World AIDS Day

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)]

My Lords, will the Minister remind the current Chancellor of the Exchequer that, as a newly elected MP and member of the International Development Committee, he led a campaign to ensure that the UK set annual targets, monitored them and delivered retrovirals across the developing world? Will he remind the Chancellor of the Exchequer of that commitment and suggest that he repeats it now?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My right honourable friend the Chancellor has long been a champion of UK Aid. I very much hope that, as a consequence, in his current capacity he will be able to do more than that. I hope that he will be able to return us as quickly as possible, as soon as the fiscal situation allows, to 0.7%. With 0.5%, we are still one of the most generous countries in the world, but it also inhibits some of the areas where we showed real leadership in the years up to that decrease. I have every confidence that the Chancellor will wish to do everything he can in his current post to bolster our position of global leadership through our deployment of aid, and part of that of course is having rigorous targets and ensuring that we have value for money.