Baroness Featherstone
That this House takes note of the role of UK development partnership assistance in diplomacy, conflict resolution and the exercise of soft power.
Baroness Featherstone (LD)
My Lords, I very much look forward to the maiden speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Barber of Chittlehampton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hyde of Bemerton, as I am sure we all are.
I was a Minister in the Department for International Development for two years during the coalition Government. It seems a bit of a golden era now, because the world is changing, and not for the better. As we witness with horror and disbelief the dismantling of the world order—the “rupture”, as Mark Carney’s excellent speech so ably described it—we need to act.
We are now operating in a far more unstable and competitive international environment, marked by weak governance, state competition and hybrid threats, with over 120 active conflicts, and countries such as Russia and China increasingly pushing for greater global influence through fair means or foul. I must not leave out our now unstable and unreliable special relationship.
This, compounded and combined with the reduction in influence of the international rule of law, the reducing strength of international institutions and the dramatic reduction in development assistance from democratic countries, is moving us to an unsafe world, where might is right and our enemies rush to fill the voids we have left. We need to move decisively to defend and promote democratic values. This is the fight of our lives; it is a moral fight.
Our three pillars of foreign policy—defence, diplomacy and development—must operate together to be effective. Defence provides deterrence and protection when conflict arises, and we have even been found wanting in this theatre, but it is diplomacy and development that reduce the likelihood of conflict in the first place. Development assistance remains one of the UK’s most effective tools for diplomacy, conflict prevention and the exercise of soft power. It allows us to shape environments before crises erupt, to stabilise societies emerging from violence and to project influence through partnership rather than coercion.
Our development partnerships have always extended diplomatic reach far beyond formal state-to-state relations by embedding long-term engagement in the countries we partner with. Those development partnerships are not acts of charity; they are instruments of statecraft. But development partnerships have been under attack. The UK reduced its ODA target from the historic 0.7%—which, I have to say, was a Liberal Democrat piece of legislation during the coalition—to 0.5% of national income in 2021 and abolished the Department for International Development by merging it with the Foreign Office, thus changing the very nature of its interaction. It was then further reduced to 0.5%, following fiscal pressures, and is now planned to reduce further to 0.3% by 2027. I refer noble Lords to the excellent recent Question for Short Debate from the noble Lord, Lord Bates, on the humanitarian impact of these reductions.
Through long-term engagement, UK development assistance has created political access where traditional diplomacy alone could not. It has embedded trust with Governments, local institutions, civil society, and particularly in fragile and conflict-affected states, where credibility has to be earned over time.
Crucially, development partnerships address the root causes of conflict—poverty, exclusion, weak governance and injustice—by strengthening institutions, supporting inclusive growth, and investing in education and health. UK assistance reduces the grievances on which instability and extremism thrive. It projects our values—fairness, the rule of law, accountability and respect for human dignity—builds relationships with future leaders, reinforces our standing in multilateral institutions and enhances our ability to persuade rather than compel on the global stage. It gives us agenda-setting power, enables us to shape discussions on governance reform, human rights, climate resilience and economic stability, and strengthens bilateral relationships by signalling commitment, reliability and shared interests, rather than just transactional or coercive intent. It creates access to non-elite actors, such as local governments, civil society and community leaders, thus broadening diplomatic influence far beyond central governments.
Development programmes support peacebuilding infrastructure, including community reconciliation, transitional justice and inclusive political processes. Peacebuilding is central to the well-being of us all. Long-term development engagement sustains peace settlements after ceasefires and fills gaps that neither the military nor diplomatic interventions alone can address. Conflict-sensitive aid design helps mitigate the risk of exacerbating tensions and reinforcing the UK’s credibility as a neutral and constructive actor. This is soft power. This is conflict prevention in its most cost-effective form. However, soft power is fragile and depends on consistency, credibility and clarity of purpose. When development policy is perceived as short-term, transactional or subject to volatility, our diplomatic influence is weakened and our partnership strained.
On multilateral and global leadership, UK development assistance strengthens influence within multilateral institutions by demonstrating leadership, expertise and burden sharing. The strategic use of aid allows the UK to shape global norms on development effectiveness, humanitarian principles and conflict sensitivity. Development leadership supports the UK’s claim to be a force for good, reinforcing diplomatic standing post-Brexit.
If we are not there, then, as we can see, benign values will be replaced. Make no mistake: internationalism and co-operation are under attack. Development partnerships deliver return not as immediate revenue but as reduced instability, fewer humanitarian crises and lower future security costs. Every conflict prevented is a cost avoided—militarily, diplomatically and morally.
Chatham House produced a policy paper in 2025, Rethinking UK Aid Policy in an Era of Global Funding Cuts. The paper examines the security and geopolitical consequences of the recent cuts to official development assistance. It explicitly highlights concerns:
“Reductions in aid to fragile and conflict-affected states risk entrenching instability and generating wider spillover effects”
in contexts of extreme poverty, displacement, climate change and violence. The cuts jeopardise programmes designed to prevent conflict and stabilise fragile states, and risk reversing progress in supporting stability. This is a direct policy analysis linking UK aid cuts with the increased risk in fragile and conflict-affected settings.
There is already emerging evidence of the impacts of the USAID cuts to peacebuilding, including in Nigeria and eastern DRC, and the prior UK cuts to Sudan. On Sudan, the IDC has also stated that
“the FCDO failed to learn the lessons of its previous cuts to stabilisation and peacebuilding, which likely contributed to the escalation of conflict in Sudan going unchallenged”.
Stability abroad is national interest at home. We must be cognisant of what happens when vacuums are left and who and what fills them. The BBC World Service is one of Britain’s most effective and trusted soft power assets. It reaches hundreds of millions of people with impartial reporting, providing a powerful counterweight to propaganda and disinformation. Its budget has fallen sharply. It dropped by around 21% in real terms between 2021 and 2025, tightening its ability to sustain language services and maintain presence in contested information environments. Funding pressures have driven job cuts, including a recently announced 130 World Service job reductions as part of savings measures.
Cuts have forced withdrawal from key services, including BBC Arabic radio, reducing reach in regions where radio remains a resilient, low-cost platform during conflict and state disruptions. In Lebanon, for example, reports described Russian-state Sputnik radio moving on to the frequencies that were previously used for BBC Arabic. Information vacuums are filled instantly by hostile states or are aligned to the messaging of rivals.
The British Council, founded during a period of European instability, is a deliberate instrument of foreign policy. Its purpose was to build overseas understanding of Britain’s values, culture and way of life in support of British interests. Through cultural exchange, English language education and long-term relationship building, it generates trust that no short-term campaign could ever replicate. The council has vast reach, with hundreds of millions of people globally each year, operating in over 200 countries and territories and giving Britain an enduring platform for influence and relationships. However, the British Council faces severe financial pressure, and there is risk of closure in more than 60 countries in the coming years, potentially accelerating Britain’s retreat from the global stage precisely as competition intensifies.
The UK is now also facing deep reductions in the core machinery of statecraft. The FCDO is expected to reduce headcount significantly, with plans discussed publicly in terms of thousands of UK-based staff cuts and reductions of up to 25% or more of personnel. The Department for Business and Trade is also planning major reductions, with reports of around 1,500 job cuts shrinking its capacity to support exports, investment and commercial diplomacy.
Diplomacy is fundamentally relationship-driven and sustained influence requires people on the ground, yet having fewer officials means fewer relationships, less follow-through and reduced leverage. We have sustained many cuts in bilateral support to places such as Pakistan, Ethiopia, Yemen and Syria. Planned bilateral cuts this year include reductions of 18% for Sudan and 21% for the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Disgracefully, a growing share of the aid budget has been absorbed by domestic refugee hosting costs—around one-fifth of ODA.
Rebuilding British soft power is one of the most cost-effective ways to strengthen national security and to protect British interests in an increasingly volatile and dangerous world. Let us look to the growing hot spots and upstream security, because instability is increasing in several regions of strategic importance to the UK, including Africa, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific. These regions are facing weak Governments, conflict, climate change and low levels of economic development. Those consequences ripple outwards and hit us here with irregular migration, extremism, and humanitarian and global health risks.
Africa will be the central theatre of upstream security in the coming decades. Demographics alone guarantee its strategic weight. It is projected to reach 2.5 billion people by 2050, reshaping global trade, migration pressures and geopolitical influence. China, Russia and the UAE are all vigorously pursuing overseas programmes—not for benevolent purposes but to expand their influence to secure access and to lock-in strategic leverage.
This debate is not about whether development assistance should be guided by the national interest, as we are all agreed that it must. The question is how best that interest is served in a more unstable and contested world. I hope that the House will agree that a strategic, better funded and disciplined approach to development assistance remains not only compatible with the national interest but essential to it. I beg to move.
Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)
My Lords, I draw attention to my interests in the register, in particular my occasional mediation work for the World Bank and the CHD.
I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, on not just securing this debate, which is timely and essential, but her excellent introduction that has very clearly laid out the issues in front of us. I am particularly pleased to see so many speakers from these Benches in this debate and so many new Members of your Lordships’ House taking part, including the two maiden speeches that I look forward to with great anticipation.
The new Labour Members of your Lordships’ House taking part in this debate reflects the renewed interest in development, conflict prevention and peacebuilding in the other place, where many of the new Members of Parliament elected in 2024 show a deep interest in these causes. They are the post-2005 generation inspired by the actions of a Labour Government bringing the world together in Gleneagles to secure some of the biggest changes in development and conflict prevention that we had ever seen. We were all proud of that action. When I joined your Lordships’ House in 2010, I was proud to see the new Government build on that approach and the success of the leadership that the Labour Government here had shown. That included the commitment shown by Ministers on the other side, such as the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, and the noble Lord, Lord Bates, who are participating today.
It was particularly disappointing when, this time last year, our new Labour Government chose to focus only on hard power, to reduce their commitment to soft power and to cut the ODA budget so severely. The cruelty of those cuts and the blunt decision made by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor will be seen in all its glory over the coming months as allocations are announced. It is not too late to change that approach and to recognise that hard power and soft power have to go together. I hope that this will not be the first Labour Government in history to spend less money than the Conservatives on ODA and conflict prevention worldwide.
Of the biggest powers economically and diplomatically in the world, the UK led the debate on defence, diplomacy and development and the need to integrate these three approaches globally when we were in government. We supported the actions of the following Government when we were in opposition. Today countries are not reducing ODA and their commitment to international support; Canada, Italy and Japan are all in the G7 and are all committing to continue their development assistance. Interestingly for today—because the Prime Minister is visiting China—I note that China is increasing its international intervention; we might not agree with the way it does it all the time, but it recognises the strategic importance of that in a world where many powers among the democracies are reducing their support. We should not join that race to the bottom. Whether or not the budget is cut over the coming weeks, within the Foreign Office budget we must prioritise conflict prevention, soft power and peacebuilding. These are vital in a world where disorder and instability are increasingly impacting the lives of everyone, particularly the most vulnerable.
The UK has the academic expertise, the history of government intervention, the cultural institutions and the charitable organisations that are a source of great strength in this area. Our military should be stronger, but it also has great strengths in building peace as well as fighting war. We need a dedicated budget for conflict prevention, a genuine commitment to the women, peace and security agenda, not just warm words, and a strategic commitment to put the UK at the centre of this effort globally, as a trusted and reliable partner. We owe that to the many millions—in fact, hundreds of millions—of children affected by violence and conflict around the world today who need us more than ever.
