A GLOBAL health expert has hit out at Lord Sumption's comments about some lives being less valuable during the pandemic.

Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at Edinburgh University, responded to former supreme court justice Jonathan Sumption in an interview on Good Morning Britain.

Lord Sumption who has been criticised for telling a woman with stage 4 cancer that her life was “less valuable”.

"It looked like you were telling a quite young woman who has got stage 4 cancer that her life is less valuable than anyone else's," Piers Morgan said to him.

Lord Sumption, who is one of the most prominent lockdown deniers, replied: "I was not saying anything of the sort. One of the problems was we were talking across each other, as happens in these cases, I was certainly not making any comments on her or her own health condition. I was making a perfectly simple point as the context quite clearly shows.

"Every policy maker has got to make difficult choices. Sometimes that involves putting a value on human life. It's a standard concept in health economics – quality-adjusted life years – that's what I was talking about.

"Policy makers have to do that because otherwise they cannot weigh up the consequences of different policy choices. It doesn't mean that people are morally worth less. It doesn't mean that they are worth less in the eyes of God or in the eyes of their fellow citizens but sometimes policy makers have to say some lives are worth less than others."

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Morgan responded: "Here's my problem with this, with you putting a valuation on individual life, regardless of their age or condition or whatever.

"I've heard this argument a lot from the anti-lockdown bridgade, is that they seem quite dismissive that older people, vulnerable people should just be put away or we should not overlook the fact that they would have died anyway.

He went on: "Let me give you a hypothetical ... Let's take the example of a 98-year-old man who has a very bad fall and ends up in hospital with multiple fractures and feels so bad, he feels like he's dying, that he personally signs a 'do not resuscitate' notice and puts it on his door. Now would you say that person in that circumstance has basically reached the end of his value in terms of his life?"

"It depends what you mean by value," Lord Sumption replied. "If you are making a policy choice, for example in the NHS, suppose the resources are limited and you cannot devote resources to both that man and a 25-year-old who has come in in a serious road accident then obviously you have to take account of the fact that the quality years ahead of the man of 25 are much greater."

Morgan said he was speaking about Sir Tom Moore, who made headlines around the world when he decided to walk 100 lengths of his garden before his 100th birthday last year, raising more than £32m for NHS Charities Together.

"By your yardstick his value was far less than that of somebody in their twenties but I would argue that the great value we got out of Captain Sir Tom Moore came after that when he was 99, when he began walking, and he began rallying the country, inspiring the world," Morgan told Lord Sumption.

He went on: "How can you possibly be saying that he at 98 has less value as a person, as a human being, given what we know that he then did when he was 99."

Lord Sumption said: "Piers, you're not listening to what I'm saying. I have not said that he has less value as a person."

Morgan interrupted to say: "Sorry to pick you up on this but I'm quoting your own words. You literally reiterated several times yesterday that you believe older people have less value. I'm not putting words in your mouth."

Lord Sumption hit back, saying: "What you are doing is taking part of my words and throwing back at me as if they are the whole and that, as you know Piers, is a grossly unfair way of approaching a difficult issue.

"I made my position perfectly clear if you look at the clip as a whole and the debate as a whole. This is a tool for policy makers.

"It's not a way to look at individuals like Captain Tom Moore. I quite agree with what you've said about Captain Tom Moore but one thing policy makers can't do is say well we will look at the life history of every patient in hospital and we will look at whether they have contributed more more to society and so on. Policy makers can't operate like that."

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Susanna Reid told Lord Sumption that he implied in the debate that the woman with stage 4 cancer has a life of less value.

"I was not intending to make any comment at all about Deborah Jones and I have made that clear to her since," he said.

"I regard this matter as closed. I am not going to say any more on this subject. You invited me on to the programme to comment on a poll. If you wish to do that I am very happy to comment on it and if you don't wish to do it I'm off."

Morgan reminded Lord Sumption that he used the word "value" and he moved the conversation onto lockdown, saying that China has successfully contained Covid by a strict lockdown.

"I do not think we should take China as a model," Lord Sumption said. "I do not think we should turn ourselves into the kind of authoritarian state that China has been for very many years."

"I am much more concerned about what is happening in this country with completely different moral and political positions. What is happening in this country is that the Government is in the process of turning a public health disaster into an economic, educational and social disaster. That can be seen in the figures.

"We are not prospering. Our GDP has gone down in the lastest figures by 2.6% Just look at what that means ... a generation of young people entering the job market will have no openings. Eventually we will get over Covid but these people will be living with the economic consequences for years and years and years."

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Professor Sridhar was asked about the devastating effects lockdown has had on huge groups of people and whether we can prove lockdowns work.

She said: "We know lockdowns work, it reduces mixing of people and the virus doesn't spread. Actually, the reason we're in this third lockdown is because of the anti-lockdowners like Lord Sumption because they put economy here and health here, which has let us do nothing properly.

"Instead of letting public health lead over the summer, letting us get the numbers down, letting us open up fully, have a full domestic recovery. Instead, we are caught in these two really meaningless debates that are putting us in circles and putting us into lockdowns.

"Firstly, should we choose lives or the economy, which we know is false from looking across the world. Countries that have done well controlled the virus and had economic recovery.

"Secondly, the idea that some lives are worth less than others economically or socially, that's wrong. To everyone watching: every life matters, regardless of your age or a health condition. There's no acceptable loss because someone has a pre-existing condition or because someone is older or younger. That is, from a public health perspective, completely wrong."

After the interview, Professor Sridhar said: "Listening to anti-lockdowners saying older people/those with health issues lives have less worth. Anti-lockdowners responsible for pushing us into these cycles instead of letting public health get on top of the virus & then having full domestic recovery (like other countries).