Ebola

Lord Bach Excerpts

Thursday 23rd October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Speed is certainly important. That is why the United States has taken the lead in Liberia, the United Kingdom in Sierra Leone and France in Guinea. We have lead countries. We are now working with others—the Norwegians are being particularly helpful, for example, as well as the other Nordic states—and discussing within the EU, last weekend and today, how others will feed their efforts and contributions in terms of money and people into what the lead nations are doing.

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, makes a very powerful point. Clearly what is needed is urgent work on the assets that NATO might bring to this crisis. My question for the Minister is: if not NATO, what other international body do Her Majesty’s Government believe could do the job?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have already said twice that the United Kingdom Government raised the question at the Foreign Affairs Council of the European Union last weekend, and that the Prime Minister will be discussing it with our European partners today and tomorrow. There has been an informal arrangement between NATO and the European Union in recent years that NATO is the security organisation which deals with major security issues and that the European Union is the forum through which we work on humanitarian issues, particularly in Africa. For this, I think the European Union is the right framework—and I hope I do not upset too many noble Lords by saying that.