International Vaccine Programmes: Funding

Lord Boateng Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right; I am not going to give a number this afternoon, because the replenishment is taking place next week. I will be attending, alongside the Foreign Secretary, and we will be making the announcement he talks about. I pay tribute to the previous Government for investing in and supporting Gavi. I am proud that it was started under a Labour Government and continued by successive Conservative Governments. We will continue to support it too, because it is such a successful initiative.

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords, the success of Gavi, which I have seen for myself as a former ambassador for Gavi in both Ghana and Tanzania, has been based on partnership with local health ministries and with the workforces in those countries. That partnership is strained by the recruitment by our National Health Service of doctors and clinicians from Nigeria and Ghana and throughout the Commonwealth. That is undermining the health service delivery in those countries. If we are going to continue to recruit from those countries, will the Government please give some consideration to making direct budgetary funding available to the health departments in the countries of which Gavi is a part?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

We work very closely with our partner Governments. We should respect the fact that they need not only vaccination partnerships but a sustainable workforce strategy themselves in order to deliver the healthcare that they require. We will continue to work closely with them. I know that the Health Secretary has his eye on this issue as well. I have every confidence that, across government, working in partnership with my colleagues at the Department of Health, we will be able to proceed in a way that my noble friend would support.