17:49 Preet Gill (Labour)

The international health regulations under discussion have of course existed in various forms since the 1960s. The latest iteration came into force in 2007. As they stand, the regulations obligate the 196 state parties to develop national core public health capacities for the detection, assessment, control and reporting of public health events. At some international ports, airports and ground crossings, they require parties to notify the WHO of serious diseases with risk of international spread. They set some of the human rights and other protections for any of us travelling abroad—protection of personal health data, for example. Those requirements are hardly controversial, apart from the fact that they were not on their own sufficient to prevent the spread of covid-19 around the world. That is why we think they must be strengthened. Climate change and globalisation mean that biological threats are only becoming more common, and future pandemics could be deadlier than covid-19. If another epidemic strikes with that same infectious potential, we must ensure that we are better prepared.

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17:59 The Minister for Health and Secondary Care (Andrew Stephenson)

Does my right hon. Friend the Minister not fear that what happens in the World Health Organisation negotiations will be very similar to what happens at things such as COP26, COP27 and COP28, at which all these countries sign up to something—most of them knowing full well they have absolutely no intention of following what they have signed up to—and we are left following the agreements when other countries do not even bother?

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