Minister refuses to say if UK HIV funding will be fully protected from aid cuts

Jennifer Chapman, the minister of state for international development and Africa, says the UK will still work with organisations that have ‘proved themselves effective’

A minister has refused to say whether UK funding for the global HIV response will be protected when the government announces significant cuts to international aid.

Jennifer Chapman, the minister of state for international development and Africa, was responding to a question from parliament's International Development Select Committee about the aid cuts, with an announcement due soon on where they will fall for the next three years. Conservative MP David Mundell asked whether funding for organisations like the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) will be maintained in order for the UK to maintain its global "leadership" in the push to end the AIDS pandemic by 2030.

In response, Baroness Chapman said: "I cannot say that everything you have listed will be protected... However, whatever [the allocations] are, I think our commitment to working alongside those organisations that have proved themselves effective is not going to change.”

The UK is slashing its total foreign aid funding by 40 per cent in order to spend more on defence. As part of this move, The Independent revealed in November that there would be a 15 per cent cut to the Global Fund, the leading international provider of HIV prevention and treatment. It is estimated the cut of £150 million could cost 255,000 lives.

A coalition of leading charities, advocates and MPs has signed a letter from the editor-in-chief of The Independent, Geordie Greig, urging Sir Keir Starmer to protect UK funding for the global HIV response – or risk missing “the incredible opportunity to end the Aids pandemic within the next few years”. Thousands more have signed a petition backing this call.

In 2024, the world was on track to end the pandemic by 2030, but devastating aid cuts from rich countries this year, including the US, have thrown this prospect into doubt. Data modelling shows that if current funding programmes are dismantled, millions could die worldwide, infections are set to reach levels not seen since the height of the crisis 25-years-ago, and medication-resistant strains could more than double.

The Elton John Aids Foundation, the National Aids Trust, Medecins Sans Frontieres and the STOPAids coalition are among the groups backing The Independent’s call for funding to be protected. Mr Mundell also signed the letter.

Mr Mundell, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on HIV, AIDS and Sexual Health, who also took part in a Westminster roundtable discussion on the cuts organised with The Independent, said to Baroness Chapman: "When the APPG met, we acknowledged that you had got what we perceived to be the best possible deal on the Global Fund in all the circumstances that you faced. However, in order for the UK to maintain that leadership, there are other organisations that we need to support, such as the Robert Carr Fund, Unitaid and UNAIDS. Can you give us some hope that, when you make your various announcements, support will be there for those organisations? It is essential to complement the Global Fund to achieve that objective."

As well as refusing to detail the funding for those organisations, Baroness Chapman said that there would likely need to be changes to the way groups work within the UK framework for supporting the UN. "The way we co-ordinate and work through UN organisations, the Robert Carr Fund and others needs to be brought together. We need to have conversations about what, in 2026," she said. "That is the right way to get the impact, given the changes in technology and some of the shifts we are seeing more widely. I think that is the moment where we have those conversations.

Baroness Chapman has said that the UK is to prioritise overseas aid for multilateral institutions like the World Bank or UN in an effort to counter growing threats - from Donald Trump and others - to international cooperation. “The multilateral system is coming into threat, and we can have a very long discussion about why that might be, but we feel there are some agencies that we really want to back,” she said.

This article has been produced as part of The Independent’s Rethinking Global Aid project