Universal Sustainable Development Goals

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I start by adding my thanks to my noble friend Lady Suttie for the skilful way that she set the scene. The universality of the sustainable development goals is neatly encapsulated as the “5Ps”: people, prosperity, planet, peace and partnership. Together with the overarching commitment to “leave no one behind”, they are designed to include us all. The noble Lord, Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale, spoke passionately about the process following on from the millennium development goals and the need for a more comprehensive approach.

This debate, as we have heard from speaker after speaker, is about delivering the SDGs on the domestic front so that life is more decent for our own people and there are no repercussions on other nations arising from our domestic policies. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, made the point very forcefully about establishing a level playing field for all if we are going to achieve these aims. I hope that, when the Minister comes to respond, he will recognise that it will not do for him to concentrate on the actions of DfID. The debate is specifically on the Government’s progress on embedding the SDGs into their departmental practices in a holistic and integrated way.

The UK Stakeholders for Sustainable Development, UKSSD, is a cross-sector network of organisations which are working together to drive action on the UN sustainable development goals in the UK. Its report, Measuring Up, which I believe the Minister is aware of, expresses a level of disquiet about the Government’s lack of preparation for presentation of its voluntary national review, which will take place at the UN in July and September next year. I am concerned that DfID has been tasked with exercising overall control of cross-departmental delivery of the goals domestically. I have great respect for the Minister and the work that DfID carries out in delivering the 0.7% in the international arena, but its record of keeping tabs on ODA spend by other government departments has not gone so well. This does not bode well for DfID’s role in monitoring delivery of the SDGs across all government departments.

Of the 111 countries which have already presented their VNRs—voluntary national reviews—to the UN General Assembly, the ones that have stood out have been those which deployed responsibility right from the top. For example, in Germany oversight lies with the office of the Chancellor, and in Japan it is with the Prime Minister’s office. As the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, said, they have been leading from the front, including both the private and public sectors. The executive summary of the VNR report of the German Government to the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in July 2016 says:

“The State Secretaries Committee for Sustainable Development steers implementation of the Sustainable Development Strategy and oversees the updating of its content. … The Parliamentary Advisory Council on Sustainable Development monitors the German Government’s National Sustainable Development Strategy … The Council for Sustainable Development, an independent advisory council, promotes societal dialogue on sustainability. It consists of 15 public figures who … represent the economic, environmental and social aspects of sustainable development in its national and international dimensions”.


My last quote from the report is as follows:

“The implementation of the 2030 Agenda is carried out within the framework of the budgetary and fiscal requirements of the Federal Government”.


Will the leadership to deliver this agenda in the UK come from the very top? And will Secretaries of State take full responsibility for their departments’ performance against relevant SDG targets? Will the framework to monitor, assess and incentivise action be put in place? Will we engage our civil society partners in a high-level advisory capacity to represent economic, environmental and social aspects of sustainable development, as asked by the UKSSD? The issue was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Chesterton, who spoke of the useful expertise that lies in technical agencies. What is the plan to harness expertise of that nature?

The fact is that, four years on from the adoption of the SDGs, we have not produced anything that says we are taking this agenda seriously. This is poor performance from the country that was instrumental in bringing the UN document, Transforming Our World, in which the SDGs are embedded, to fruition and to universal acceptance. As the fifth richest nation, with an aspiration to cement the “Global Britain” brand on the international stage, we must lead by example; the point was made in the debate by several noble Lords, but I particularly associate it with the noble Lord, Lord Rogan. We must lead by example and fix our fault lines at home—fault lines that the EU referendum exposed in dramatic fashion.

Where is the UK action plan to tackle goal 1, which is to end poverty in all its forms everywhere? Several noble Lords—the noble Baronesses, Lady Suttie, Lady Walmsley and Lady Grender, among them—have mentioned the report of the UN special rapporteur on poverty. He concluded by saying:

“Poverty is a political choice”.


That is controversial, but he is right. In the recent Budget, the Government increased the personal allowance to £12,500, giving basic rate taxpayers an extra £130 per year. However, higher rate taxpayers will receive an extra £860 per year because the threshold for higher rate taxes was raised to £50,000. The Government had a political choice to make, and they decided they would give more to those who already had the most. If we had had an action plan in place, maybe other choices would have been made, and maybe it would be easier to sort out the disastrous implementation of universal credit.

