HIV Commission

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I absolutely commend the hon. Gentleman’s work and leadership on this, not only as a Minister but as a member of the commission. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), the Secretary of State, and the Health Ministers in the devolved Administrations as well—including my colleague Vaughan Gething, the Health Minister in Wales—because it is only with leadership on this issue and cross-party working, and cross-UK working, that we will get to that crucial target of zero infections by 2030. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, as on so many public health issues, this is a global fight as well, and that our continued support as a country for things such as the UN Global Fund is crucial to getting to that 2030 target globally, as well as in this country?

[Steve Brine]

I most certainly would. As a Health Minister I travelled around the world to G7 and G20 meetings. The NHS and what we do within it, as the Health Secretary has said many times, is so well respected around the world that we often set the tone and the lead. Yes, this is a plan for England, but I hope it will work across the devolved nations of the UK. I hope that we will set the standard around the world, as we have in so many areas of public health policy, so that others will then follow. I take the hon. Gentleman’s point exactly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Hancock]

I was immediately going to turn to say that despite the successes, there is further to go and we would all agree on that. We need to follow the evidence of what works and, crucially, we need to work together. I know that the Home Secretary has been working with the Administration in Scotland on the approach to be taken. The attitude that we should have is that every new case of HIV is one case too many.

That brings me to the commitment that we were able to make two years ago. At the suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester, I announced the commitment to ending new HIV transmissions by 2030. I remember being told at the time that this was an ambitious target, but I know that we can get there. This year, we have been making PrEP routinely available across England to those who need it, and have backed that with funding for local authorities. None the less, it is really this report from the HIV Commission that shows us the way. I want to thank all those who have been involved: the Terrence Higgins Trust, of course; the National AIDS Trust; the Elton John AIDS Foundation; Public Health England; and work across the devolved Administrations. I also take this opportunity to thank Sir Elton for his exceptional personal advocacy for people living with HIV and the sterling work that he has done to raise money for HIV prevention and treatment across the world, and to thank all those who have played their part in getting us to where we are.

Let me turn now to the work of the commission itself. I know that colleagues across the House have played an active role in it. The report that the commission has published today makes many important recommendations for how we can progress on our path to zero. I pay tribute to all the commissioners for their hard work and thank each and every one of them. I wish to put on record my thanks and praise for Dame Inga Beale for her expert leadership.

My hon. Friend set out the core recommendations, which include the interim milestone of an 80% reduction in new HIV transmissions by 2025, early diagnosis at the core of the approach we should take and the default assumption of test, test, test—that sounds familiar, and we know that it works—as well, of course, as the expansion of testing.

The reason I wanted to come to the House personally tonight was so I could say this: we will use the excellent report of the HIV Commission as the basis of our upcoming HIV action plan, which I commit to publishing next year. I want that to be as early next year as is feasible to ensure that the work is high-quality, can be delivered and can set us fair on a credible path to zero new transmissions in 2030. I look forward to working with Members from all parts of the House in making that happen.

[Stephen Doughty]

May I, on behalf of the all-party group, thank the Secretary of State for that commitment, which is absolutely crucial? I know it will be welcomed by me and my predecessor, who cannot speak here. Will the Secretary of State also commit to doing all we can as a country, working with his colleagues at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and elsewhere, not only to ensure that our commitments globally are met in the UN Global Fund, but also to support the world-beating research that goes on in places such as the international AIDS vaccine initiative at Imperial College, which is leading the way towards treatments and vaccines not only for HIV but for so many other infectious diseases, including covid?

[Matt Hancock]

The cross-party nature of the support for this work could not be better demonstrated than by the fact that when our colleague from the Scottish National party, the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) intervened, she anticipated my very next sentence, and so has the hon. Gentleman. I wanted immediately to turn to the global matters, because no one is safe until everyone is safe. If we have learned anything this year, we have learned that. We also need to work on shared solutions together and across the world, and we as a country will lean into the global efforts to tackle HIV and AIDS, as we have done under Governments of all persuasions over the past three and a half decades.