I am grateful to the hon. Member for that really important point and for his kind words. He is right to pay tribute to the incredible civil society that we have working on these issues right across the United Kingdom. He refers to the important work that church groups do with communities affected by HIV/AIDS and other diseases.

I was really pleased to hear the hon. Member for Winchester talk about the role of the Rotary group in seeking to combat polio, and I have been absolutely delighted to be working as a polio champion with some of the organisations campaigning on this issue, particularly the global programme to eliminate polio. It is really important that we seek to work together on these issues, and the Government are reviewing our strategy on civil society. I will make sure that the issue of health activism is fed into that process, because it is really important. We need to make sure that we face up to the ongoing threats together.

The hon. Member talked about the threats from communicable disease being intensified by the climate crisis and environmental degradation. He was right to do so, but we also see non-communicable disease becoming more frequent in many countries in the global south, and there is still a potential threat from pandemics too. We are also working with others to champion sexual and reproductive health rights and freedoms for all, including as a key part of our work to empower women and girls.

We are investing in global health work that we know provides excellent value for money, reaching millions of people and maximising the impact of every single pound that we put in. I was really pleased to hear Gavi mentioned by the hon. Members for Winchester and for Esher and Walton (Monica Harding), who has so much international expertise. Our support to Gavi, the global vaccines alliance, is enabling it to immunise 300 million children and save up to 8 million lives from vaccine-preventable diseases over four years. That support for Gavi’s multilateral and engaged action internationally is clear, as I set out to the International Development Committee. I will not repeat that here, for reasons of time.

Similarly, the global fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria has saved over 65 million lives since 2002 and reduced the combined death rate of the three diseases by 61%. The UK has played a significant role in that success. In addition, the UK’s support for the child wasting innovation programme has helped it to raise financing from others, enabling treatment for 850,000 children. The multilateral architecture is critical here, and I was really pleased to hear the hon. Gentleman underline the importance of the World Health Organisation. The UK will remain a strong supporter of the World Health Organisation. He hopefully saw that we recently announced new funding for the WHO in support of its delivery and transformation agenda. We will continue to work closely with the WHO and its member states to strengthen the organisation, so that it can help countries to meet the health challenges of our times.

The UK’s national risk register estimates that there is up to a 25% probability of another pandemic in the next five years. That is one of the reasons why we remain committed to securing a pandemic accord at the WHO. Getting better at preventing and preparing for pandemics matters immensely for global health security, but also for UK health security and for this Government’s mission to build a national health service that is fit for the future.

The hon. Gentleman was right to say that the same applies to the threat of antimicrobial resistance. The UK is already seeing thousands of deaths that are attributed to antimicrobial resistance, and I was pleased to hear about the work of Dr Matthew Inada-Kim at Winchester University. I am also extremely proud of the work of Sally Davies, who has been working on these issues with the UK Government and Lord Darzi. The UK Government worked really hard to agree an ambitious global set of actions against AMR at last September’s high-level meeting, which was dedicated to that subject, and we will keep driving that work forward.

Before I wrap up, I want to shine a light on the wider work of the UK’s world-class scientists and public health and medical institutions. Harnessing the huge wealth of talent and expertise here in the UK is fundamental to the new approach to development that this Government are adopting. The UK’s scientists do a huge amount to address global health and development challenges by advancing our understanding of disease, pioneering work in genomic medicine and developing novel vaccines. I was really delighted to hear the passion with which the hon. Gentleman talked about this issue, and I have seen for myself the immense ambition of labs here in the UK, such as the Jenner Institute. Please forgive me if I smile, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I am very proud to represent the constituency where the Jenner Institute is based, and I visited it recently.

British scientists have helped to develop two malaria vaccines that have the potential to save millions of lives. Thanks to the expertise and brilliance of British scientists, the dream of eradicating malaria looks increasingly possible. The hon. Member for Winchester quoted Bruce Springsteen, and I hope that the “glory days” for those scientists will come when we finally globally eradicate malaria. If we manage to do that, it will be because of those incredible efforts. We talked about Gavi earlier, and with the UK’s support, it plans to roll out these new vaccines to 25 countries this year.

Our health, life sciences and pharma sector is second only in value to that of the US. It has an annual turnover of £50 billion, with £25 billion a year in exports, and it supports 115,000 high-value jobs, which the hon. Member rightly referred to. I will finish by saying how proud we can all be of the work that our country does on global health. It is good for us here in the UK and for people across the globe, and it is a key part of how we make sure that as many of us as possible can keep working together in partnership towards the safer, healthier and more prosperous world that people everywhere want and deserve.

Question put and agreed to.

House adjourned.