We have heard numerous examples of why it is so important that the Government do not bury their heads in the sand but deal with the issues that noble Lords have outlined: homelessness and inadequate housing, eloquently brought to our attention by my noble friend Lady Grender; lack of access to justice, skilfully brought to our attention by my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford; and the threat to biodiversity and regression on policy to tackle climate change—a point made forcefully by my noble friend Lady Walmsley, whose example of fish that have a self-healing heart is one I will not forget in a hurry.

I will pick out a couple of examples that highlight some of the iniquities of our policy choices. SDG3 calls for us to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages, and has a target within it that addresses the training and retention of health workers in developing countries. But how do we reconcile delivery of this target with the withdrawal of support for training our own nurses in England? Where will we get nurses for our NHS? Not from the EU 27, we are told. Inevitably, they will come from developing countries.

Let us take one other example, goal 12, which is to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns. One of the targets we committed to was to rationalise inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies. The UK Government, as a member of the G7, have repeatedly reaffirmed their commitment to phasing out these subsidies by 2025 and the UK, as a member of the EU, has committed to phasing out environmentally damaging subsidies, including those for fossil fuels, by 2020. However, the Overseas Development Institute recently calculated the UK’s subsidies for fossil fuels at £13.3 billion per year between 2014 and 2016. Moreover, the ODI points to a lack of transparency and reporting on fossil fuel subsidies. The OECD confirms that the UK Government publish no official estimates of producer subsidies. Will the Government accept that they provide significant subsidies for fossil fuels and that such subsidies are completely inconsistent with their policies on climate change and the above international commitments? Will they change their policy so that UK Export Finance is not used to support fossil fuel exploration or the development of fossil fuel-based generation in other countries?

I have dwelt on this issue at some length not only because it dramatically highlights the conflicting policies of government departments but because it impacts heavily on SDG 14, which speaks to the health of our oceans. Plastics in our oceans are a risk not just to marine life but ultimately to human health as well. Most plastics are a by-product of crude oil. With the inevitable demise of the extraction and production of crude oil that we can look forward to, we can hopefully say goodbye to plastics that are harming our marine environment and develop more sustainable alternatives. Let us get on with putting in place the policies that will move us in the right direction. Spain has done so. Why cannot we?

To conclude, this debate has illustrated perfectly the beauty of the SDGs: they are universal. They span the Arctic to the Antarctic, the world’s oceans and the lands that lie within them. They encompass the breadth and depth of human existence, so that all of humanity can share the common values of being able to live a decent life with comfort, dignity and opportunity to fulfil our potential. That same breadth and depth means that we have not been able to do justice to much of the agenda of the global goals. We have only scratched the surface. I am sure that this is a subject to which we will return frequently in the coming months.

Development Co-operation: European Union

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Wednesday 14th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

On the specific point that the noble Lord raises, in the event of no deal then we have already said that we will guarantee the funding for projects that are already under way. However, that is of course not what we are working towards. The EDF is the essential development framework that underpins the Cotonou agreement. We are party to that, and the Prime Minister has been very clear that as we leave the EU we will honour our obligations. That applies especially to the world’s poorest.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, development policy in the EU is evolving and proposals for the multiannual financial framework 2021-27 include a single instrument to cover all development aid, called the neighbourhood development and international co-operation instrument, which has worldwide coverage. As a member state, we have had a hand in designing it. Have mechanisms been built in to that framework to give third countries an equal voice in shaping strategy and oversight of funds, and do they allow programme delivery by UK NGOs, which are widely regarded as being among the best in the world?

[Lord Bates]

I absolutely agree with the latter point about the importance of our British NGOs and that they should continue to have access to those funds. Yes, we are participating in the discussion which the noble Baroness referenced. We have said that we want to participate, we want to be able to work in areas of common interest, but changes need to be made not just on our side but in how the EDF and Heading 4 funds operate to allow us to participate as a third country. If we are to do that, we have been clear that it is only right to look after the interests of the British taxpayer, so we should have some say in how the funds are overseen, and that UK entities should be able to bid for them, as she suggests.

