The Liaison Committee of the House is responsible for receiving proposals for new committees – be they permanent or ad hoc – and making recommendations to the House. It has a reputation for being somewhat cautious, as it does not wish to duplicate the work of committees in the Commons or absorb unduly the resources of the House: the marginal cost of a new committee is not insignificant.
However, the committee has recently considered a proposal from Lord Fowler (who as a Cabinet minister was responsible for the first public awareness campaign on HIV/AIDS) for an ad hoc committee on HIV/AIDS – 25 years after the HIV/AIDS outbreak was first recognised – and has agreed to recommend the appointment of such a committee. It believes that such a committee would be timely and has proposed that it report by the summer recess of 2011.
My Lord I`m not sure I understand the purpose and intention of this new Committee that isn`t covered by other resources.
It may well be needed but what is it exactly the House feels we don`t already know ? Will it be addressing just UK issues or Worldwide ?
If Government addressed the issue by announcing a Minister for HIV/AIDS I don`t suppose that would be welcome.
Carl.H: It enables the subject to be addressed in some depth, in a way that may not otherwise be possible, and will enable the House to draw on members with particular experience (such as ministerial responsibility) or expertise in the field. It will likely be up to the committee as to whether it looks as the global situation or the UK (or, as I think likely, both).
The very first persons to call would be two world authority pathologists, The Hon Richard Tedder (London) and my learnéd, but not saintéd cousin, Margaret Howell Karpatkin NY University
Medical.
I know nobody with higher knowledge of the subject than these two friends and relatives.
One of our mods at Hansard will be interested to notice the name “Howell”, to whom he is closely related, as am I.
I am proud to know those with such deep scientific learning as they have acquired during their professional careers.
Richard Tedder has a vast resource of written and received papers to his credit.
This is an excellent initiative. It will, though, be extremely important to ensure that the terms of reference are such that it will be possible in due course to evaluate the success of any recommendations the Committee may make. I trust that the voice of PLHIV, especially those from migrant communities, will be accorded special attention, and that the framing of the terms of reference take into account the knowledge, understanding and experience of PLHIV.
drmjweait: Many thanks. The committee was appointed by the House on Monday and, as is usual with select committees in the Lords, has broad terms of reference: “to consider HIV and AIDS in the United Kingdom”. You can see the details in Hansard at:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/ldhansrd/text/101220-0001.htm#1012201000307
It has some good members.
Thank you so much for the link – I would have found it eventually, and you saved me precious time! Have a very restful break.
Please do give some serious consideration to taking evidence from younger people – i’m selfishly talking about young gay men in London.
I am 25 and in the past 12 months three of my friends (between 19 and 27) have contracted HIV.
There needs to be a drastic reassessment of the effectiveness of the current approach, and the need to introduce home screening kits.
An excellent and overdue initiative. Thank you.
I am concerned that the voice of PLWHA is not subject to the oral evidence process. I note that yesterday several Support Service organisations were being described on the committees pages as “patient groups”.
This troubles me as there are several patient groups including the Frontline HIV Forum at C&W, Dr Barton spoke yesterday also. That would challenge the definition used.
Whereas all organisations will have a positive contribution to make. Care needs to be taken to represent those giving evidence correctly and if the desire is for the committee to engage with patients than http://www.forum-link.org/about/members.html has a good list to start from.