Lord Bates (Con)
My Lords, I join others in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, on securing this debate and the way in which she introduced it. Following the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, I was struck again by the strong cross-party consensus that always used to exist in this House on this important issue. That enabled us to project that collective power around the world. I hope we can return to that at some point. I also look forward to hearing the maiden speeches, particularly of the noble Lord, Lord Barber. When I was Minister for International Development, we knew of the work he did in Pakistan in advancing education among young girls. It was a ground-breaking piece of work, and I look forward to hearing his contribution.
I believe we are at an inflexion point. The drastic cuts in overseas aid that are taking effect now may be a political debate for us, but they are a matter of life or death for the poorest. David Miliband called the cuts
“a blow to Britain’s proud reputation as a global humanitarian and development leader”.
They not only harm our national standing but undermine the health of our international institutions and risk destroying the critical humanitarian infrastructure it has taken decades to put in place. Last year, overseas aid was £14 billion. Next year, it will be £9.2 billion—the largest cash reduction in our history. At a time when the need has never been greater this century, the UK’s contribution to addressing that need has never been lower this century.
The World Food Programme has seen the number of those dependent on emergency food aid increase from 135 million to 318 million in five years, yet the Government have announced that they are cutting the WFP budget by 29%. The International Committee of the Red Cross is wrestling with the devastating effects of 130 armed conflicts around the world—twice as many as 15 years ago—yet the Government have cut its budget and are also cutting the budgets for other conflict prevention work. Those conflicts are causing mass movements of populations. The UNHCR has identified that as many as 117 million people may have been displaced—the greatest number since World War II —yet we are cutting the funding for organisations caring for those people at this time. Disease is on the increase around the world, yet we are cutting our contribution to Gavi, the Vaccination Alliance by 24%. It has been a brilliant initiative, saving millions of lives, and the ONE Campaign has estimated that this alone will cost around 600,000 lives.
If the Government insist on implementing these cuts, it will not only cost lives but diminish our reputation abroad and undermine our security at home. That was the view of Dame Anneliese Dodds MP, who courageously resigned as International Development Minister last year rather than implement the cuts. In a resignation letter to the Prime Minister, she said:
“Ultimately, these cuts will remove food and healthcare from desperate people—deeply harming the UK’s reputation”.
She is not alone. That used to be the position of Rachel Reeves, when she was shadow Chancellor. In a passionate speech in the House of Commons, speaking about the then Government’s decision to reduce aid from 0.7% to 0.5%, she said:
“If this cut goes through this evening and the House votes for it, it will diminish Britain. It will reduce our power and influence for good in the world, and it will undermine our security here at home too”.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/7/21; col. 220.]
She was right.
Often through mere accident of birth, many of us have had the enormous privilege to live in the best country on earth—the sixth richest nation economically. We have immense hard power as a nuclear weapons state and great diplomatic power as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and our cultural soft power is admired around the world. But with great power comes great responsibility—a responsibility to protect and to honour our promises, especially to the world’s poorest.
Baroness D’Souza (CB)
My Lords, my thanks also go to the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, for picking up this really important issue. I too look forward immensely to the maiden speeches.
It is generally accepted that Britain has, in the past, excelled in soft power, punching above its weight. But we live in a world of scarcity and increasing conflict, as we have heard, and the UK’s strengths in this area are diminishing due to severe budget cuts. Creative solutions are necessary to off-set the potentially adverse effects.
For many decades, the chief engines driving soft power have been fourfold: the FCDO, the British Council, the BBC World Service and diplomacy. The mechanisms for delivering what can be defined as achieving strategic international priorities through work with the public overseas include cultural exchange, cultural diplomacy and broadcasting. The UK is fortunate in having a number of different assets and channels that reinforce its soft power. However, the wide range of approaches carries the risk of strategic incoherence. A more specific risk is that the different roles and methods of all the organisations involved—often NGOs—must be thoroughly understood if their soft power programmes are to be effective and acceptable to the recipient communities.
For example, the British Council puts emphasis on the use of culture to develop a multilayered network of relations—a modus operandi that has been honed since its establishment. In more recent years, however, the British Council has been called on to deliver projects on international development. For example, by 2018, £136 million of its total FCDO grant in aid of £168 million was spent on development activities in eligible countries. This detracts from its unique soft power strengths.
The BBC World Service has a much narrower focus, in seeking to provide
“the most trusted, relevant and high quality international news in the world”.
Again, in recent years, the transfer of funding to the licence fee, although now partly reversed, has had a severe effect on the breadth of World Service coverage. Furthermore, the BBC’s impact depends on the perception of editorial independence. This has been challenged by the Government’s emphasis on the strategic importance of a given region for the UK, leading to the Government taking part in the decision-making process.
Although much of the UK’s soft power is relatively independent of government, giving it strength, the tendency has been to bring organisations and their methodologies closer to government. The FCDO’s public diplomacy board now incorporates UK Trade & Investment, DfID, the DCMS, the MoD and the DfES, among other departments. The lack of co-ordination between these bodies has resulted in a degree of competition between them and a consequent reduction in the opportunities for cultural exchange.
What remains is the outstanding issue: the urgent need for a far-reaching strategy, together with effective co-ordination between the different actors. The UK, despite its intention to become the world leader in soft power, has in fact dropped to third place, after the US and China. The answer lies not so much in massive additional funds but in a serious focus on strategic alignment of our external policies in the national interest.
Baroness Hyde of Bemerton (Lab) (Maiden Speech)
My Lords, I am profoundly grateful to have the opportunity to speak for the first time in your Lordships’ House. Indeed, I am profoundly grateful simply to be here. It is really not a normal trajectory from Cox Green comprehensive to here. I am deeply thankful to the incredible staff of this place—Black Rod, the doorkeepers, the librarians, the clerks and so many others who have been generous, patient and kind in their welcome. I am grateful to my supporters, the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, and the noble Lord, Lord Katz, for their encouragement and guidance. I am also grateful to my noble friends Lady Royall, Lady Smith of Basildon and Lord Kennedy of Southwark, and many others who have offered the same from all sides of your Lordships’ House.
I owe an enormous debt of thanks to people across the Labour movement who have mentored, challenged and shaped me. I cannot name everybody but I will single out the Fabian Women’s Network and the Labour Women’s Network for their life-changing sisterhood, without whom I would not be chair of the Fabian Society nor in your Lordships’ House.
Of course, I must thank my brilliant, endlessly patient husband and my twin boys, who make everything possible, even on the darkest of days.
Soft power, conflict resolution and diplomacy are rooted fundamentally in relationships and curiosity about how we live together well in all our glorious diversity. Indeed, my own life story has been shaped again and again by people with whom at first glance I appeared to have little in common.
I have spent over 20 years living and working around Caledonian Road—the Cally—a tough but extraordinary neighbourhood with some of the best people ever. I spent many of those years living on the Bemerton Estate, and I chose the title “Baroness Hyde of Bemerton” so that I would never, ever forget where I came from nor lose sight of whom I am here to serve and to ensure a functioning democracy for.
But let us go back. I was born on the banks of the Thames to a student and an NHS worker, and I want to thank my parents for raising me in a home where public service mattered and where working hard, putting others before yourself and collective endeavour were not abstract ideals but daily practice. They taught me that we achieve far more together than we can ever achieve on our own.
When I was 12, I experienced a significant bereavement through suicide, and that loss has undoubtedly shaped my life. In this House I intend to use my lived experience of suicides to help build a world in which they are vanishingly rare. There is much good work in the suicide prevention space and yet there is clearly more still to do.
I had a difficult time in adolescence and as a young woman, and there were many times when I was pretty unwell. But, as Rebecca Lucy Taylor might say,
“now I see it clear with every passing of each year.
I deserve to be here”.
The arts played a huge role in getting me through to the other side of this, and I remain a fierce champion for them—not as an optional pastime for the fortunate few but as a life-changing and often life-saving public good. They are essential—and fun.
I moved to Islington, and between my approximately 6,000 jobs—waitress, receptionist, call centre worker; the list goes on—I became embedded in the Cally community: youth work, homeless night shelters, community organising. The people at All Saints Church, in particular Kim, May, Feulah, Auntie Grace and Pat, took me in and treated me as one of their own.
From that Cally community I saw, time and again, that even in the hardest circumstances people still build connection, still love, still contribute. These lives, marked by poverty, addiction and struggle, changed me for ever through their grace, generosity and hospitality.
Prisons loomed large over these communities in every sense: nearby were HMP Pentonville and, back then, HMP Holloway. In 2008 I began working in Holloway with women whose children had been removed from them, and I spent the next decade working in and around prisons before undertaking a prison-related PhD.
Prison work led to me getting involved in politics, and I will use my time in this place to work for prisons and a justice system that ensures fairness for victims, and that rebuilds and restores and does not perpetuate or exacerbate harms.
To return to the subject of this debate, how we live together—generously and well—is one of the defining questions of our time. Long-held narratives fracture; truths have become flexible. Many people have felt, although this is changing, that things are not working for them, and desperation sets in.
When in pain and despair, that impulse to withdraw—to build walls—is an entirely understandable one, personally, nationally and internationally. Yet being isolated and surrounded by only those we agree with, who look and sound like us, diminishes our experience of what it is to be human and our ability to live in peace.
Internationally, these are somewhat unchartered times. Therefore, I draw on the words of the explorer Ernest Shackleton for inspiration. He said: optimism is moral courage.
So let us screw up our courage, and let us invest in, and utilise, our soft power as our morals and our optimism demand. Let us in every sphere keep connecting, keep listening and keep hoping.
As Nick Cave taught me, hope
“is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism. Each redemptive or loving act, as small as you like … keeps the devil down in the hole. It says the world and its inhabitants have value and are worth defending. It says the world is worth believing in”.
I wholeheartedly agree.
I will do my very best to serve the people and communities of this country while I am in this place. I will get things wrong, I know. But while I am here, I will always give my very best as I act justly, love mercy and walk humbly. It is the honour of my life to do so—and to do so as a Labour Peer.
Baroness Alexander of Cleveden (Lab)
Follow that, as they say. I begin my remarks by congratulating my noble friend Lady Hyde on an excellent maiden speech. I also look forward to that of the noble Lord, Lord Barber, whom I have known and admired for many years, and who shares a comparable commitment to public service.
My noble friend Lady Hyde has shared with us something of her own rich hinterland, and I want to take a moment to reflect on what she brings to this House. There are many noble Lords who know the pleasures and the pain of leading a think tank, and my noble friend has led the oldest and most venerated of them all in the Fabian Society. But there are very few noble Lords who can match her long experience of our prison system, a prison PhD and working with and for the most vulnerable in our communities. My noble friend’s expertise has been honed by years of working alongside those trying to rebuild their lives. She has lived the how of tackling human trafficking, preventing suicide, reducing violence against women and countering addiction. I suspect that she is not a woman who is going to allow casual claims about a broken Britain to pass unexamined in this place.
My noble friend’s love of the arts and their liberating potential will be a welcome tonic to our sometimes philistine instincts. I feel certain that Sara—not Sarah but Sara—with her own deep commitment rooted in her rich faith life, her values and her convictions, will both challenge and inspire your Lordships’ House in the years to come. I know I speak for the whole House when I say that my noble friend Lady Hyde is very welcome indeed.
I thank the Liberal Democrats for tabling this Motion. The Minister replying today, the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, is a former distinguished deputy chair of the British Council. I currently serve in that role, and it is what I want to focus on today.
This morning the Prime Minister met the Chinese President, so it is fitting to start with that familiar Chinese proverb about tree planting: the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago and the second-best time is now. Soft power is like a tree. Its success is measured in decades and not in a single season. The British Council is a tree that we planted 90 years ago to nurture soft power. But today, by simply focusing on the season, we risk allowing it to wither. This tree has weathered the storms of fascism, war, the rise of the United Nations, the Cold War, the fall of Berlin, the pandemic and the fracturing of the rules-based order. The tree bends with the winds of geopolitical change, but the soft power purpose remains connection, trust and understanding. The British Council is not about military power or high diplomacy; it is about links that last.
