Last Thursday, in Westminster Hall, members from every corner of the House spoke with one voice: renewing Britain’s partnership with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is not optional — it is imperative. At a moment when new variants circulate, deadly diseases still claim millions of lives, and geopolitical fault-lines are widening, that rare cross-party unity should be both a source of pride and a clarion call to action.
The scale of what these two multilateral powerhouses have already achieved is breathtaking. Since the dawn of this century, Gavi has helped vaccinate more than one billion children, preventing at least 18 million deaths. Meanwhile, programmes supported by the Global Fund have cut the combined death rate from AIDS-related illness, TB and malaria by 61 per cent, saving 65 million lives. These are not abstract statistics scribbled onto the back of a Treasury spreadsheet; they are children in classrooms instead of hospital beds, parents who are healthy enough to work and provide for their families, and economies given the breathing space to grow. They are hope made visible.
I entered politics because I believe the purpose of government is to save and improve lives. That conviction is why I was proud to lead last week’s debate, flanked by colleagues from the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, the SNP, the DUP, Plaid Cymru, the Greens and independents. Conservative MP David Mundell captured the mood perfectly when he reminded us that supporting Gavi and the Global Fund is “not charity, but a strategic investment by the United Kingdom.” That sentiment was echoed by Wendy Chamberlain MP of the Liberal Democrats, who warned that “disease knows no borders.” In an era when our politics can feel fractured or performative, the life-saving power of vaccines still unites us, heart and head alike.
Why does it make such hard-headed strategic sense for Britain to remain a leading contributor? First, the partnerships generate an estimated £530 million a year for UK research and development, underwriting jobs and world-class science in Oxford, Glasgow, St Andrews, Liverpool, London, and beyond. Every pound we pledge overseas is multiplied many times over in economic return at home, whether through breakthroughs in genomic sequencing, spin-outs producing next-generation diagnostics or the export of British-made cold-chain technology.
Second, there is a simple security calculation. We learned the hard way during the Covid-19 pandemic that a pathogen emerging thousands of miles away can halt our trains, close our schools, and crash our high streets in a matter of weeks. The fastest, most cost-effective, and least disruptive way to protect Britain from the next pandemic is to strengthen primary health systems everywhere, from Milton Keynes to Maputo. Vaccines and resilient clinics are our first line of defence, buying time for scientists to develop treatments and for economies to stay open.
Third, Britain’s leadership role inside these funds amplifies our global influence at a fraction of the price of other tools of foreign policy. When the UK pledges early, other donors follow suit; when our universities share intellectual property, manufacturers in India or Senegal scale up production; when British civil servants help design innovative finance mechanisms, such as the International Finance Facility for Immunisation, it unlocks billions that would otherwise remain untapped. In short, we punch far above our weight — because people trust our expertise, our regulators and our diplomatic convening power.
Numbers and influence aside, a deeper moral arc is at play in this debate. A child’s chance of reaching her fifth birthday should not depend on the latitude at which she is born. Yet right now, half of all children who miss routine immunisations live in just five countries. Malaria still claims a child’s life every minute of every day. Drug-resistant TB is on the rise, threatening a costly return to the dark days before antibiotics were widely available. That is not a natural state of affairs; it is the result of political choices. And political decisions can be altered.
When I visit primary schools in Milton Keynes, the pupils discuss fairness and science with passion. They have grown up with the idea that a vaccine is a wonder of modern technology, not a luxury for the wealthy. They understand intuitively, sometimes better than adults, that health is a global public good. Those children would be appalled to learn that somewhere else, a girl their age could die of measles, diphtheria or whooping cough for want of a vial that costs less than the price of a coffee on our high streets. We owe it to the next generation to match their sense of justice with action.
Nobody in Westminster Hall last week pretended that public finances are unconstrained. The minister was candid: no new allocations to any international fund can be confirmed until after the spending review concludes. I understand the caution. Yet we must guard against the false economy of delay. Both Gavi and the Global Fund enter new replenishment cycles this year. The pledges secured over the next six months will determine whether we hold diseases in retreat or allow them to surge back. If we falter now, modelling by the Global Fund warns of an additional 2.6 million deaths from AIDS, TB and malaria between 2024 and 2030; Gavi estimates that an under-funded programme could leave over 100 million children unprotected against basic childhood illnesses.
Britain helped found both organisations. We hosted their replenishment conferences, pioneered financing tools that keep life-saving commodities flowing, and supplied the scientific breakthroughs — most recently, the world’s first malaria vaccine — that turned hope into immunity. That legacy is worth defending. In doing so, we honour the civil servants who designed innovative finance, the NHS nurses who volunteered overseas during Ebola, and the scientists at Oxford’s Jenner Institute whose work underpinned the Covid-19 jab that returned us to normality far sooner than many feared.
But legacies cannot be stored in aspic; they must be renewed. That is why MPs across the aisle urged the government to confirm, at the very least, level funding for the next cycle and to do so early, signalling confidence to markets and multilateral partners alike. The United States, France, Japan and Germany are watching what we do. Leadership shared is leadership sustained.
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