Health: HIV

Lord Doyle Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hyde of Bemerton (Lab)]

Indeed, the Government are not complacent about those who are not captured within the very welcome statistics on new rates of transition and the overall incidence falling. The HIV action plan focuses on five key population groups to ensure that no one is left behind, and this includes ethnic minority and white GBMSM, Black African heterosexual men and women, and ethnic minority heterosexual adults. That is what the £4.8 million in the HIV Prevention England programme is for: to reduce the size of that undiagnosed population and to address some of the inequalities the noble Baroness raises.

[Lord Doyle (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for reaffirming the Government’s commitment to ending new cases by 2030. This is an ambitious but essential goal for us to achieve. The action plan highlights the essential need to expand the amount of HIV testing, because we know that effective treatment is available once we have identified cases. What progress has been made on putting HIV testing on the NHS app? If the pilot is successful, will it be expanded?

[Baroness Hyde of Bemerton (Lab)]

I do not want to pre-empt the outcome of an ongoing pilot but, as set out in the HIV action plan, the Government are serious about achieving all of UNAIDS’ previous aims of 95-95-95 and UNAIDS’ 2030 plan. This means that we will pull every lever, including that which the noble Lord mentioned, if the evidence suggests that it is how we can finally eliminate HIV and AIDS from the UK.