Yemen: Famine

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

We are in very close contact on this. As the noble Lord knows, we are the penholder at the UN Security Council on this issue. My right honourable friend Alistair Burt is doing a terrific job in trying to get the parties moving through dialogue and debate. Yesterday, the Foreign Secretary made an announcement that might be helpful for the UK’s discussions with the UN Security Council, in which he said:

“For too long in the Yemen conflict, both sides have believed a military solution is possible, with catastrophic consequences for the people. Now, for the first time, there appears to be a window in which both sides can be encouraged to come to the table, stop the killing and find a political solution that is the only long-term way out of disaster. The UK will use all its influence to push for such an approach”.


That is a strong statement and we look forward to it being implemented.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, over the past weekend, fighting has escalated around Yemen’s key port city of Hodeida, with more than 150 combatants killed. Given that 80% of international aid comes through the Hodeida port, what impact might this have on the 8 million people at risk of starvation due to the looming famine? Does the Minister agree with his colleague, and former Secretary of State at DfID, that our support for the Saudi-led coalition means that the UK is complicit in the starvation of children in Yemen—those are his words?

India: Scavenging

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

I do not want to give the impression that we are passive on this. We recognise that it is outrageous that this practice still happens in a civilised country such as India. That is why we funded some of the advocacy groups that helped strengthen the manual scavenging Act. We now want to see it implemented. A range of programmes we are involved with in India covers areas such as providing better sanitation and better rights for women, children and minorities to get them the help they need—but responsibility for the implementation of that law must rest squarely with the Government of India.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, India is seventh in the world GDP ranking. It has the laws in place to tackle the loss of life in this most dehumanising of ways of making the most basic living we can imagine. In the Minister’s view, what is the reason for the lack of urgency by the Government of India in bringing an end to such a monstrous method of eking out a living?

[Lord Bates]

It is inextricably linked to the caste system, as we have said. The economy of India is one of the fastest-growing in the world and, in all likelihood, will become the third-largest economy in some 10 years. It is still presently home to one-third of the world’s poor, and 600 million people do not have access to basic sanitation.

Official Development Assistance

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

That is very true. Because of population growth, Africa needs an extra 18 million jobs a year just to stand still. We have been at the forefront of the work of the UN Population Fund to ensure that women have access to safe methods of family planning and contraception. This work is much respected and will continue to play a major part in our aid programme.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, financial flows to developing countries, other than ODA, have increased over the last few decades. Does the Minister agree that, while these very welcome developments improve the financial landscape in which ODA operates, they make it even more important that ODA, which focuses resources relentlessly on the poorest in the world, is not undermined or redefined unilaterally by the Secretary of State for International Development?

[Lord Bates]

I think I covered that. It is not undermined in any way. This Government’s record has shown the importance which we place on it. Looking at just one critical statistic, the cost of filling the gap to achieve the sustainable development goals—which the noble Baroness and I have often debated and totally support— is $2.4 trillion per year. Total global aid flows are $150 billion. We have to find ways for the money which we give through development assistance to be increasingly catalytic of further private sector investment which can help us bridge that gap and fulfil our commitment to the world’s poor.

UN: Global Goals for Sustainable Development

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

I can certainly do that and I pay tribute to the work the noble Lord has done over many years in this area, as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Sustainable Development Goals. He is right that we have responded generously, as is usual with the UK, via the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal, to the situation in Indonesia. The resilience element is something we have been very much aware of, not least because of the effect of the hurricanes in the Caribbean last year. Those led us to work very much on resilience and building back better in that area. I will certainly ensure that that remains a very strong part of our response in terms of the sustainable development goals.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

Of the countries that have already published their voluntary national reviews, there are some that stand out. Japan has established a new cabinet body, the SDGs Promotion Headquarters, headed by the Prime Minister and composed of all Ministers. In Germany, the Federal Chancellery is the lead agency for the national sustainable development strategy. Will the Minister confirm that delivery of the universal SDGs in the UK will have a similar high-level, cross-cutting commitment?

[Lord Bates]

I will, of course. David Cameron, when Prime Minister, was a member of the high-level panel that set up the sustainable development goals. The report will be presented to a high-level panel in July by the Secretary of State for International Development. Indeed, further to that, the Prime Minister will take part next September in the first stocktake of sustainable development goals at the UN General Assembly. That shows that commitment to the SDGs comes from right at the top of this Government and will continue to do so.

