EAC Report: Development Aid

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington]

My Lords, the hour is late and many eloquent and powerful speeches have been made making a number of the points I wished to make, so I have been through my remarks with a thick red pen and hope they hang together. It is very tempting just to say, “I agree with my noble friend Lord Bates”, and sit down.

I would like to put the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, right on one point. It was Michael Howard as party leader who first committed the Conservative Party in 2005 to the 0.7% target.

I make my remarks as co-chair with Stephen O’Brien of the Conservative Friends of International Development, which was launched last year. CFID was set up to harness and focus interest from Conservatives who wish actively to support development and learn more about it. Many of our group, now numbering around 700, are alumni of the Conservative Party’s very successful Project Umubano and Project Maya.

Since 2007, more than 300 Conservative volunteers have participated in a number of different programmes in Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Bangladesh and Bosnia. They have shared their expertise, whether as teachers, business people, lawyers, medics or sports enthusiasts, with children and adults in these very poor countries that face challenges beyond our comprehension. These volunteers spend two weeks of the summer holidays, at considerable expense to themselves, working in challenging conditions—noble Lords will know that Sierra Leone in the rainy season is no picnic, and two of my own group came home this summer with typhoid—but at the same time enriching their own lives and life skills as well as understanding a little more about extreme poverty. Many of the issues raised in this extremely interesting report were discussed late into the evening. They come back to the UK inspired, enthusiastic and committed. They want to know more about the developing world and about what the UK can do to help and support these countries to lift themselves out of extreme poverty and, eventually, out of our aid budget. I am full of admiration for these young people—I certainly felt the granny of my group earlier this year—and I am very pleased that this new generation of Conservatives is going to be leading the debate going forward into the future.

I join a number of previous speakers in welcoming this comprehensive report. Its evidence was extremely powerful. Like many Members of this House, I am a supporter of the aid work that our country supports, and it is a great source of pride that the UK, DfID and our commitment to improving the lives of the world’s poor are regarded as global leaders in the development field. As the world’s most generous philanthropist, Bill Gates, who has himself so far given away $28 billion of his own money, has put it, the UK Government are taking a fantastic lead. However, businessmen such as Bill Gates do not give away their hard-earned cash without there being a good business case and a commitment to value for money so, like many Members of this House, I welcome Justine Greening’s similar approach, which follows her renewed commitment on behalf of DfID to value for money, transparency and well targeted aid. This in turn builds on Andrew Mitchell’s commitment to spending money only where it will be used effectively and to stopping funding organisations that are not delivering. At a briefing by DfID officials and NGOs in Freetown early this year, I was struck by their support for this approach—one of the senior officials told us that it was long overdue.

On that basis, I, too, support the Government’s commitment to the 0.7% target, as tackling deprivation and poverty around the world is both a moral imperative and in Britain’s interests. However, much of the debate about the generosity of our £7.6 billion aid budget confuses people. A recent poll demonstrated this point. People were asked how much of British expenditure they thought went on overseas aid. They said that the figure was just over 17%. When they were asked how much they thought it should be, the figure that they gave averaged out at just above 7%. The actual figure, though, as we all know, is 1.1%, so we are achieving these results on 1/17th of what the public think we are spending and one-seventh of what they think we should be spending.

Where is the focus of this spending? Over the next four years UK taxpayers’ money will vaccinate more than 55 million children against preventable diseases; provide 50 million people with the means to work their way out of poverty; and save the lives of 50,000 women in pregnancy and childbirth. We will also be able to help provide schooling for 11 million children, half of them girls, at 2.5% of the cost of educating a British child, and to get clean water and sanitation to more people than live in the whole of the United Kingdom. These are examples of where money really makes a difference, as it is next to impossible to escape poverty if you are suffering from illness and disease.

Following the efforts, as previous noble Lords have said, of the GAVI last year, British taxpayers will vaccinate a child in the poorest parts of the world every two seconds for the next five years and save the life of a child under five every two minutes, all from diseases that none of our children dies from. Around 10 children vaccinated for the cost of a couple of Starbucks coffees really has to be value for money

The Secretary of State has said that it is tragic to think of the wasted potential of children who might have become the next Steve Jobs, had they not lost the lottery of life. By helping children to realise their potential, we enhance the global intellectual pool and increase future technological and economic gains, as well as creating a platform for growth by helping developing countries to build a skilled and healthy population that will eventually enable the country to lift itself out of poverty.

The advantage of aid is not that it just stops at the recipients. The recipients of aid can also in due course become aid donors themselves, to help poorer and less developed countries as they move out of poverty. Correctly spent, our aid can ripple across regions as more countries become prosperous.

As countries become richer, the UK needs to move the relationship beyond aid and into trade. Helping developing countries now will mean creating consumers for the future. It is the emerging markets that were poor in recent years where UK companies have been able to win new contracts and realise benefits for the UK now.

The global fund, as the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, has said, has a proven track record of results-oriented delivery, saving more than 5 million lives since its inception. Therefore, continued UK support for the global fund has been provided and the 2 pence per day that every person in the UK gives to the fight HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria save a life every three minutes—value for money, I think noble Lords will agree.

The UK has been leading the international community in ensuring that aid is more effective. Take the International Aid Transparency Initiative in which DfID has played a leading role. The initiative will also help citizens in donor countries see how their aid money is spent, for far better domestic accountability. A budget is necessary to allow forward planning, but the Secretary of State has been very clear on her insistence that aid is based on results and outputs rather than the amount spent. In fact, as we know, DfID offices bid for results, not funding, demonstrating the commitment to outcomes rather than simply focusing on financial inputs into aid. Let us not forget to put aid spending into context. Total global aid spending currently stands at $133billion. Compare this to the $400 billion spent every year on cosmetics worldwide.

In summary, it is in all our interests for countries around the world to be stable and secure, to have educated and healthy populations, and to have growing economies. As the Prime Minister has said,

“So to those who say we can’t afford to act: I say, we can’t afford to wait”.

This is a promise we have made to the poorest in the world and one that we are committed to delivering.