Gavi and the Global Fund

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Thursday 15th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

It is a particular pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship for the first time, Ms Jardine. I congratulate the hon. Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington) on securing this important debate.

It is just six months shy of five years since I had my own Backbench Business debate on global vaccine access—albeit in the context of the global covid-19 pandemic. I look back on what the then shadow Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), said with interest. I found in her remarks a consistent emphasis on working bilaterally to tackle global health crises, and through those efforts, to tackle poverty and inequality. She said that this was not just the practical but the moral thing to do.

I hope that we have not forgotten what we should have learned from the covid pandemic about how fast a disease can turn into a global threat, about how good health produces sage and secure countries, and about how terrifying it was to reckon with the realities of the pandemic in all aspects of our lives. I do hope that the Government will think about that as they approach the spending review.

Gavi and the Global Fund have been an incredible success, and we ought to celebrate that. The UK has been a leading force in these efforts on the international stage, and that is something to be proud of, because it bolsters our reputation and our standing and forms part of our global soft power.

We will not need to fund such programmes forever. Fifteen years ago, lower income countries were able to fund, on average, only 10% of the costs of their vaccine programmes. Over the next five years, it is estimated that they will cover up to 40% of the costs on average. Some countries are already there, with Indonesia now a donor to Gavi rather than a recipient.

Let us not forget that we need the world to be vaccinated. Disease knows no borders. Disease leads to poverty, which leads to global instability. We also have seen the more immediate and direct effects of global vaccine and treatment availability, through the demand and growth of our life sciences sector here at home—will the Minister tell me that that is not the sort of growth that this Government are looking for? At best, these investments benefit us up and down the UK. In my constituency, the University of St Andrews reported just last month that its infection and global health division had been awarded early career funding to identify new therapeutic strategies for infectious diseases.

I have almost reached the end of my remarks, but I must mention the elephant in the room: the shrinking ODA budget. I have read the statistics, as others have, that show that spending on Gavi and the Global Fund gives some of the best financial returns. Just a few weeks ago, I attended a meeting in Parliament with the chief executive of the World Bank. He was clear that his role and that of his organisation is to create opportunities in the global south to develop their economies and reduce emigration from there.

Given the Government’s other priorities, such as immigration, investing in multilateral ODA activities makes sense. I really urge the Minister to look again at that cut and how long it is needed for, and to engage openly with the ONE Campaign’s pre-action letter questioning the legality of the current cut to 0.3%.