International Development White Paper

Roger Gale Excerpts

Tuesday 21st November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

My right hon. Friend knows a great deal about this area from his past ministerial posts, and he is absolutely right. The key trick is to secure the status money, whether provided by the multilateral banks or the development finance institutions, and to marry it with the private sector and the $60 trillion of pension funds out there. If we can marry the two, de-risk through using that status money, and show pension managers what the real risk and the scale of the returns are, we can achieve the holy grail of getting enormous amounts of more money into climate finance, mitigation and adaptation, which is what the Bridgetown agenda is all about.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

I call the Scottish National party spokesperson.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

The Minister has consulted widely, and he truly has a refreshingly collaborative cross-party approach. We in the SNP broadly welcome the tone of it and some of the detail around mutual respect, listening to local partners, the recognition of civil society and the potential role of diaspora communities. However, the Minister will not be surprised that we want him to go further, and I will list a few of the things I would like to hear more about. SNP colleagues will have more to add on that.

The first and probably the most important thing is the fact that there is no concrete recommitment to 0.7%, as recommended by the International Development Committee. In the entire document of 154 pages, there is one mention of 0.7%, where the White Paper states that the Government will recommit to it

“once the fiscal situation allows.”

If the fiscal situation currently allows for tax cuts, I would say that that moment has arrived. The new Foreign Secretary was instrumental in getting us to 0.7% in the first place, so I hope that he and the Minister will expedite that intention.

Secondly, there is no recommitment to the restoration of programmes that have been cut since 2021, including in Yemen, Syria, Somalia and South Sudan, all of which had cuts of more than 50%, taking several million pounds of their support away. Those nations are all suffering significant repercussions from the climate crisis and the fallout from conflict.

Although I am pleased that women and girls and gender equality are to be put at the centre of bilateral funding, stakeholders have said to me this morning that it is short of the transformative approach espoused by others, including the Scottish Government. Let us not forget that the cuts I just mentioned extended to girls’ education programmes, which is estimated to have resulted in 700,000 fewer girls receiving an education. That is one of the greatest scandals of our lifetime.

Finally, I was surprised that there was nothing in the White Paper about public perception of international aid and how we can challenge and change it. I have my own thoughts on that, but if most right-thinking people understood the role that their Government and their predecessors had played in some of these countries over centuries, and the ongoing legacy of that, they would understand that we have moral obligations. I know the Minister agrees, so I would appreciate his assurance that the omission of that point was simply an oversight. I look forward to continuing with the collaborative approach that he has brought to the role.

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[Mr Mitchell]

I thank my right hon. Friend for the tremendous contribution she has made on the matters she is addressing. Chapter 5 directly addresses tackling climate change and biodiversity loss, and delivering economic transformation, and I am glad it has her approval. Chapter 3 deals with mobilising the money and what I described in my response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab), the former Deputy Prime Minister, as the “multipliers” and how we ratchet in private sector money. Those will make a fantastic difference and we also have to make sure that this money reaches the poorest people in the world. Britain’s role in the G7, in these international organisations, has always been to focus on the poorest people in the world. We are proud of doing that and the House would expect us to do it. This White Paper amplifies that mission.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

I call the Chairperson of the Select Committee on International Development.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

Let me start by giving my huge congratulations to the Minister. I hope that the whole House has recognised his personal involvement and the tenacity with which he has got this document out. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] I also congratulate our civil servants, who for the past three years have been doing an amazing job in challenging circumstances. I really hope that this White Paper re-establishes our position on the international stage. I particularly welcome the embedding of localism; more money to the poorest; debt relief; and the focus on atrocity prevention. The White Paper outlines several initiatives aimed at increasing the amount of climate finance available for vulnerable countries such as small island development states, which is welcome. The Minister referenced biodiversity loss a couple of times in his statement, but will he explain why no specific mention is made in the White Paper of the loss and damage fund, which I predict will be at the centre of COP28 in the coming weeks?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Mitchell]

The quote that the hon. Gentleman found from 2014 was made in very different circumstances, but he is right to say that development will almost always fail where there is no security. Indeed, as Sir Paul Collier memorably said, conflict is “development in reverse”. On the middle east and Gaza—that is not, of course, the subject of the statement, Mr Deputy Speaker—the sooner we can move to a political track in the region, at the United Nations and in the international Assemblies, and start working on what a future two-state solution would look like, with a state for both Israel and Palestine, the better.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

That concludes the statement on the international development White Paper. I thank the Minister for yet another marathon question and answer session.