Oral Answers to Questions

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

1. What her policy is on the investment case for the replenishment of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Justine Greening)]

Before I answer Question 1, may I briefly offer my voice to the many tributes that have been made in this place to Jo Cox? I know that I speak for the entire development community when I say that she was an incredibly impressive Member of the House. We also had the chance to work together on Syria. Indeed, the Order Paper does not show it but she should have been asking topical question 5. I believe that the House is a much, much poorer place for not hearing from her today.

I also welcome the shadow Front-Bench team and welcome the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor), to her role. I wish her well.

In response to the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile), we welcome working through the global fund. This country has helped to keep 8.6 million people alive with HIV therapy. We have distributed 600 million mosquito nets and have treated 15 million cases of TB. We are actually the third largest funder. The UK is planning to support a successful replenishment of a strong, value for money global fund later this year.

[Oliver Colvile]

Mr Speaker, as you can see from my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, I visited Zambia last year with RESULTS UK and saw for myself the excellent work that global fund investment is doing, particularly on TB-HIV co-infection. Will the Minister do everything possible to ensure that the fund’s replenishment target of $13 billion is met as a minimum?

[Justine Greening]

Yes we will. The global fund is a novel but powerful model for delivering improvements on AIDS, TB and malaria at scale. We therefore want to see it do better. It still needs to focus on delivering value for money, but we will be lobbying other Governments, countries and organisations to continue supporting it.