Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-23)
16 OCTOBER 2003
RT HON
PATRICIA HEWITT,
DR ELAINE
DRAGE, RT
HON HILARY
BENN AND
MS DIANNA
MELROSE
Q20 Mr Worthington: But there is
a huge gap between Viagra and HIV/AIDS.
Ms Hewitt: There are some grey
areas there.
Q21 Mr Worthington: There are many,
many illnesses where more access to cheaper drugs would be of
great assistance. At the moment it is fairly restricted, is it
not?
Hilary Benn: The trigger is the
definition of a public health emergency, which is the foundation
of the agreement. As I say, I think it is an important step forward,
we need to enable people to use it. Another priority is to ensure
all of the activity which is going on in the world in trying to
support developing governments in tackling HIV/AIDS supports country-owned
processes rather than adding to the burden. This is something
which I know the Committee has looked at before but we need to
continue to be concerned about that because we want to harness
the passion and enthusiasm and commitment of people to do something
about this—and we should welcome that—including in
the form of funds and new instruments if it can bring in extra
money. All the time we need to keep our eye on the ball to ensure
that what actually happens on the ground in the countries themselves
supports country-owned processes rather than just adding reporting
lines and arrangements and meetings, because the problem of capacity
is also a problem of capacity for civil servants in those countries
working on trying to do something about HIV/AIDS.
Ms Hewitt: I would just add that
most of the drugs that developing countries need to treat their
people are off-patent already, they are generic drugs which clearly
are available relatively cheaply. Even then developing countries
need more help to make sure they have the money to buy them. Really
the patent issue is not the problem for most of the drugs which
are needed here, it clearly is a very big problem when it comes
to HIV/AIDS in particular, and there will be other situations—SARS
of course was one such which affected developed as well as developing
countries.
Q22 Chairman: What is your line to
take on the end of the Peace Clause?
Ms Hewitt: The Peace Clause of
course comes to an end at the end of this year, and there was
certainly disagreement at Cancu«n about whether it should
be extended at least for the duration of the negotiations. I think
at this point we need to wait and see what happens with our attempts
to get the negotiations back on track. If it does expire and nothing
else is put in its place, clearly there may be an increase in
the number of disputes which are brought under the WTO against
unacceptable agricultural arrangements wherever those occur. We
will just have to see how that happens but we should not under-estimate
the difficulty of managing large numbers of disputes. But we should
recognise if there are more disputes they do take (as we know
from steel for instance) about 18 months to work through the system.
What we need to go on concentrating on is getting negotiations
resumed.
Q23 Chairman: Thank you. I am not
quite sure what the collective noun is for a couple of Secretaries
of States, I can think of a few. It is not quite a Cabinet Sub-Committee.
Thank you both very much for coming and giving us evidence this
afternoon. There is a debate coming up. The Liaison Committee
have allocated us a debate in Westminster Hall in two weeks' time
formally on our initial report prior to Cancun, but obviously
it will range I am sure across trade justice issues. I am not
sure, Hilary, who you intend to wind up on that but it would be
very good to see you; I am sure it will be a very good afternoon.
It gives us three hours of opportunity to debate the issues.
Hilary Benn: Unfortunately I am
going to be overseas so it will be Gareth Thomas.
Chairman: Fine. We are going to carry
on with this and I hope we will be able to get out some further
comments hopefully prior to 15 December and we will see what happens
then. Thank you very much.
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