Overseas Development Aid

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord is right to say that the development assistance community works by consensus. That is how it arrives at its conclusions. Regarding this debate, I feel that a few issues are being conflated. One is the SDGs, to which we are all committed and which we discussed earlier today. The second is the realisation—I readily accept that the noble Lord has regularly made a point of it—that that cannot be achieved by public flows alone. It has to be catalytic to leverage in private sector investment. Then there was the question about impact investing, and whether something else could be done in the future so that more private citizens could leverage in capital.

The final issue comes to the heart of the noble Lord’s question, about CDC funding. This is where we have had a lot of debate. If, for example, your £1 billion is put into CDC and over time the investments make a profit which is then returned into the fund—it is 100% UK-owned, so it is public sector in that sense—and then that profit is reinvested, should that reinvestment score? It is a debate that has to be had. We believe there is a case for doing that, but we have to do it by working with our partners and discussing it with them. This is one of a range of points on this issue. I hope that that has been helpful.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I confess to being a little confused. In her speech to the CDC today, the Secretary of State says we should be open to using profits from UK development finance instruments,

“to count towards the 0.7%”,

and as we have heard, the current ODA rules do not allow this. However, earlier in her speech, the Secretary of State outlined why it was important to get private investment into developing countries, given that $150 billion of annual aid will never measure up to the $2.5 trillion needed to achieve the SDGs. Like the noble Lord, Lord Collins, I agree wholeheartedly with that. However, the fact is that unless profits from DFIs and any other development funds that may in future be raised in the City of London are powered back into developing countries we will lose the advantage of any leverage gained, as well as the opportunity to power back profits to help developing countries, and in the process compromise efforts to achieve the SDGs.

In my view, the Secretary of State is being disingenuous. This is an attempt to undermine the 0.7%, breaking the Conservative manifesto commitment. Does the Minister agree?

[Lord Bates]

The noble Baroness will not be surprised to hear that I do not agree, and neither do I agree with the suggestion that the Secretary of State is being disingenuous. Far from it—I think she was very clear, although how those remarks have been interpreted is clearly another matter. So this is a good opportunity for us to make it absolutely clear that we are committed to the SDGs and to 0.7%. The DAC element counts only public sector investment, so it cannot count private sector investment towards the 0.7% target to which we are committed. But, as the noble Baroness and the noble Lord said, we are at one in recognising that you will not provide the 18 million jobs that Africa needs every year between now and 2050 without the private sector engaging with this. You will not bridge the $2.5 trillion gap in meeting the SDGs without getting the private sector involved. That is why the Secretary of State was absolutely right to say that we need to do more to leverage and catalyse that investment which the UK has an expertise in.

Neglected Tropical Diseases

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I too add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Trees, on bringing this debate to your Lordships’ House, and thank him for his very thorough introduction to the huge global health burden that NTDs pose for developing countries. I will keep my remarks short, as it is not every day that the England football team has an opportunity to secure a place in the World Cup final.

The success of the London declaration in bringing together the partners necessary to deliver a holistic attack on 10 NTDs is documented quite thoroughly in its fifth progress report. Let us be clear—and other noble Lords have emphasised this point. Without collaboration among stakeholders, including Governments, donors, civil society—particularly the private sector—and academia, this record of achievement would have remained a pipe dream. What a catalogue of progress it documents.

Let me pick out a couple of highlights. Lymphatic filariasis—I am not sure whether I said that correctly—is no longer a public health concern in 10 countries, and Guinea worm disease is poised for eradication, with only four cases reported by WHO from 1 January to the end of May this year. When the eradication programme began in 1986, there were 3.5 million cases worldwide. That is a real testimony of what determined leadership from an individual such as President Carter can achieve.

Can I ask the Minister about DfID’s approach to leprosy? The Leprosy Mission’s briefing informs me that DfID currently does not include leprosy as a priority NTD. Can the Minister elaborate on why that is the case, particularly in light of the fact that multi-drug therapy is available free of charge through the WHO and is a very effective cure for all types of leprosy?

The fifth progress report on the London declaration makes it clear that it is the poorest of the poor in developing countries who continue to be disproportionately affected by NTDs. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, is quite correct when she says that poor people in developed countries are also facing attack from NTDs. It is clear that those living in closest proximity to dirty water and soil are worst affected. Clearly, prevention is the first line of defence in ridding the world of these diseases of the poor, and WASH initiatives are key to prevention. I hope the Minister agrees with me that, if we are to sustain the progress made to date, basic principles of clean water, sanitation and hygiene, in collaboration with in-country organisations, must underpin all DfID NTD partnership programmes.

