UN Sustainable Development Goals

Virendra Sharma Excerpts

Thursday 19th October 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to speak under your chairship, Ms Bardell. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) on calling this debate, which is very close to my heart.

I cannot start today without mentioning the humanitarian crisis in Palestine. Civilians, old and young, men and women, sick and healthy, are in the firing line. There is no politics here: the killing of civilians is wrong. The scenes of grave destruction in Gaza are appalling and deeply troubling. There are reports that basic resources and services are being denied to civilians, half of whom are children, and that hundreds have been killed at the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza. It is a tragedy, and the images are heartbreaking. There is no room for breaking international law, and civilian lives must be protected. Without an end to the conflict, the SDGs will never be realised in Gaza and Palestine, which have some of the most vulnerable people in the world. Unless the SDGs move everyone forward, they fail.

That message is one that we can apply in many more areas. Tuberculosis is an area of particular interest to me, and I should declare an interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on global TB. The SDGs make it clear that TB should be eradicated by 2030, which is seven years from now, but we will not reach that goal without real change, real investment and a real will. In 2021, 10 million people fell ill with TB—a shocking 4% rise—and 1.6 million people died. This is not progress; it is relapse. TB diagnosis has fallen by 18%, from 7.1 million to 5.8 million, which means that fewer cases are being detected by health systems. Fewer people are getting the help they need and, as we move towards 2030, the goal gets further away. That is before we consider a particularly concerning issue that I have raised before: multidrug-resistant TB. It does not respond to typical therapies, and we are not prepared for it. Treatments and diagnoses have gone down this year, too. We are not fighting TB where we need to, and we do not have the momentum we need to fight it.

I thank the Minister and the Government for their role in the UN’s second high-level meeting on TB. Thanks to that meeting, we now have a political declaration. We now have specific, measurable and time-bound targets to find, diagnose and treat people with TB using the latest WHO-recommended tools. We now have time-bound, specific targets for funding the TB response with research and development. However, because this is a disease of the poor—a disease of poverty—engagement has been low. I ask the Minister how the FCDO will work alongside international partners and national Governments to generate momentum to achieve TB eradication by 2030. Will the R&D funding announced by the Government at the HLMs be used to support the development of new TB vaccines, diagnostics and medicines, and how can the UK utilise our world-leading life sciences sector to lead the world in the global response to the TB pandemic?

It is no cliché to say that the world changed when we eradicated smallpox. A disease that killed millions, scarred many more and blighted lives was ended. That same spirit can live on. Malaria claims 600,000 lives a year, and a child under five dies from malaria almost every minute. As with TB, eradication does not just save lives; it drives growth and equality, and allows the reprioritisation of vast sums of money. For households experiencing poverty, malaria costs can account for up to one third of their income. Think what they could do with that money.

Parents struck down by any of the neglected tropical diseases that we have committed to eradicate cannot work. In turn, that takes education and childhoods from the children forced into work, which can be tiring, exhausting and backbreaking, or even dangerous, degrading and illegal. Childhoods are ruined and more generations are inured to the cruellest of behaviours.

Although we as a world are on course to achieve 15% of the SDGs, a staggering 30% have stalled or are even going backwards. I hope that the Government do not lose focus on the SDGs, but I am sad to say that it seems an all too real possibility. This Government got rid of the Department for International Development. They cut international development spending when the world needed it most. In the face of the British people, this Tory Government decrees there is no need to worry about climate change, and that dealing with it can wait a few more years. That is just wrong.

Will the UK Government commit to a second voluntary national review to monitor progress on their implementation of the SDGs, and deliver on the commitments made in the 2019 VNR? Will they meaningfully engage civil society to deliver the 2030 agenda? I want to see the British Government and this country act because it is the right thing to do. It saves lives. This country will not forgive the Government that failed to prepare us for the next fight.