UK-India: Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement

Lord Bates Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Bates (Con)]

My Lords, I entirely join noble Lords in thanking the International Agreements Committee for such a thorough and insightful report. I also thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, for securing this debate and setting out the committee’s conclusions with such clarity.

His Majesty’s Government are to be congratulated on securing such a welcome free trade agreement with a major economy with which we enjoy strong cultural and economic ties, as well as shared democratic values. I am sure that, in turn, His Majesty’s Government would recognise the contribution of the previous Government to bringing this to fruition, especially the drive and determination of the then Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak—supported, of course, by my noble friends Lord Ahmad and Lord Johnson.

The Indian economy will be the fastest-growing major economy in the world, with its forecast growth recently upgraded to 6.9%. I hope that some of that Indian dynamism will rub off on our economy, where the growth forecast was downgraded from 1.4% to 1.1% yesterday.

That will be my last direct reference to the free trade agreement in my remarks, I am afraid. I put it in because I wanted to keep my remarks in order and let the Committee know that I wholeheartedly support both the free trade agreement and the work of the committee, but it is the admission price for me to make another point about a remarkable human being. He was an Indian doctor, and his name was Dilip Mahalanabis; he was known as “Dilipda” to his friends. His name may not be familiar to the Committee. Indeed, I am grateful to the House of Lords Library for confirming that his name has never been recorded in the Official Report of either House of Parliament; this is a humble attempt to correct that record.

Dr Mahalanabis was born in Bangladesh in 1934. He obtained his medical degree from Calcutta Medical College in Kolkata, India, in 1958. After qualifying as a paediatrician, he came to work for the NHS at what was then the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children in east London; it is now part of the Royal London Hospital. He was the first Indian doctor to be appointed a registrar at that hospital. He then returned to Kolkata, where he carried out pioneering research into treatments for diarrhoea.

In 1971, during the Bangladesh War of Independence, he was working in refugee camps on the border between Bangladesh and India when a cholera epidemic broke out in one of the camps. There was a shortage of intravenous saline, which was the traditional remedy for diarrhoea and dehydration, so Dr Mahalanabis produced a solution in which salt and sugar were dissolved in water then given to patients in cups and mugs; it could be safely administered by people with minimal training. The solution was extraordinary. His oral rehydration solution—or ORS, for short—was later found to reduce mortality by 90%, making it one of the greatest innovations in the history of medical science.

News of the innovation quickly spread. It was used effectively to treat cholera and diarrhoea outbreaks in Asia and Africa, then throughout the world. A Swiss company called Sandoz succeeded in packaging the ingredients in individual foil bags to prevent the absorption of moisture, allowing it to be transported safely and in the appropriate dosage; this made it accessible to millions of people around the world. According to UNICEF, the cost per sachet is three cents. That is around 2p to save a life, yet around 500,000 children under the age of five will die this year because they do not have access to a 2p sachet of oral rehydration solution and a litre of clean water.

Dr Mahalanabis went on to head up the cholera control unit at the World Health Organization and later served as the clinical director of the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Dhaka. He died aged 87 in Kolkata in 2022. His innovation of oral rehydration solution is estimated to have saved almost 60 million lives around the world so far. It is extraordinary.

Why do I mention this now? It is in part because libraries are filled with books about despots who have cost millions of lives, yet I cannot find a single book anywhere about this remarkable man. It is the nature of things that, because our news is filled with human failings and looming threats, we need to celebrate more remarkable examples of human goodness and kindness around the world, which are more common to people’s daily experience. Sometimes it feels as if we are drowning in a sea of pessimism about human nature. People such as Dr Mahalanabis throw us a lifebelt of hope through their example. We need to speak more about these remarkable heroes of humanity because, when we shine the spotlight on human goodness and celebrate the good in all human societies, we encourage more people to follow their example.

The dominant human trait that advanced our species and is responsible for all human progress is optimism. Helen Keller said:

“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement”.


This is the reason why the average human lifespan in our world has more than doubled from 35 to 71 over the past century, and why 1.5 billion people have been lifted out of poverty in the past 30 years, 415 million of them in India. It is the reason why the number of childhood deaths has reduced from 10 million a year 25 years ago to 5 million a year now. Dr Mahalanabis was a wonderful exemplar of that spirit of human skill, ingenuity and optimism. He is a credit to India but, more importantly, he is a credit to humanity. His life and legacy should fill us with a renewed sense of hope for the future.