Our British history—the history of empire, its rise and fall—makes this country a place of fascination, frustration, anger and fidelity for people around the world: people who want to know Britain better. We used to know this. Our enemies and our friends know this, but since the crash, the council has had a miserable time. In the last 20 years, the government grant to the council has, in essence, been flat, so it has halved in real terms. Meanwhile, the budget of its sponsor department, the FCDO, has grown by more than 50%. In a global context, the financial support for the council’s French and German counterparts is four to six times what we see in this country.
However, during Covid, the Conservative Government extended a loan. Conservative Ministers knew that that loan was not repayable from income; that is why no repayment plan was set at that time. Five years on, and many years of qualified accounts later, the Covid loan is still unresolved. The council offered its art collection—worth £200 million—to the Government to pay down the loan. There was no response. The council has therefore shed 17% of its staff, and the remaining 8,000 at home and around the world worry about their futures and the redundancies to come.
Meanwhile, the council carries on as a tree whose roots are constantly being pulled up by the Government. Last January, the then Permanent Secretary said, “Come up with a recovery plan, work with the Treasury and we will then sort the loan”. In August, the council delivered the plan and officials said, “Sorry, we need another report. We’ll commission EY”. In November, they said, “Sorry, we need another report; this time, we we’re going commission Deloitte”. By December, the NAO had decided that it wanted to get in on the act, and it is commissioning a report, too. Rumour now has it that yet another consultant’s report is to be required before we agree a recovery plan.
I commend to noble Lords what their own official of choice—the noble Baroness, Lady Casey— recently called the “grip and fix” theory of governing. Gripping is the task of Ministers, and fixing means dealing once and for all with that Covid legacy. If the loan remains, it simply kicks the can down the road.
I conclude with three possible solutions for disposing of the £200 million loan. The first is that the Government accept the art collection in payment. After all, HMRC is for ever doing this for artwork in lieu of tax liabilities. Secondly, the FCDO could use its underspend to pay down the loan. Two years ago, it was over £1 billion; last year, it was more than £380 million. Thirdly, the Government could allocate a fraction of the £1.5 billion extra package for the arts that they announced last week. None of this requires cannibalising development assistance. So far, we have landed nothing, so a significant resizing of the British Council is coming. That is inevitable, but my plea is, let us grip and fix.
I want to close by thanking the many noble Lords in all parts of the House who have been part of those efforts. It is time for the Government to nourish the soft power tree that this country planted 90 years ago.
Baroness Sugg (Con)
My Lords, with the world we live in defined by geopolitical competition, protracted conflicts and crises, and shrinking civic space, the United Kingdom’s development partnership assistance remains one of our most powerful assets. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, for giving us the opportunity to have this debate, and for her introduction, which made such a strong case for continued investment in development. It was a pleasure to hear the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Hyde. It is clear that she is going to bring much passion to your Lordships’ House, and I look forward to hearing the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Barber. I know that this House will benefit from his considerable expertise in development, diplomacy and delivery.
Beyond alleviating poverty and responding to humanitarian need, UK development partnerships shape political relationships, build long-term trust, and reinforce the norms and institutions that underpin international peace and security. When aligned with foreign policy objectives, development partnerships strengthen conflict prevention, support inclusive political settlements and enhance the UK’s soft power by demonstrating commitment to international law, human rights and multilateral co-operation. It is through these sustained partnerships—often built over decades—that the UK earns credibility, influence and the ability to convene and lead at moments of diplomatic significance.
I will focus on women, peace and security and how the UK should use its upcoming presidency of the United Nations Security Council. I declare my interest as chair of the charity, Plan International UK.
I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement that women, peace and security sits at the heart of UK foreign policy. Next month’s presidency of the UNSC is one of the first opportunities to act on this commitment on the global stage. This is more than a procedural moment; it is a diplomatic opportunity that speaks directly to how the UK exercises influence in a contested world and how development partnership functions as a core instrument of our diplomacy, our conflict prevention efforts and our soft power.
The UK’s long-standing role as penholder on WPS gives us both credibility and responsibility. At a time of constrained development budgets and growing geopolitical competition, our challenge is to use our development partnerships more strategically to convene, to shape norms and to strengthen peace. The UNSC presidency offers a clear opportunity for the UK to translate long-term development commitments into immediate diplomatic impact by embedding WPS principles into the Security Council’s ways of working, from agenda-setting to briefings and outcomes. This matters because the evidence is clear: peace processes are more credible and more durable when women participate meaningfully. Development partnerships that support women peacebuilders, protect civil society space and strengthen local resilience directly contribute to conflict prevention and resolution. When the UK elevates these perspectives at the Security Council, it is not engaging in symbolism; it is improving the quality of decision-making and strengthening the council’s effectiveness. This leadership is particularly important at a moment of backlash against gender equality in multilateral forums. Resistance to gender-responsive language has already diluted mandates on civil protection, peacebuilding and conflict prevention.
The Protect Progress coalition, a campaign that is focusing on countering the rollback on women and girls rights, has suggested a number of events that would support the UK to deliver on its commitment to women and girls: a UK presidency signature event focused on securing women’s safe and meaningful participation and protection in all levels of decision making; a Foreign Secretary-led high-level ministerial meeting under the Arria formula focusing on the safe and meaningful participation of women in peace dialogue and processes in conflict contexts; and a formal council meeting on Sudan with a very strong gender lens—particularly important as women have, in essence, been cut out of the discussions here so far.
There are a number of other sensible ideas, including, importantly, a suggestion that the UK presidency should place a strong emphasis on systematic follow-up to recommendations emerging from previous Security Council meetings and briefings, particularly on women, peace and security. This would help move towards accountability and more effective, outcome-orientated decision-making. I have shared these suggestions with the Minister in advance of this debate, and I hope he and the department will consider them carefully.
I would be grateful if in his response the Minister could outline the steps that the Government will take on women, peace and security in the upcoming presidency of the UN Security Council. By placing women, peace and security at the core of our diplomatic engagement, the UK can demonstrate leadership that is effective, values-driven and grounded in the realities of conflict—reinforcing peace, strengthening multilateralism and exercising soft power where it matters most.
Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)
My Lords, I declare an interest as the co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Global Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, and I thank my noble friend Lady Featherstone for her excellent introduction to this debate. I also pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Hyde, for her excellent maiden speech; as a former Islington councillor also, who knows the Cally very well, I look forward to her contributions in the future.
For decades, the UK has been seen and expected to play a key role in peacebuilding and post-conflict recovery. Through diplomatic mediation and development funding, Britain was looked to as a stabilising force in fragile regions and countries, but today, in a volatile world, that influence appears to be fading just when it is needed. Instead of leading peace talks, supporting institution building and fostering economic recovery, the UK seems to have stepped back on its crucial role of using its soft power. While everyone understands why the UK is under pressure to increase its defence spending, it has been argued that cutting the UK ODA is not the best way to promote security and stability.
The FCDO has historically emphasised the importance of including women in peacebuilding efforts, recognising how this is crucial for sustainable peace and prosperity. Development-led soft power is, and continues to be, an investment in global stability and in the UK’s long-term national interest.
I would also like to focus on women and girls, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, has just done. Support from the UK has helped deliver remarkable progress for women and girls, including a 40% decline in global maternal mortality between 2000 and 2023, according to a joint United Nations report published last year. At a time of pushback on women’s rights, the UK’s commitment to sexual and reproductive health rights, especially maternal health, and its leadership in advocating for the rights and choices for women and girls, is needed now more than ever.
There are clear links between the UK’s support for global SRHR, as part of its development work, and both conflict resolution and the exercise of soft power and diplomacy. Globally, we have led on enormous progress and we cannot allow pushback and retreat on these commitments. Just because the United States has, we do not have to.
A good example is the UK’s support for the United Nations Population Fund’s supplies partnership, which is a pooled fund that is the largest procurer of reproductive health commodities for the public sector. This programme provides a critical lifeline to women and girls in many of the world’s lowest-income countries. In 2024 alone, it helped prevent nearly 10 million unintended pregnancies and more than 200,000 maternal and newborn deaths. Can the Minister, in his response, reassure me that the Government remain committed to ensuring that women and girls remain at the centre of both foreign and international development priorities?
Peacebuilding is also about prevention. Addressing poverty, inequality, discrimination and injustice is a long-term investment that must be protected. I will close my remarks by touching on the wider implications of what we have heard, and some have mentioned, in Mark Carney’s speech, described by many as bold and brave. We were reminded recently by the United Nations Secretary-General that the rule of law is a cornerstone of global peace and security for smaller and less powerful countries, and those suffering from historical inequities and the damaging legacies of colonial rule. International law is a lifeline promising equal treatment, sovereignty, dignity and justice.
It is worth reflecting that the rules-based international order did not just erode gradually. For many in the non-western world, it collapsed when western Governments showed that the rules do not always apply when the violator is an ally. The catastrophe, for example, in Gaza did not just expose a weakness in the system; it revealed what the system is. For several years, many countries, especially in the global South, have argued that the world did not merely fail to restrain the occupying Government’s actions; it funded them, vetoed accountability, ignored legal standards and actively criminalised dissent. International law was seen to be selectively suspended. That was seen as a real point of no return in recent years: not simply because Donald Trump threatens to violate the sovereignty of Greenland, but because the precedent was set in full view of the world. This reinforces the need, more than ever, for the United Kingdom to show leadership and underline its commitment and obligations to international law, and to be seen to be doing this, while redoubling efforts on soft power and diplomacy.
Lord Barber of Chittlehampton (Lab) (Maiden Speech)
My Lords, I would like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, for introducing this important debate, and all the preceding speakers, many of whose speeches were absolutely brilliant. I particularly congratulate my noble friend on her wonderful maiden speech. She is a very hard act to follow.
Last week I showed AI a picture of this Chamber. Its response: “A room with some people in it”. There was nothing about the magnificent Pugin interior, nothing about the historic controversies that that have echoed through this Chamber and nothing about the numerous Members on all sides from whom I have learned so much over the years. All of which makes this, for me, an infinitely more daunting and more humbling moment than AI will ever understand.
I take this opportunity to thank my supporters, my noble friends Lady Chapman and Lady Hunter, for their wisdom and support. Everyone, including the Lord Speaker in the last month of his distinguished term of office, my noble friends Lady Smith of Basildon and Lord Kennedy of Southwark, Garter King of Arms, Black Rod, the Clerk of the Parliaments, the doorkeepers, the clerks and the librarians, has been so welcoming and generous, and I am profoundly grateful to all of them.
This is also a rare opportunity to pay tribute to successive Education Ministers, who have given me exceptional opportunities to contribute to our school system over 20 or 30 years: the noble Lords, Lord Baker and Lord Gove, the noble Baronesses, Lady Shephard and Lady Morris, and my noble friend Lord Blunkett, among others. I salute their vision, their courage and their combined impact on our schools. The day we published our White Paper Excellence in Schools in July 1997, my noble friend Lord Blunkett taught me a powerful lesson. He said, “A White Paper, however well written, Michael, is worthless unless it visibly changes the lives of children for the better”. The follow-through after the headlines has to be rigorous.
It was that lesson that I took with me to No. 10 in 2001 when the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, invited me to set up the original Prime Minister’s delivery unit. Its task was to ensure follow-through across the public services, and the acid test for every proposal was what measurable difference it would make, and how soon. It turned out to be a global innovation.
