Future of DFID

Debate between Andrew Mitchell and Lloyd Russell-Moyle

Wednesday 27th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful for the contributions from the Members who spoke before me—generally, I agreed with what they said.

In my role on the International Development Committee I get to see some of the fantastic projects we are doing around the world, whether supporting M-KOPA, which is a solar power scheme in Uganda, Kenya and the wider region, investments via DFID alone and working with CDC Group, or garment workers providing safety and education in Bangladesh after that awful tragedy only a few years ago. DFID and British aid lead the world not only in transforming lives but in ensuring that the goods we receive in Britain are safe and help people around the world. It is right to say this is the best of British.

I begin by discussing why we have a moral responsibility to show leadership in development. Three months after becoming Britain’s first Secretary of State for International Development, Clare Short said:

“Out of our complex history—all the bad and good of it, and the role it leaves us with on the international stage—I want us to do all we can to mobilise the political will for poverty elimination.”—[Official Report, 1 July 1997; Vol. 297, c. 126.]

Of course, “ our complex history” is a reference to hundreds of years in which UK foreign policy was literally designed to extract the wealth of poor countries, although not so poor at the time, around the world under our Empire or under other spheres of British influence. It is therefore a reference to our duty to pay some of that back and to the post-colonial days of tied aid; we have already heard about the Pergau dam scandal where €200 million of UK aid went to Malaysia to buy billions of pounds of weapons. That complex history is why Labour untied aid by scrapping the aid and trade provision, why we passed the International Development Act 2002 and why Labour established the stand-alone Department.

The Cameron Government must be applauded for continuing the Department and breaking the previous tit for tat. But I am afraid that this Government are wilfully unlearning past lessons, to ally not the majority of the Conservative party but a lunatic fringe of their own party—including a “pirate”, according to the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell). That fringe is against the 0.7% and the rules-based system. It is undoing the good that the coalition and Cameron Governments did following the good that the Labour Government did.

Over the course of this Parliament, aid spent outside DFID has tripled—something the cross-party International Development Committee has criticised. Most of that money is channelled through organisations such as the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund, which is constituted of many dubious programmes by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Ministry of Defence, often based on training and equipping militaries rather than alleviating poverty or creating long-term peace.

[Mr Mitchell]

Surely, it does not matter who spends the money, but that it is spent in accordance with the rules as well as it can be. If it appears that it is not spent as well as it could be, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact is the right vehicle to find that out. It does not matter who spends it; what matters is that it is spent well and within the rules of ODA.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I agree that ICAI has a key responsibility. Last year, ICAI—the Government watchdog—said that aid spent through the CSSF could not be proved not to be making the problem worse. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that we need scrutiny, but if the money is spent by many Departments, there is not one head to be held politically accountable. The Government can spend it where they want, but the political responsibility must be with the Department, otherwise the expertise and the political responsibility are gutted from the Department. That was the case with CSSF, which cannot prove that it is not making the situation worse.

Things were already bad enough, but they have been made considerably worse by the Secretary of State feathering her leadership ambitions and sending signals to Tory Members rather than focusing on poverty alleviation. We need look no further than her recent speeches; even senior civil servants in her own Department cannot identify any of the changes in policy from those speeches. In recent months, her office has said that our commitment to 0.7% is “unsustainable”, and it would like aid spent on building UK battle ships to

“take pressure off a stretched fleet”.

That is not part of a rules-based system.

We have heard that CDC profits should be counted as aid, which in anyone’s book is double counting and is against the rules-based system. We have even heard threats of leaving the Development Assistance Committee if it does not agreed to all our demands. Finally, there was nothing but silence when another leadership contender, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), backed a plan to decimate DFID and the Department for International Trade—a barmy proposal to reduce the aid budget and to spend the remainder on propping up the BBC. In no terms is that aid spending.

When my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) asked the Secretary of State why we should trust her to spend the UK aid budget when she makes those sounds off, even though she is not acting on them, she said:

“They should trust me as the Secretary of State and as someone who has been an aid worker.”

It is astonishing that the Secretary of State’s defence is not one of policy or action but a personal anecdote that she happened to be a gap year worker for one year, 30 years ago, in Romania. That demonstrates clearly how much we need DFID to be governed by people who understand what aid is about. The joint Ministers of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and DFID do, but those at the top do not. We need someone at the top who does not wave red rags at the Conservative party.

Last year, the International Development Committee published the report “Definition and administration of ODA”, for which I acted as rapporteur. Almost all its recommendations were dismissed out of hand by the Government, although I understand many civil servants in the Department were friendly to the ideas. The report offers a very good basis for rebuilding the Department. Why can the Minister here not commit to our request that

“The Secretary of State for International Development should have ultimate responsibility for oversight of the UK’s ODA and the Department should have the final sign off of all ODA”?

That sounds pretty reasonable to me, but it was rejected. Perhaps the Minister could reconsider.

We put heavy emphasis on our concerns that the prosperity fund promoted UK trade above poverty reduction. Could the Minister allay our concerns? Finally, will the Minister reconsider the rejection of our request that

“The Government should make systematic improvements to coherence, transparency and—most crucially—the poverty focus of cross-government fund projects before increasing their share of UK ODA any further, and ensure that DFID”—

and ICAI—

“has oversight of all ODA spending”?

In some cases with the CSSF, ICAI has had restricted access to investigate spending, on national security grounds. That is no basis for finding out whether funds have been spent effectively—I grant that it could have been done in camera.

In total, the Committee made 34 recommendations, which were generally dismissed by the Government. I believe that implementing those recommendations would have strengthened the hand of the world’s best deliverer of aid projects, which we can be genuinely proud of and, as we have already heard, has fantastic staff. However, those recommendations were not accepted. Instead, we hear hyperbole about getting out of the DAC, double counting and other dodgy deals with aid. I am afraid that is the wrong tone to strike about our great Department.