International Health Regulations

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Stephenson]

I thank my hon. Friend for his passionate and pertinent point. Throughout the negotiations the UK has made it clear—and we will continue to do so—that we will not sign up to any accord that fails to meet our global health and UK health security priorities. Likewise, the UK would not sign up to an accord that cedes sovereignty to the WHO over domestic decisions on national measures concerning public health, such as immunisation programmes or lockdowns. Any necessary or appropriate changes to domestic legislation or new domestic legislation would be made through the usual parliamentary process. However, because we do not yet know the exact details of the accord, I cannot be any clearer on how exactly Parliament will get to scrutinise the accord, if we get to an agreement.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

The treaty is not just about data sharing and information gathering; it is also about setting up a system of pandemic management under the leadership of the WHO. It has a poor history of management and decision making. Can the Minister give us an assurance that he will not accept any surrendering of UK powers to an international body that can interfere with decisions that will affect the lives of ordinary people here in the United Kingdom? I listened to his response about devolved Governments, and it seems there has not been much discussion with the devolved Administrations. He will not even guarantee a vote in this House on such an important issue. Can he guarantee that we will not undemocratically hand over democratic control to a non-democratic body?

[Andrew Stephenson]

We will not be handing over any kind of control over what we do domestically; national sovereignty is a clear red line, as I made clear in my opening remarks. It is important to recognise that there are challenges with these things, which are being negotiated within the existing international health regulations. The director general of the World Health Organisation already has the ability to declare a public health event of international concern and issue temporary recommendations that provide non-binding guidance to member states. We believe that we need to stay in a situation where the World Health Organisation has an important convening role internationally to discuss issues, but the domestic response to any future pandemic is for domestic Governments to make. Anything that impinges on UK national sovereignty will therefore be unacceptable to us.