As a patriot, I realise that these are challenging times. This is a dangerous world and we do need to be strong. Even as the son of loving parents who were committed Quakers and pacifists, I strongly support the case for strengthening our hard power by urgently building the capacity of our Armed Forces and security services.
I favour with equal strength enhancing Britain’s capacity to influence the world through soft power, as we have heard about this afternoon. It is the combination of hard and soft power that makes Britain unique. It is our superpower. It is our military and nuclear capability as well as our creative industries, world-leading universities, the BBC World Service, the British Council, Harry Potter and the Premier League. One telling fact is that 59 current world leaders were educated at UK universities—just short of 66 in the US and more than twice the number in France. That counts. On soft power, no other country can match us.
Building our hard power will help us deter and resist the obvious current threats. Building our soft power will help us resolve and prevent conflict in the first place. We need both, but how? When a conflict is in the headlines, we act, but what happens when it drops out of the headlines? At those moments, we cannot afford to abandon weak or failing states. We should help them and work with them to build capacity to deliver the stability, security and basic services that people crave.
For example, in 2009, the Taliban came dangerously close to Islamabad. Through that dark time, Britain and Pakistan collaborated on military and intelligence issues. That was hard power. Meanwhile, David Miliband, the then Foreign Secretary, asked me to help Pakistan rebuild its basic public services. Over the next decade, one visit turned into 50. Successive Prime Ministers—Brown, Cameron and May—actively supported this work. That was soft power. I do not claim that Pakistan solved all its problems—far from it—but its education and health systems improved, its poverty alleviation through the pandemic was exemplary and, crucially, it is a safer, more resilient country today than it was in 2009.
In late 2023, the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, asked me whether we might do something similar in Palestine. Since 2024, with the active support of successive Foreign Secretaries Cameron, Lammy and Cooper, I have been Britain’s—unpaid, I hasten to add—envoy on Palestinian governance. Working with the excellent Palestinian Prime Minister, Mohammad Mustafa, we are taking the first, very small steps towards a Palestinian state with the rule of law.
If I learned anything from my time in No. 10, it was never to lose focus on delivery, whatever the distractions. I should add at this point that I have also always been a strong and active supporter of the State of Israel and the British Jewish community, especially during my time as a councillor in Hackney. A capable Palestinian state with the rule of law is in everyone’s interests. That work has only just begun.
Climbing the mountain ahead looks daunting. The exercise of soft power is never a soft option. We, the British, know how to build trusting relationships, and we can be determined and skilful. Bill Bryson says that, when the British are asked how they are, they say that they “mustn’t grumble”. Even so, as we heard from my noble friend, at our best, we are good at optimism too. Anyone can do easy things; this is the time to embrace difficult things and to unleash our unique capacity to combine hard and soft power—the solutions are to be found there. Hard power or soft power? Both. Palestine or Israel? Both. Clear-eyed realism or incurable optimism? Both. The road to hell is paved with false dichotomies.
Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke (Lab)
My Lords, it is a rare privilege to hear such excellent maiden speeches as those we have heard today—inspiring maiden speeches that make us proud to be part of this House and what it can achieve. It has been quite inspiring to listen to two people who have come here and who were probably absolutely terrified when they were delivering their maiden speeches. Even for those of us who have migrated from the other end of the Corridor, it is always terrifying to make a maiden speech, but I do not think that I have ever heard two such speeches that were so absolutely wonderful.
As I am following my noble friend Lord Barber, I had a little look at his past life. He has the kind of CV that makes you wonder how he fitted in life, because he has done so much in so many different places. His speciality is the effectiveness of government. As he said, he worked for David Blunkett—my noble friend Lord Blunkett—and for Tony Blair when he was Prime Minister. He set up the Delivery Unit in No. 10—innovative work that attracted the attention of the IMF and the World Bank. I was a Minister at that time, and I saw the difference that was beginning to be made by the work that he had put in.
I hope that he enjoys the House of Lords. His seminal book, How to Run a Government: So that Citizens Benefit and Taxpayers Don’t Go Crazy, should be compulsory reading on both sides of the House. He went on to have a very successful career in the private sector before setting up Delivery Associates, which allows him to work with leaders across the developed and developing world; he told us about some of that in his maiden speech. What he said about Palestine was particularly moving, because people do not often praise both sides whenever they are talking about such troubled countries. We can learn a lot from him.
My noble friend has worked with Governments all around the world, including that of my own favourite place, Australia—but more on that later. His work in Pakistan embodies the toughest part of his mission. He is right: soft power has to go together with hard power. If you do not have hard power, you are going to get run over, and that is something that we have to avoid.
He has reviewed efficiency and public value and has even developed a new measurement of public value. If that was not enough, he is now the chancellor of the University of Exeter, and, lo and behold, he also has a hobby: he is the chair of Somerset County Cricket Club. I have been to a cricket match only once; frankly, watching paint dry was much more exciting. Unfortunately, I was with the cricket-obsessed Prime Minister of Australia; I kept asking if I could go, as I found it a rather long one. In addition, my noble friend is a member of the FA’s performance advisory group.
If anyone knows the way forward for our economy, it is my noble friend Lord Barber. I welcome him to this House and his contribution to the subject of this debate. He is so right: hard power and soft power can frequently go hand in hand, and he is here to steer us through these difficult times. I thank him very much for his maiden speech.
I have nothing like as distinguished a career as my noble friend Lord Barber. When I left university, I became the economist of the Scottish Trades Union Congress. I was called the head of the economic department but, given that there was nobody else in the economic department, my job was making the tea and occasionally vacuuming in the morning. It was a critical time for North Sea oil; it was in its infancy, and the traditional industries of coal, iron, steel and shipbuilding were suffering.
One of the reasons why I am interested in soft power is that I am interested in getting the proper kind of investment into countries, particularly when people do not necessarily understand it. Inward investment was at the heart of what the Scottish TUC was doing, and it was not an easy path. Few international investors knew anything about Scotland. Some saw potential, not least the oil and gas drillers, but there was a stumbling block in the way. It was called the “managing director’s wife syndrome”; some noble Lords who have done international development will know about that. Sexism was rampant in the 1970s. The wives knew nothing about the country and did not fancy moving to a dull and wet place, so soft power had to be developed. There were terrific films of lovely places where they could live, featuring beautiful schools with exam results that then beat most of the world and, of course, historic castles. It began to work, and I began to learn a lesson about how you sell your country.
I have never lost my interest in inward investment. As a Minister and then as a diplomat, I was probably profoundly boring on it, but we see all over Britain the change that inward investment can bring, and soft power plays a big part in its success. Try as I might, I have never forgotten the “managing director’s wife syndrome”, formed out of scepticism and a lack of knowledge about quality of life. When, decades later, I became the high commissioner to Australia, I was able to employ the lessons that I had learned from soft power and presenting a Britain that is dynamic, attractive and highly skilled. I told my team that, when they went out to present to companies, they had to view inward investment as the key to what they were doing. I insisted that they take with them somebody from UK Trade & Investment—as it was in those days—Visit Britain and the British Council, and it worked.
My noble friend Lady Alexander has already talked about the British Council. The sheer impact it had on education and soft power was absolutely amazing. Thousands of young Australians came here because of projects that had been developed by the British Council. I found it a fantastic opportunity to go out and meet these young people. Then, when they came back, they were really inspirational. But I am worried about there not being a full understanding of the economic benefits.
My noble friend Lady Alexander knows the British Council well. She was also the vice-chancellor of Dundee University. She was out selling what was so important to us: education and its opportunities. What noble Lords probably do not know is that she comes from a family of missionaries, so she knows the different kinds of soft power that can really influence people as easily as possible.
I will leave noble Lords with a very quick story about magpies. Magpies are murder in Australia. They are much bigger than other magpies, the sweet little birds we have here. They come down and poke your head, and it is horrible. Kids go to school with ice cream cartons on their head because it is so horrible. Tony Blair, in one of his first speeches in Australia as Prime Minister, talked about magpies. We found out then that he had lived in Australia as a young boy. His father was a lecturer and he had had his run-ins with magpies. It turned the whole debate about Tony Blair around, because I could hear people saying, “He is one of us; he understands what this country is like”. That is the kind of soft power that we need to use to get more inward investment.
Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, I too thank my noble friend for securing this debate and for opening it so effectively. She and I had the great privilege to be DfID Ministers in the coalition, when the UK finally honoured the commitment to spend 0.7% of GNI on aid. That does indeed now seem a long time ago, when there was a great deal of cross-party agreement—as we see reflected here today, in fact. It is wonderful to add the noble Baroness, Lady Hyde, and the noble Lord, Lord Barber, to our ranks here on this commitment of ours to international development.
Speaking of another noble Peer, I think back to the UN high-level panel of over 20 years ago, on which the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, served. This identified development as a key to security. As the ONE Campaign and others have pointed out, countries with the largest development needs face the greatest risk of conflict, and now the international rules-based order, imperfect as it was, as noted by Mark Carney and others, has been fractured and, possibly, worse. It now indeed seems that might is right. Trump allows Russia to take parts of Ukraine, seemingly because he identifies this as Russia’s sphere, and feels free to claim Canada and Greenland. But we do not need to follow Trump’s lead.
The UK’s development aid, as others have said, was a key to its soft power. We worked with Governments, civil society and multilateral institutions, building the trust that diplomacy alone could not secure. But then Boris Johnson destroyed DfID. The Tories cut the aid budget, using much of what was left in the UK. Now, Trump has shut USAID and cancelled 80% of its foreign aid contracts. He has shredded US support for multilateral institutions, those very institutions required for the balance that the noble Lord, Lord Barber, spoke of in relation to the Middle East. In the past, the UK has helped fill the gaps when Republicans have cut aid, especially when they slashed assistance on reproductive health and rights, so vital to women and girls worldwide. But that is not happening now. We note the growing global scepticism about whether the UK, along with the US, France and Germany, will deliver on its promises. The British Council’s Global Perceptions 2025 report notes how countries in east Asia and the global South are now rising in its indices.
The Government launched the UK Soft Power Council in January 2025. Three days ago, just before this debate, extremely abridged minutes from meetings in July and October 2025 were published. In July, there was a discussion of general strategy. Might the noble Lord expand on this? What did the experts recommend? In lovely “Yes Minister” fashion, the minutes of the October meeting noted:
“Members discussed the evolution of the role of the SPC, sharing thoughts on upcoming opportunities and challenges.”
I bet they did.
Our creative industries are still held back by Brexit damage. The BBC and the BBC World Service are under attack. Our higher education sector is hampered by the lack of welcome that this Government give—as Governments so often do—to international students, and especially to staff, with visa and health costs hugely out of line internationally. We may have educated many Heads of State, as the noble Lord, Lord Barber, has just mentioned—but are we doing so now?
There is no restoration of the ODA money that, for example, went into the Jenner Institute for Ebola vaccines, which then meant that we were at the forefront in vaccine development when Covid struck. As Malaria No More points out, the UK has been a global leader in medical science; I declare an interest as a council member at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Those from the UK have helped to set global health agendas. We have rejoined Horizon Europe, but it will take a while before the damage is repaired. Just because we have had strengths in these areas does not mean that that will continue. They need to be supported and cultivated.
Labour pledged at the election to strengthen diplomacy and soft power. It said it would rebuild Britain’s international development reputation. I am surprised, despite his depth of experience, that the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, as a Whip, has been detailed to respond to this debate rather than his noble friend the departmental Minister, the person who holds the levers here. There is much to do, and there is little sign of it being done. I hope that the noble Lord can persuade me otherwise when he responds.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Northover. It is an equal pleasure to have the opportunity to join in the thanks and congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, on securing this debate and her opening of it. I also join in the congratulations to my noble friends Lady Hyde of Bemerton and Lord Barber of Chittlehampton on excellent maiden speeches. The best compliment I can give them is that it took them only five minutes to get the ear of your Lordships’ House; that is quite an achievement.
