Overseas Aid: GDP Target

Debate between Baroness Northover and Lord Bates

Thursday 25th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they had at the G8 summit on members’ individual progress towards the 0.7 per cent of gross domestic product target for spending on overseas aid.

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, individual progress towards the 0.7% of gross national income target for spending on overseas aid was discussed by the G8 as part of the production of the Loch Erne G8 Accountability Report, which was endorsed by leaders at the G8 summit.

[Lord Bates]

I am grateful to my noble friend for that Answer. While we can take immense pride in being the first Government of a major G8 country actually to deliver on the pledge made 23 years ago to provide 0.7% of our gross national income to the poorest, Germany is still at 0.38%, Canada at 0.32%, the US at 0.19% and Japan at 0.17%. Does my noble friend accept that the entire point of us increasing our responsibility and taking our responsibility to the world’s poor seriously was never meant to enable other countries, which are now cutting their aid budgets, to shirk their responsibility to the poorest?

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his tribute to our leadership on this. By meeting our commitments, we are better able to seek to influence others, and that is what we are indeed seeking to do. I note his example and pay tribute to him because, as I understand it, on Saturday he will be starting a 500-mile walk on behalf of Save the Children’s work in Syria.

World Food Supplies

Debate between Baroness Northover and Lord Bates

Thursday 10th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

Is it not part of the evidence that could be considered the vast increase in local food prices in the poorest parts of this world? Is it not basically immoral to take food from countries in the developing world that cannot feed their own populations to feed biofuel incinerators here in the UK? We should be fuelling those biofuels from the massive food waste in developed countries, rather than have food scarcity in the poorest.

[Baroness Northover]

I was listening to the point on the “Today” programme about food wastage and it is extremely dramatic. Within DfID, we are working with other government departments to look at the impact of biofuels. It seems, although the evidence is disputed, that they have played a part in some of the food price spikes that we have seen. We are into the third one at the moment, which is largely because of the drought in the United States. However, the effect of using maize for biofuels is potentially significant and we are looking at this very closely.

Women: Deaths in Custody

Debate between Baroness Northover and Lord Bates

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

I thank the noble Lord for that question. Looking after prisoners will come under the national commissioning board rather than the GP consortia. The board will work in conjunction with the GP consortia to deliver the best possible care to those in the locality, working with other specialists and the public health service, which will be much more locally based.

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, on a recent visit to Low Newton Prison, a women’s prison in Durham, I met the families of inmates who had been imprisoned for credit card fraud. Not wishing to diminish the seriousness of that crime, I just wonder whether it is right that we should separate women from their families, at a cost of £30,000 a year to the taxpayer, for credit card fraud, when they would be better placed back in their homes, working in the community and paying off their debts.

[Baroness Northover]

I agree with my noble friend. It is extremely important that in this kind of case we address the issue of rehabilitation and try to ensure that there is no reoffending rather than put people in prison. I hope that the sentencing review later in the year will help to address this kind of issue.