the United Kingdom, whatever political party they belong to, would echo that.

As the Minister here in England, I know that the campaign would not be possible without HIV Prevention England, the national HIV prevention programme, which is funded by the Government and delivered by the Terrence Higgins Trust with local partners. The programme aims to promote HIV testing in communities that are disproportionately affected by HIV, bringing down the number of undiagnosed and late-diagnosed cases. Every year, it runs National HIV Testing Week, a summer campaign to raise awareness of HIV and STI prevention and testing, and much more. We are committed to building on those successes, which is why we have extended the programme for a further year until March 2026, backed by an additional £1.5 million.

Looking to the future, we are making progress to end new transmissions before 2030, but we know that much more work needs to be done to reach our goals. We have had some excellent contributions on that today. Our work is not over until every person, regardless of race, sex, sexuality, gender or circumstances, has access to testing without barriers. I hear the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter and others about fear and the historic fear that people have felt. We will not stop until every test is met with care, every diagnosis with treatment and every individual with dignity and respect, regardless of who they are or their HIV status.