On addressing your Lordships’ House for the final time before my retirement, as I am doing today, I feel not merely the traditional mixed feelings, but a positive cacophony of discordant emotions. First, of course, comes immense gratitude to all the staff of this House—doorkeepers, Library, catering and facilities teams, clerks and innumerable others—whose work makes this place function, and makes the work of those fortunate enough to be Members of this place an enormous pleasure as well as a privilege.
Secondly, there is sadness in leaving behind so many excellent colleagues from across your Lordships’ House, and in no longer being able to lay one’s hand on not merely an answer to any conceivable question but one often provided by a noble Lord or noble Baroness whose life’s work has afforded them expertise of unparalleled depth.
There is also a now faint but none the less enduring surprise at the turns of a political career that led me into the other place somewhat unexpectedly in 1997 and gave me the honour of serving in several ministerial and Cabinet posts, including as Secretary of State for Defence. The wise counsel I received from distinguished military officers and the extraordinary example of our service men and women will always remain my outstanding memories of public service. Then, in 2010, I was asked to serve in your Lordships’ House by the then Prime Minister, which I accepted—on the proviso, I have to say, that I could vote for reform of this place and, potentially, for my own abolition.
In that cacophony, my predominant emotion in making these final remarks is trepidation, not for myself but for the direction in which geopolitical currents are pulling us. In considering the situation when I entered the other place, and surveying the world today, there is no question that the values for which Britain stands and the system of international norms that guaranteed their long continuity face far more entrenched and concerted challenge. The question of how we face this situation is implicit in the Motion before your Lordships’ House this afternoon.
As I have had occasion to say during previous proceedings, it is clear that our strategic adversaries plan to fill any vacuum left by a western retreat from global engagement. In this context, aid matters for three reasons. First, we have a humanitarian duty to help those suffering from appalling poverty, conflict, natural disasters or climate change. Secondly, we are, in the long-term, defined by what we do as a country rather than by our aspirations. Thirdly, even by the most cynical calculus of self-interest, foreign aid enhances the UK’s soft power and promotes peace. It makes conditions less fertile for terrorism and, in some cases, keeps frozen conflicts from kindling into flame. In this sense, foreign aid should be defined as national security spending, rather than just as empathy translated into hard currency.
In addition, foreign aid and development partnership assistance often functions as an early-warning system, alerting us to the prospect of an outbreak of conflict or terrorist violence. While USAID is shuttered and all major European powers, including the UK, cut aid budgets and retrench, what are our adversaries doing?
This year marks the 70th anniversary of Chinese engagement with the African continent. This celebration will, in effect, amplify the influence they have secured through debt diplomacy and see the unfolding of a well-financed programme—two years in the planning—of initiatives to boost their soft power.
Russia is also seeking to fill the vacuum created by the retreat of the western powers. Its Africa Corps provides military and security support in Libya, the Central African Republic, Sudan and Mali; its state-owned energy company has co-operation agreements with more than 20 African nations and nuclear agreements with five; and Russian Railways has been retained by five African nations.
While the BBC World Service has discontinued its Arabic broadcasting and the Voice of America sheds most of its staff, Sputnik Radio replaces it—remarkably, in one case at least, on the very same frequency abandoned by the BBC. It has a new editorial hub in Ethiopia, broadcasting in French, English, Amharic and other languages. The voice of democracy, pluralism and liberalism is being muffled and replaced by a narrative designed to erode confidence in Britain and its allies. That cannot be seen as anything other than a retreat, however necessary the fiscal decisions were that have necessitated it.
If the rules-based international order is not dead, it is certainly moribund. To extend that medical metaphor a little further, it is clear that the only hope of alleviation in the medium term lies in a transplant—replacing the current occupant of the White House with another. However, we have to concede that it is likely that this era of great power competition will outlast President Trump. In that context, I believe our soft power is something we cannot afford to sacrifice. I welcome the Government’s commitment to restoring ODA spending to 0.7% when circumstances allow, but given that the Independent Commission for Aid Impact estimates that it could fall to as low as 0.24% by 2027, we must be clear about what it is we are sacrificing. The humanitarian impact of ODA cuts was explored a couple of weeks ago in your Lordships’ House, so I need not press that any further, but we are also sacrificing a key strategic advantage.
I said earlier that I feel trepidation when looking at the global picture, and I am conscious that I have painted a somewhat bleak picture, but a precondition of a genuinely optimistic prognosis is a clear-eyed and sober diagnosis. I am optimistic because the UK has enormous cultural capital, and a record of extraordinary scientific innovation and sustained military and diplomatic excellence. But we are a medium-sized power in a world of great power competition. That is a difficult path to walk, but in my retirement, I will be trusting in the surefootedness of my noble friends on the Front Bench and colleagues from all sides of the House.
I began by thanking the staff of the House and the doorkeepers who were there to wave me in when I was elevated to your Lordships’ House in 2010. In my 16 years in your Lordships’ House, I have been afforded the opportunity to work towards multilateral nuclear disarmament, and to advocate for net zero and, I hope, for greater equity and inclusion across a swathe of government policy in a way that would otherwise have been impossible. As the doorkeepers of your Lordships’ House wave me out today, I am, and will remain, grateful for those many doors that membership of your Lordships’ House has opened for me.
Lord St John of Bletso (CB)
My Lords, we shall deeply miss the wisdom of the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, who has served both Houses with great distinction. He has knowledge in foreign affairs and defence. We have met on numerous occasions, in airports and all over the world. He speaks with such experience, and he will be sorely missed in your Lordships’ House. Obviously, I will be giving my valedictory speech soon, as an outgoing hereditary, but that is another point.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, for introducing this topical debate. I add my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Hyde of Bemerton, and the noble Lord, Lord Barber, on their outstanding and moving maiden speeches.
I will focus my brief remarks on how UK development partnership assistance has been an effective diplomatic tool and an assistant in conflict prevention and soft power. I will devote my remarks purely to Africa. Clearly, the recent budget costs have caused a huge strain on the effectiveness of our development programmes. I add my critical voice.
I would prefer, in my brief few words, to add a few more positive notes on some of the more successful initiatives in Africa. Africa poses both a challenge and an opportunity. With over 60% of the population under the age of 25, Africa is too frequently viewed through the narrow lens of conflict, crisis and governance challenges. However, digital public infrastructure has strengthened governance in countries such as Rwanda and Kenya, reducing corruption and improving service delivery. These reforms have been supported by UK technical assistance. In Kenya, the mobile money platform M-PESA has revolutionised financial inclusion and demonstrated how technology can enhance social stability. Here, UK-supported regulatory and innovation systems have helped to enable this success. Clearly, artificial intelligence has the potential to dramatically improve outcomes in healthcare, education and climate resilience. The UK is well positioned to support this transition.
Through development partnerships, we can help African nations build ethical AI frameworks, local data capacity and skills pipelines, ensuring AI empowers rather than exploits. However, the risk remains that AI could displace jobs faster than the new ones that are created. I join in supporting the UK Soft Power Council, particularly with its focus on Africa. Its promise lies in leveraging education, technology and AI-enabled soft power. However, delivery will depend on sustained investment and clear execution. I am concerned that there has been an overemphasis on short-term objectives, particularly migration controls, at the expense of long-term demographic and digital investments. Soft power cannot be transactional.
Briefly, on conflict resolution, our development partnership assistance has been very effective in Sierra Leone, where sustained diplomatic engagement, aid and security sector reform have helped to underpin a durable peace; and in Somalia, where UK support has strengthened state capacity and mediation efforts. However, elsewhere, progress has fallen far short of expectations, particularly in Sudan and parts of the Sahel, where reductions in funding and fragmented international engagement have weakened early-warning conflict prevention and stabilisation efforts, allowing crises to escalate rather than be contained.
Finally, through the Commonwealth, the UK has been and continues to act as an early and discrete support in conflict prevention, election monitoring and demographic resilience across its members in Africa, using trusted networks and shared institutions to defuse tensions before they escalate.
My five minutes is up. Africa’s demographic surge and digital future will substantially shape the global order. Whether the future is stable, prosperous and co-operative depends partly on how seriously we take diplomacy today. If we can combine long-term commitments, local partnerships and leadership on ethical digital transformation, our development assistance will continue to be strategically indispensable.
Lord Forbes of Newcastle (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, for securing this debate. I fear that my contribution will be a mere shadow of the exemplary exposition of the challenges and issues in this policy area which was set out so ably at the start of this discussion.
I congratulate my noble friends Lady Hyde of Bemerton and Lord Barber of Chittlehampton on their magnificent maiden speeches. They demonstrated not only passion and acuity of mind but a strong moral purpose and compass. I know that they will both provide immense service to this House in the years to come. My noble friend Lord Barber, with his love of cricket, brings with him a capacity for endless patience, which in my brief two weeks here I have learned is something of a need in your Lordships’ House. Last week, when a number of us made our maiden speeches from these Benches, we were dubbed “the quartet.” Having seen my noble friend Lady Hyde carrying a guitar around already in this House, I think that we may already have found our accompanist.
I also pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Browne on his final speech to your Lordships’ House and thank him for his service to the Labour Party, to this House and to our nation. It was definitely the most gracious and generous valedictory speech that I have heard in this Chamber today.
The international environment is increasingly volatile. We have conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East. We have trade wars. We have a decline in multilateral aid. We have a rise in new technologies and the spread of populism. This is all contributing to an increasingly challenging global future. The answer is seen by some as the greater exercise of hard power. There is much hard power on display in the world at present. We see coercion and extortion undertaken by global superpowers as a stick with which to beat others into submission. However, if hard power is a stick, then soft power—the ability to achieve goals through willing attraction—is the carrot. Without stretching this metaphor too far, I hope, I suggest that we have many carrots in our soft power larder. Universities and their scientific research, professional qualifications and regulatory regimes, cultural history and assets, the beauty of our countryside, the magnetism of our cities, and our sporting achievements and prowess are all essential in how the UK is seen and therefore able to act in the world.
However, the UK’s status as a trusted international actor is not guaranteed. Strategic rivals such as Russia and China are investing heavily in soft power and exerting influence over multilateral institutions and globally significant regions such as Africa, south Asia and the Indo-Pacific. At the same time, we see the whole-scale withdrawal of the United States from this arena, so it is more vital than ever that we leverage UK soft power to our national advantage. Therefore, I welcome strongly the establishment of the UK Soft Power Council and look forward to it building a critical mass of institutions, organisations and sectors around a clear set of priorities.
We also need to do more to join up international development approaches and funding with a diplomatic strategy, our defence and foreign policy and our approach to international trade. We need a genuinely co-ordinated and coherent narrative about what Britain stands for in a modern age and how our approach to international affairs is more strongly linked to domestic support for this agenda.
Through the usual lens, international development is seen as a reflection of moral purpose and virtue. It is seen by many people as an act of international charity, but unfortunately the evidence from polling is that the public, especially in difficult times as now, think that charity should begin at home. We therefore need to widen the argument for why international development, both multilateral and unilateral, is essential to our nation’s security. That means supporting areas in times of conflict to reduce the forced migration of people, avoiding the misery, heartbreak and trauma that many face of having to leave home and homeland.
We need to be smart about the use of our resources. I understand the significance to many of 0.7%, 0.5% or 0.3% of GDP, but I remain unconvinced that spend alone is the most important factor of success. We should instead look at leveraging our genuine and unique strengths in the UK international development sector in post-conflict recovery, infrastructure design and delivery, capacity building at a local level, especially in skills, and project management and effective use of resources. This approach should guide our next steps, and I believe that the future of this area should be grounded in values of fairness, equality, respect for the law and, above all, an ambition for democracy, peace, prosperity and opportunity for all.
Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interests as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Women, Peace and Security, a member of the steering board of the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative and chair of the Afghan Women’s Support Forum. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, on introducing this timely debate today in such an excellent fashion. I also congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hyde, and the noble Lord, Lord Barber, on their excellent maiden speeches, and I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Browne. I am so sorry to hear that he is retiring. I pay tribute to the huge contribution that he has made to political life and to his service to this country over many years.
The UK has enjoyed a high reputation for diplomacy and, although it is no longer a great military power, it had a leading reputation for soft power and development aid. We rank as the world’s sixth-largest economy. Therefore, we have a duty to help the poorest across the world. Since President Trump’s return to office in January 2025, we have seen the US cancel much of its aid. To its shame, the UK appears to have followed suit, slashing our aid budget to 0.3%. The Government argue that the reason for this is that we need more money for defence, and few would argue against increasing defence spending at this dangerous time. However, what we need is security for the UK, and security will not be achieved by defence alone but needs a combination of diplomacy, development and defence, as the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, said in her wonderful introduction. The defence uplift does not have to be financed at the cost of international development. This is a political choice the Government are making. While we spent around £15.37 billion in 2023 on development, this will be reduced to around £9 billion in 2027-28, with 16% spent last year in the UK on asylum seekers, and all this at a time when UK cuts have left people destitute across the world.
I am concerned about this Government’s stated approach to development through partnership, particularly in Africa, where, according to the Government, countries now do not want to see us as donors. Many African countries are very rich in natural resources, but the benefit from those resources too often ends up in the pockets of the few. What are the Government doing to address the endemic corruption in many of those countries? I am concerned that a choice seems to have been made mostly to finance multilaterals. Of course, Gavi and the Global Fund are worthy, but why are we choosing to be at the leading edge of donors to them? Often, those organisations also take a slice of development money too. To make a real difference, funding needs to be to the grassroots, so please let us cut back some of the multilateral funding and spend the money where it can make most impact; for example, on locally led women’s organisations and projects such as demining work by Halo and MAG.
There remains enormous gender inequality in many of those African countries, and the fact is that the predominantly male leaders turn a blind eye to issues such as FGM, child marriage and violence against women. We need to continue putting women and girls at the heart of development, both to stop violence against them and because we all recognise that empowering women at a community level is good for all, including a country’s economy.
There is no doubt that poverty creates conflict and conflict creates poverty. Focus, therefore, needs to be on conflict prevention and resolution. Studies show that for every £1 invested in prevention, as much as £100 can be saved, as well as preventing the misery caused by conflict. The Red Cross reports that there are more than 130 active conflicts in the world today, as the noble Lord, Lord Bates, has already said—more than double the number 15 years ago—with civilians bearing the brunt of attacks.
The ground-breaking UN Security Council resolution recognised the disproportionate effect on women and girls. It also advocated including women in peace processes. Empirical evidence shows that this makes peace more durable, legitimate and effective, and 35% more likely to last at least 15 years—and yet, look at the situation today. On Donald Trump’s peace board, none of the executive members are women, and of the 19 members at the Davos launch, there was only one woman.
There are so many negotiations centred around the Middle East, yet the International Centre for Sustainability states:
“Across the Middle East, women are being systematically pushed out of public life through law, custom, and state power”.
In Syria, Gaza, Israel, Russia and Ukraine you only see the men. The sidelining of the UN is contributing to this. We need the UN more than ever, but it needs to be made more effective through the reform, and I hope that the UK will play a leading part.
International development aid is an essential tool of soft power. Why are this Government not supporting the Women, Peace and Security agenda, which would help women in conflict countries, thus contributing to stability? We should not forget that overseas development is not charity. It is an investment in a safer, healthier and more peaceful world.
Baroness Goudie (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friends Lady Hyde and Lord Barber on their magnificent speeches on such an important subject which is close to all our hearts, especially at this time. I am extremely sad that my noble friend Lord Browne is leaving the House and retiring. We were friends before he came to Westminster, so it is a very sad day for me, and for all of us, that he is leaving, and I hope that we will always be in touch.
I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, for bringing this debate before the House because it asks a simple but important question: what role does United Kingdom development partnership assistance play in how we are seen in the world? We have been promised over the last few months that we will be told what the new role is going to look like, but we have yet to see this on paper. It has been put off and off.
Britain has the ability to prevent conflict rather than respond to it after the damage is done. For many years, development assistance has been one of the United Kingdom’s great strengths. We were and should continue to be the leaders in this. It has rarely made headlines, but it has built trust, credibility and long-term relationships in places that diplomacy alone cannot reach. When we talk about soft power, we often think of culture, language or broadcasting. Look what has happened to our broadcasting. We are no longer a power through the World Service. We have cut back and cut back. We have cut the number of foreign correspondents in the BBC. There are hardly any foreign correspondents in the BBC, and there are going to be further cuts. There are also the cuts to the British Council. All these are part of Britain’s soft power.
For many communities around the world, Britain is known through a clinic that has stayed open, a girls’ school that has continued through conflict, or a peace process that has held. That is soft power in the best and most practical form. Development partnerships work because they are not transactional. They are built over time, grounded in shared effort and local leadership. They allow the United Kingdom to listen as well as to speak, and to be present long after the cameras have moved on, which we know matters for conflict prevention.
Conflict does not emerge in a vacuum. It grows where institutions collapse, where inequality deepens, where young people see no future and where women are excluded from decision-making. Development assistance addresses those conditions directly. It supports education, livelihoods, health systems and inclusive government, which are the foundation that makes peace sustainable. When they are in place, a country’s GDP and exports strengthen and women are healthy and part of its leadership.
As many have said today, we are going backwards at the moment. No women are seen at any peace table. I have been assured by Ministers here that local women are there, but we have not seen them. We have not seen any notes. It is absolutely vital that we agree and sign up to having many women—local women—at the peace table. None of that has been seen in the last two years. We know of the women leaders in Ukraine: they have come here and been to America. They have sat outside the door. They should be there, as the women in Sudan were there and the women in Northern Ireland were insistent that they were there. We accepted that, but we have gone backwards on this issue.
There is good evidence that peacebuilding and prevention are cost effective. By one estimate, each £1 invested in conflict prevention today saves £16 in costs that would occur due to war, insecurity and humanitarian crises down the line. Modest investments in mediation, reconciliation and community-level peacebuilding can prevent conflicts that would otherwise cost lives and require greater humanitarian or military spending later.
UK-supported peace processes in places such as Colombia and the Philippines show that sustained engagement can be achieved. The Commons IDC warned that slashing aid undermines our conflict-prevention capacity and thus our national security—it is a two-way process. UK aid has supported women’s participation in the peace process, protection from sexual violence, access to education and economic independence. There are countless positive stories, from the eradication of Ebola in west Africa—the UK made a large contribution to this—to the millions of girls in South Africa who gained schooling through the DfID programme. These are not marginal issues. We know that, when women are meaningfully involved in peacebuilding, peace lasts longer and communities recover more quickly.
Lord Oates (LD)
My Lords, I join others in congratulating my noble friend Lady Featherstone on securing this debate and on her eloquent opening speech, and I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hyde, and the noble Lord, Lord Barber, on their powerful maiden speeches. I appreciated their focus on optimism. As both a Liberal Democrat and a Tottenham fan, I can fairly say that I embody the spirit of inexhaustible, sometimes ill-advised, optimism. I am devastated to hear the news that the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, is retiring. He has been immensely kind to me during my time in the House. I have learned a huge amount from him, and we will all miss him hugely.
I declare my interests as chief executive of United Against Malnutrition & Hunger and co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Africa. I will focus my remarks, as the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, did, on the role of UK development partnerships in Africa specifically. My first visit to Africa was at the age of 15, when I spent a month in Ethiopia during the 1984-85 famine. I later lived and worked for some years in southern Africa. Those experiences have shaped my life and my politics and taught me what can be achieved when the United Kingdom chooses to lead in partnership with others. That is why I was proud to work in the coalition Government, who met the UN target of spending 0.7% of GNI on development assistance. It was morally right to do so but also in Britain’s interest: it strengthened our reputation, our influence and our security. We built on the work of previous Governments to sustain and develop strong partnerships in Africa, which made great progress against extreme poverty and hunger and in furthering development.
Much of that progress is now reversing in the face of huge cuts to development support around the world. That matters because of the human costs—because of the millions of women who will be denied access to sexual and reproductive health services; because of the children who are already contracting HIV as mother-to-child transmission rises in the face of wholesale cuts of HIV services; because of the dream of the defeat of HIV which recedes with every cut; and because of the 2 million children who will die of malnutrition this year. It matters because of all this human tragedy, but it also matters because Africa’s trajectory will shape the UK and Europe more than any other region in the decades ahead.
Africa is not peripheral to British foreign policy; it is central to our security and our prosperity. As my noble friend Lady Featherstone told the House, by 2050 Africa’s population is projected to increase by over 1 billion to reach 2.5 billion, which will represent a quarter of the world. This could result in a demographic dividend driving prosperity in both Africa and Europe, but without investment in Africa’s people it risks delivering instability and conflict rather than opportunity.
That risk is intensified by Africa’s unsustainable debt burden, which is sucking resources out of the continent, crowding out spending on health, education and nutrition, weakening growth and eroding trust in states. The UK should be leading on debt restructuring, transparency and innovations such as debt swaps linked to health, education or nutrition outcomes. In the light of the severe cuts they have made to development partnership support, it is incumbent on the UK Government to provide leadership in this sphere rather than yet more excuses for inaction.
Development partnership assistance is also critical in conflict prevention and migration management. Conflict, food insecurity and economic collapse drive irregular migration. Chronic child malnutrition, worsened by climate shocks, damages learning and productivity, weakening economies and increasing instability. UK investment in agriculture and climate resilience and in combating malnutrition is a strategic imperative. We should sustain support for proven interventions such as UNICEF’s Child Nutrition Fund, pioneered with UK support—a perfect example of innovation and partnership in action. We need to support world-leading UK science that strengthens food systems and resilience instead of cutting funding that offers benefit to both us and our partners in Africa.
In a competitive world, partnerships anchored in health, debt sustainability and food security can help us rebuild the UK’s reputation and influence, so sadly squandered by the previous Government. But doing so depends on us restoring trust that we are a reliable partner. We need to understand that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, said, development partnership support is not charity but an investment in our security, prosperity and influence. Retreating from this space will not save money but simply pass on far higher costs to future Governments and taxpayers.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, it is a particular pleasure to immediately follow my noble friend and to agree with his compelling arguments for UK-Africa relations. I also agree with his remarks regarding optimism. I am a Scottish liberal, and therefore when you have exhausted pessimism, there is only optimism left.
I am very grateful to my noble friend Lady Featherstone for securing this debate and for the way in which she so clearly presented the case. I hope the House will forgive me for saying that we are very lucky on these Benches to have her among us, with the record and the commitment of delivery that she has brought.
The House has also been very lucky to hear two outstanding maiden speeches today from the noble Baroness, Lady Hyde, and the noble Lord, Lord Barber, and we look forward to their future contributions. However, this afternoon was bittersweet because we learned that we will no longer hear contributions from the noble Lord, Lord Browne. He has been a friend across Benches to many people. He and I have joked in the conversations that we have grabbed when we have both been in the country, and I, like my noble friend Lord Oates, have learned a great deal from the noble Lord. He served Kilmarnock with great distinction in the House of Commons and served us as a public servant in this House very well. He will be greatly missed.
When she introduced the debate, my noble friend gave a very clear argument for why development partnerships are in our interests both abroad and at home, especially in conflict prevention. That is why it simply makes no sense whatever to cut this work to the bone, as the Government are doing, when the need is greater, as my noble friend Lady Hussein-Ece said.
A relationship becomes a partnership when it is trusted, predictable and reliable. But our partnerships have been systematically undermined in recent years by a whiplash of ministerial changes that mean that, in the last decade, the average lifespan of a UK Minister for Africa has not been longer than nine months. Devastatingly, there have been rushed changes such as abolishing DfID and slashing development expertise to the bone, often mid-contract and mid-programme, at a critical time when our partners know that their relationship with the UK is critical for them to get closer to meeting the global goals. We abandoned them by ending bilateral programmes—proven to work—in their entirety, often hobbling multilateral bodies on the way by cutting UK contributions.
When the last Government and this Government chose to cut development to the lowest share of GNI in 50 years, they first felt it was necessary to misrepresent what it was. The last Government called it the greatest “cashpoint in the sky”, and this Government say that Britain is no longer a “charity”. It never was. It undermines the hard-working officials who have been development workers building partnerships over years to say that, at the end of the day, they were just charity workers.
First you undermine it, then you can wring your hands when you say that the public do not support it, and you can cut it. Most perniciously, you frame the argument as a choice between development and defence. It is a false choice, but it is worse than that; it is a strategic error to say that there should be a choice in the first place. But even if there is the choice to do that, it simply ignores the law. We still have the 2002 Act when it comes to the objectives of development partnerships, and we have the 2015 Act on scale.
Scale is important. In the excellent debate from the noble Lord, Lord Bates, earlier this month, the Minister for Development said that she did not believe that less investment leads to
“less action, less impact and fewer development outcomes”.—[Official Report, 13/1/26; col. 1674.]
But it is interesting that, in the Government’s Budget in March, the case for cutting development for those most in need in the world was that investment levels do not link with impact and better outcomes. Apparently, that is the only line of the Budget where that applies. Apparently, more investment is needed to meet the Government’s child poverty targets for Manchester but less is irrelevant when it comes to doing the same thing for Malawi.
I hope the Minister can explain to us in clear terms that, after the UK pulled out of water and sanitary health programmes and cut WASH by 75%, we have determined that there has been no impact whatever, because no one is telling us that. In fact, we know that the impact of that has been disproportionate on women and girls. Can the Minister say that it has not been disproportionate for women and girls? When the Government have actively deprioritised education programmes, can the Minister repeat that this is having no impact?
I ask this because we know the facts and we have all met those who have told us about the impacts. The UK was one of the few countries to have met the UN target of 0.7%. When we pulled out, often mid-programme and mid-contract, no one else had the sufficient scale to fill the gap. It has left many of our partners desperate to try to fill the gaps in other ways.
The deep irony of the current negotiations in the US Congress between the House and the Senate is that the proposed budget, which may well come about, would restore US development programmes, which could lead to the prospect that the Labour Government have cut the budget the most of any OECD country. That surely cannot be right for this country.
The Government are asking us now—perhaps the Minister will say it when he winds up—to reimagine development, but that is what we thought the review of the noble Baroness, Lady Shafik, was all about. It has never seen the light of day. Now, the Government are asking us to reimagine development to fit a cut budget, rather than thinking about what is needed and then setting a budget. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Forbes, that one of the virtues of soft power is that around the world we respect the rule of law. That is absolutely right. We have the law for 0.7% on our statute books here. Respecting the law on development would be a good start, before we start saying that other countries need to respect the rule of law.
We have been told that we will return to the law when the fiscal circumstances allow. Now, the Development Minister has regarded the UN target as not valid. Hidden in the spending review—the previous Government’s and this Government’s—is the fine print saying that when the Government have got close to meeting the fiscal circumstances for the development rules, they have changed them. We are now on the fourth iteration of the fiscal rules for meeting the targets. Are the Government still operating to fiscal rules? If they are saying that the fiscal rules will not be met at the end of this Parliament, they are admitting that they will not be met for the budget as a whole.
Parliament and the public know the impact that value for money in aid development has because we have an Independent Commission for Aid Impact. We do not have to listen to what a Minister might think: we are able to rely on an independent—I stress, independent—commission that reviews all elements of UK development partnerships and reports to Parliament and the public on their impact. Judging by what the Minister told the Development Committee last week, it seems that the Government are going to abolish it, DOGE style. Will the Minister make it clear in winding up that we will not abolish ICAI and that we will keep it as a vital resource for transparency?
Finally, all the speakers today have said that the need is greater than ever and partnerships are more important than ever, but this Labour Government, who have never met a UN target, could be leaving a lower level of aid than it inherited—indeed, the lowest share ever reported in development statistics. When the need is greater than ever and partnerships are more important than ever, that is not the best record, if we are going to be seen as a soft-power nation around the world. Depressingly, the Official Opposition are now committed to reducing it even further. This is wrong for our moral compass around the world, wrong for our security, wrong for our safety, and wrong for our soft power and our relationships abroad. It is mostly wrong, however, for the people who are greatest in need, and we are letting them down.
Lord Callanan (Con)
My Lords, I join all sides of the House in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, for securing this important debate today. We have heard some excellent speeches, none more so than those from our two maiden entrants. First, the noble Baroness, Lady Hyde of Bemerton, told us where Bemerton is; then the noble Lord, Lord Barber, of the splendidly named Chittlehampton, did not tell us where that is, but Google tells me that it is in North Devon, with a population of 820. If it is half as nice as its name, I am sure it is a wonderful place. Both made splendid contributions to your Lordships’ House today, and I am sure they will continue to do that in the years to come.
It was also an unwelcome surprise to hear that today’s was the final, valedictory contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton. I did not know that he was intending to retire. He will be a great loss to the House. I think it is fair to say that we have not agreed on much over my time in government and now on the Opposition Front Bench, but he is a formidable parliamentarian, always difficult to argue with and against, who contributed across a whole range of subjects with great vigour and ability. He will be sorely missed. I think it was Chris Mullin, a party colleague of the noble Lord, who said it was better
“to go while people are still asking ‘why’ rather than ‘when’”.
That is very definitely the case with the noble Lord. He will be missed by the House.
As the sixth-largest economy, the United Kingdom has an important role internationally. Through close working with our international partners, we can and should influence the direction of global politics to promote our core values of freedom and democracy. In our increasingly unstable world, that role is more important than ever. In Iran, we have seen mass protests against the oppressive regime that have been met with unspeakable brutality. In Ukraine, Putin continues to wage his illegal war against a sovereign, democratic nation that has every right to decide its own future.
Under the previous Conservative Government, the UK stepped up to the challenge of the international crises that we faced at the time, supporting the people of Ukraine with military and humanitarian aid—I am delighted to see the current Government continuing that—and establishing the Homes for Ukraine scheme. We supported Hong Kongers in the face of oppression by the Chinese state—I hope the Prime Minister is continuing to raise their plight in his current visit—and we have supported many Afghans who worked with us in the wake of the Taliban’s return to power.
Alongside that specific support, in the face of international crises and in the context of the serious fiscal challenge of the Covid pandemic, we continued to deliver official development assistance, although at the lower rate of 0.5% of gross national income—which I am sure will disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Purvis—with the top three recipients of UK country-specific bilateral ODA in 2024 being Ukraine, Afghanistan and Ethiopia.
The Official Opposition recognise that Britain can and should play its part internationally, not simply because it benefits those living in developing countries—of course, it does—but because it is in our own interests to do so. But we have to be wiser about how we go about this spending. Too often, organisations that receive UK government support have been found to be supporting activities that contradict our own objectives.
I have raised this before: in 2024, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East sacked nine members of staff who it said “may have been involved” in the 7 October 2023 attacks on Israel. When British taxpayers’ money is spent in support of organisations that have been forced to sack individuals who may have been involved in genocidal terrorist attacks, our international reputation is harmed. Indeed, these incidents damage trust in the Government’s due diligence processes when making decisions about overseas aid. I recognise that a lot of this went on when we were in power, but we suspended funding to UNRWA, which has now been resumed by this Government. So will the Minister set out what steps the Government have taken following the 2024 UNRWA case to improve due diligence in respect of some of that overseas spending? Does the FCDO have any concerns about the department’s existing spending on overseas aid?
While the examples of UK action on the international stage are concrete and were welcomed by those who benefited, the concept of soft power is, of course, much harder to define. Those who benefited from the Afghan resettlement scheme, the Ukrainians who have seen the UK support them as they defend their own country, or the Hong Kongers who have been given the opportunity to build a new life here in the UK with greater protection from the Chinese state, all know what we have done for them. But more generally, our soft power is hard to measure. Will the Minister confirm whether his department has a way of measuring our soft power? How is this monitored and have the Government set themselves targets against those metrics to grow our soft power? Without some way of measuring success, it becomes very difficult to evaluate the impact of changes made by this Government.
In 2025, the Government established the UK Soft Power Council with great fanfare. When it was established, we were told that it would meet four times a year and that it would provide concrete and actionable proposals to support the Government. Around the same time, the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, the Minister, told the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, that the UK Soft Power Council would have a “minimal budget”.
So, could the Minister, when he replies, give the House a sense of the successes of the UK Soft Power Council to date? How often has it met? Is the attendance at these meetings published? If not, does the Government have any intention of doing so? The minutes that are published tell the public almost nothing: I think that could do with significant improvement. What concrete and actionable proposals has the council provided to the Government since its establishment?
Given, as I said, that this was a flagship announcement from the Government in January 2025—made around six months after they came to office—could the Minister please explain whether, in his view, the Soft Power Council has delivered on the Government's ambitious plans for it to,
“re-imagine Britain’s role on the world stage”
and
“reinvigorate alliances and forge new partnerships”?
In conclusion, I of course thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this important debate, which has brought the importance of the UK’s reputation on the world stage to the fore. Although there are differences of opinion on the best way to strengthen the UK’s influence on the international stage, I can say with confidence that we are all united in our support for a stronger and more confident Britain that is able to promote justice, peace, freedom and democracy across the world.
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Lemos) (Lab)
My Lords, I join with others in congratulating the two new Peers on their maiden speeches. It is with great pleasure that I welcome my noble friend Lady Hyde of Bemerton to her place in your Lordships’ House and congratulate her on a really inspiring and wonderful maiden speech. I am delighted to hear that she has such a long-standing and impressive commitment to prison. As it also one of my interests, we are both, if I can put it like this, alumni of the prison system and I look forward to collaborating with her on that. We already know from the poem she quoted in her maiden speech that she deserves to be here.
I also congratulate my noble friend Lord Barber of—I have to pause to get it right, in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Callanan did—Chittlehampton on his excellent maiden speech. I thank the noble Lord for all his work, but particularly in recent times as the UK envoy for Palestinian Authority governance and for his support to the Palestinian Authority to build its delivery and governance capabilities to progress the vital reform agenda. I have been an admirer of my noble friend Lord Barber for many, many years—decades, in fact—from a distance and I very much look forward to working with him now.
I would go so far as to say I adore my noble friend Lady Liddell, but I deplore her attitude to cricket—as I am sure my noble friend Lord Barber does, too, so we will have to work on her together.
On behalf, I think, of the whole House, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton. I knew this was going to be his last contribution in your Lordships’ House, but he, in typical fashion, did not want any fuss and did not want it labelled a formal valedictory—which characterises the sort of person he is and why we have come to respect him so much. I want to thank him for his outstanding work as a parliamentarian serving your Lordships’ House, and also for his 29 years in the House of Commons. His personal and political qualities ensured that he served in the Cabinet of two Prime Ministers of the last Labour Government.
He has successfully been able to be both loyal to his party and to Parliament and a genuinely original thinker. His reputation is as someone kind and generous to all, from the most junior staff to the most senior. On a personal note, my first appearance at this Dispatch Box was to answer a Question from my noble friend Lord Browne of Ladyton. He laid great stress on the fact that it was my first Question, with the result that everyone was nice to me, including, if I may say, the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, who indeed was again today. Your Lordships’ House will be diminished without him, but we wish him and his family the very best, and I particularly want to applaud his departing comments about optimism, which I must say I share.
I am grateful, as all contributors have been, to the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, for securing this debate. I pay tribute to her long-standing commitment and passion, and to her delivery and achievements in this area of development as Minister and in other ways.
I am also grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. I share with the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, the feeling that there is a shared sense of commitment and responsibility across your Lordships’ House in this area. There are of course differences of opinion, but there is also a strong consensus about the importance of this work and the key priorities that we have as a nation.
Noble Lords do not need me to remind them that we live in a time of, as it was characterised in the national security strategy, radical uncertainty; a number of noble Lords discussed that, including the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone. The Government make no apology for making a positive and definitive choice to strengthen our hard-power capabilities in pursuit of national security and the national interest. I very much agree with my noble friends Lord Browne and Lady Liddell that hard-power and soft-power capabilities go together, and I entirely agree with the comment by my noble friend Lord Barber that together they represent a superpower.
I do not intend to make a partisan speech, but I will just say that this Government have greatly enhanced the UK’s national reputation by the standards of recent UK Governments. I also say to the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, that my noble friend Lady Chapman is in Africa doing her job and I am here doing mine.
As a number of noble Lords have acknowledged, the UK has deep expertise and experience in development, conflict prevention and resolution, as well as in soft power. Our long-standing track record in these areas gives us significant convening power alongside our direct and multilateral delivery. The world’s problems are interconnected, as the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, said, and therefore our responses must be interdependent, mutually reinforcing and more strategic. I entirely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, that security will not be achieved by defence alone, although we all agree that defence and security are extremely important.
I begin by confirming that this Government’s commitment to international development remains firm, but we feel, perhaps contrary to what was suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, that it is time for a new approach. The last few decades have seen significant reductions in extreme poverty, which was an overarching goal for the last Labour Government. At the same time, humanitarian need—particularly humanitarian need that arises from conflict and indeed climate change, which perhaps has not been mentioned so often today—is rising, while resources come under increasing pressure not just in this country but across the globe. We are also seeing international humanitarian law facing renewed challenges. I emphasise that the context in which the Government intend to set out our plans in this area reflect that changed context, and it is an important backdrop to our conceptual and policy thinking in this area.
A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord McConnell and Lord Bates, mentioned the cuts that have been made to the official development assistance budget. As I think everyone in your Lordships’ House knows, there will be further announcements about allocations in the coming weeks.
At a time when resources are challenged, we need to prioritise. That is why we are sharpening our focus on three big development priorities: humanitarian need, health and climate change. We are backing multilateral development organisations—which I note that the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, supported—because we believe that that is how we make the biggest difference and achieve the greatest impact; it is something that the noble Lord laid a lot of emphasis on. We are significant contributors to Gavi, the Global Fund, the World Bank’s IDA programme and the African Development Fund. The latter is an African-led organisation; I emphasise that because we believe that these partnerships need local as well as international leadership.
We know that multilateralism is not perfect, so we are championing much-needed reform, including the UN Secretary-General’s UN80 Initiative. The noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, and the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, mentioned the need to improve the performance of some multilateral institutions, and we strongly support that.
We also strongly support the work of the UN’s Emergency Relief Coordinator, and the impressive humanitarian reset that Tom Fletcher has put in hand. The noble Lord, Lord Bates, kindly invited me to a briefing that I think sounds absolutely terrific. He also acknowledged the history of others in that place, including my noble friend Lady Amos, who I think was here earlier. That is a very important and impressive part of what we are supporting, particularly Fletcher’s commitment to what he called “hyper-prioritisation”—that is something that I really want to get across.
The principles behind the Government’s important strategic shift in development reflect the changed world; I know that this has been set out in other contexts, but this is the context for today’s conversation. We want to move from being a donor to being an investor; from service delivery to strengthening systems in government; from global delivery to more local delivery; and from giving grants to providing expertise. That is what our partners want to see; they are ambitious to move beyond aid.
The noble Lord, Lord St John, and the noble Lord, Lord Oates, talked about Africa with their great expertise, and they drew our attention to the opportunities of the big demographic, digital and other changes that are going on there. Those are the countries that want to move beyond aid. It is through these multilateral partnerships—with respect, I do not agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, on this point—that we maximise the impact of every pound that we put in, as well as the many strengths and capabilities that the UK brings to the table, from financial to scientific and technical expertise. Those areas of expertise will be worth more than money.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
Can the Minister provide clarity on the move from being a donor to an investor? Before the cuts, what proportion of UK ODA was purely a donation and not linked to a partnership programme with the country that we were working with?
Lord Lemos (Lab)
As I have said, we will set out the context and the decisions that surround ODA funding. However, I stress to the noble Lord that we still have, and we will continue to have, country-based programmes. That is still an important part of the mix. If he was asking me to characterise some other change, I do not have much more to add. Turing to conflict and diplomacy—
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
Can the Minister clarify where the donations came from? If there were any, what proportion of UK ODA was from donations? The Minister said that we have gone from a donor model to an investor model, but there were no donations.
Lord Lemos (Lab)
I do not think I have anything to add. There is a long history of the use of the term “donor” to characterise providers of overseas aid, but we are not debating that now, if the noble Lord will forgive me. I do not really recognise the characterisation he is putting forward.
A number of noble Lords mentioned conflict and diplomacy. Conflict in the world, as we all know, has become ever more deadly and complex, and the UK’s diplomatic, development and security levers are more than the sum of their parts. We are working very closely alongside our international partners, old and new, wherever we can. This work expands effort to prevent conflicts as well as to resolve them.
A number of noble Lords stressed the need for conflict prevention, and that too is part of what the Government are committed to. We want to stabilise fragile places for the long term, not just to respond to conflicts once they have arisen. We also want to protect our shared security online—that has not had much attention in this debate, but it is important nevertheless—and improve our ability to identify and assess risk and strengthen the systems. We need to issue early warnings of conflict—a point that my noble friend Lord Browne emphasised.
Above all, our commitment is to save lives. We also want to uphold international law. We want to break the vicious cycles that blight so many lives with appalling violence and cause people to flee their homes. We must work to strengthen democratic structures and civil society organisations in exactly the way that my noble friend Lord Barber has been working in Palestine. This commitment to both preventing and helping to resolve conflicts and stabilising the situation sits alongside our efforts to target life-saving humanitarian relief in a deeply troubling world. The UK remains a leading humanitarian actor, and we will continue to support those in crisis, especially in Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan.
The noble Lord, Lord Callanan, asked me to set out the Government’s approach to UNRWA and Palestine, and I am very happy to do so. Following the US-led ceasefire agreement, there have been some improvements in the level of aid co-ordinated by the UN entering Gaza. It remains insufficient and needs upscaling rapidly to ease the suffering. The UK has provided £81 million of humanitarian and early recovery support as part of our £116 million programme for Palestine this financial year. The UK is doing all we can to alleviate suffering. Quantifying how much UK aid has entered Gaza is difficult due to the complex operating environment. Despite the restrictions on access, we know that UK aid is having an impact. The Foreign Secretary met UNRWA Commissioner-General Lazzarini in November and was clear that the UK continues to support UNRWA politically and financially, recognising its vital role in delivering essential services such as health and education to millions of Palestinian refugees across the region. This financial year the UK has committed £27 million, which will enable UNRWA to scale up life-saving aid including food, water, shelter and medical care for Gazans facing famine conditions.
A number of noble Lords mentioned women and children. The UK is a long-standing leader in preventing sexual violence in conflict, and we are setting a gold standard globally for engaging survivors through our survivor advisory group and survivor champions. The International Alliance on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict, which the UK helped to create, remains at the forefront of global action to prevent sexual violence. Importantly, as well as supporting services we are backing global efforts to make sure that perpetrators of appalling violence are held to account.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, kindly warned me of her question—so I am prepared to answer it—about what the UK will do during our presidency of the UN Security Council. I can confirm that we will embed women, peace and security considerations across the council’s work. As the Foreign Secretary set out in the high-level event commemorating the 25th anniversary, which the noble Baroness referred to, the UK is committed to amplifying women’s voices, participation in building peace, stepping up efforts to end impunity for sexual crimes in conflict, and ensuring that our humanitarian work goes further to address the particular impact of crisis on women and girls. This work will be underpinned by the UK’s refreshed approach to women, peace and security, including our ongoing work to strengthen delivery, accountability and cross-government co-ordination.
Lastly, on conflict, I draw attention to something that I do not think anyone has mentioned, which is our amazing worldwide demining and action groups, the Halo Trust and the Mines Advisory Group. The UK has done more than any other country on demining, and it represents an extremely important building block in conflict, security and stabilisation.
I turn to soft power. The UK regularly appears near the top of the league tables on soft power, but we are not complacent and we are obviously aware of the rise of other global actors. Soft power is about people-to-people relationships, going beyond government to government, as the noble Lord, Lord St John, and others noted, and our soft power assets allow us to reach the people that government finds it difficult to reach. We will be saying more about the links between development soft power and ensuring the UK’s security when we publish the soft power strategy later this year, which I hope will answer some of the questions that noble Lords have asked. Our work in soft power, as a number of noble Lords have emphasised, is stressed by the British Council, and I should declare my interest as the longest-standing trustee of the British Council for many years.
Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, I realise that the Minister is running out of time, but can he assure us that he will write to us with the answers to questions that he has been unable to give in his speech?
Lord Lemos (Lab)
Of course.
On the British Council, I am sure that we will continue to work on the problems raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Alexander, and I stress the Government’s commitment to it. I also draw attention to the fact that the Government increased the budget of the BBC World Service by £32 million. I also want to draw attention to the international education strategy, which a number of noble Lords mentioned.
We recognise that we cannot do everything, but we have a clear sense of what we are trying to achieve, which I think is shared around the House, and we are in pursuit of the more peaceful and prosperous future that people everywhere want to see.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)
My Lords, I much regret that the time allotted has run out, but we might allow just a couple of minutes for the noble Baroness.
Baroness Featherstone (LD)
I am very grateful. I thank everyone for such brilliant speeches—there is such knowledge in this House; it makes me so proud of everybody here. To the noble Baroness, Lady Hyde, I say that I was a designer before I came here, and my studio was at 7 Caledonian Road. I just wanted her to know that. I have an anecdote for the noble Lord, Lord Barber, about our ability to send potentates’ and dictators’ children to private school, but I will tell him that privately.
Lastly, I want to thank the noble Lord, Lord Browne, who has been so kind and so wonderful to everyone. There was not a little “V” by his name on the speakers’ list—he is even too modest to tell us it was his valedictory speech.
I just want to say to the Government that this debate asks that “this House takes note”, but I sometimes feel that in such debates, we, the contributors, get it, but I want the Government to get it. We have been forced to look at our defence spending by our friend in the White House; let us look at our spending on soft power too. Let us not wait for catastrophic world events and wars; let us move now and let us lead on prevention and peacebuilding. I thank all noble Lords for such brilliant contributions.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)
My Lords, my name will be mud because I have allowed this to overrun for two minutes, which is absolutely impossible in your Lordships’ House. But the question now is that this Motion be agreed to.