On data, in the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology report of May 2017 entitled Global Health Inequalities, we are told that, although more people have access to essential health services now than at any time in history, profound health inequalities persist—that is, differences in health status between different population groups such as age or socio-economic status. To overcome health inequalities and meet the 13 targets of SDG 3, which is to ensure healthy lives and provide well-being to all at all ages, it is essential that we have access to good-quality data. Yet it seems that good data, although gathered at distribution points, are nevertheless not captured further up the report chain. For example, the November 2016 report from Uniting to Combat Neglected Tropical Diseases, Neglected Tropical Diseases: Women and Girls in Focus, makes the point that current WHO reporting forms include sex-disaggregated data, collected at the point of distribution. However, these are not reported up when the data are aggregated, which is a lost opportunity for action. It is important to understand where these data are lost, so that the integrity of information can be restored. Maybe we can bypass human error through smart technologies, as outlined by the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick of Undercliffe—that would be a way to move forward on this. Nevertheless, will the Minister undertake to follow up with WHO on this point, and will he undertake to write to me if and when he receives a response?

In its briefing for this debate, the British Society for Immunology quite rightly draws our attention to the importance of immunological research in developing new drugs, vaccines and diagnostics for NTDs. However, it goes on to say that, since the London declaration was signed, research progress has been slow. The importance of vaccines and new drugs in the face of rising antimicrobial resistance is self-evident. Let me focus on the importance of rapid point-of-care diagnostics, which need little skill to operate. This is as an area where huge opportunities exist, and with good payback. At present, seven of the 10 NTDs in the London declaration lack essential rapid point-of-care diagnostic tools. Yet government agencies have demonstrated that, with the correct support, they are able to very quickly develop medical products for other diseases, such as the rapid antigen diagnostic test for Ebola. Will the Minister make inquiries as to why this success, in collaboration with industry and clinicians, cannot be replicated for the NTDs listed in the London declaration? I believe that this is a clear case of where there is a will, there is a way. The British Society for Immunology certainly thinks so.

My final question to the Minister is about the Ross fund, about which we still know very little. In preparing for this debate, I reread last year’s debate and was surprised to find that there had been five speakers—namely my noble friend Lady Northover, the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman and Lady Chalker, the noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, and myself—who asked for more details on the role of the Ross fund in delivering UK aid to NTDs. It may be churlish of me to say, but I note that the Minister did not address these questions in his response last time. I hope that he will take the opportunity today to do so, or, if time does not permit, will he undertake to write to me and others who are interested with a response?

South Sudan

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Wednesday 4th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Curry, for securing this debate on this very important subject. It is important because it brings starkly to our attention the push factors that contribute to the numbers of people fleeing the most appalling conditions of human suffering, suffering that is all too often manmade, as typified here in South Sudan, and as articulated so forcefully by many noble Lords, as well as the right reverend Prelate, in their contributions to this debate.

The pattern is a familiar one when Africa’s big men turn their firepower on each other. So started this civil war in South Sudan, as President Kiir went to war with his deputy, Riek Machar. Civilian populations, especially women and children, bear the brunt of the violence, and sex is all too often used as a weapon of war, with devastating effect. Several noble Lords, including the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, and the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, have given us graphic details.

Research from Save the Children tells us that the main killer of children in conflict zones is inadequate access to healthcare and malnutrition, which kills 20 times more children than the violence of the conflict itself. Across South Sudan, children continue to die of treatable diseases such as malaria, diarrhoea and pneumonia. One solution is to shift more resources to low-cost community health delivery. Are the Government pushing this agenda with NGOs and the South Sudanese Government, where it is safe for them to do so? Is this a focus of their work with local civil society and faith groups working at grass-roots level?

Those who have survived the brutal conflict in the world’s newest nation flee to borders with or within neighbouring countries. Bidi Bidi in Uganda, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, is one such camp. It is now the largest refugee settlement in the world, covering an area of 100 square miles. Uganda has been noted as a generous host, housing 1.4 million people in 14 camps. Those granted refugee status are given plots of land to cultivate and allowed to settle and integrate with local communities and schools. Bidi Bidi has a makeshift theatre with a talent show and a shelter for women and girls which provides counselling. Those are just some of the features that typify the humane treatment of refugees there.

This enviable record of humanitarian outreach to refugees contrasts starkly with the treatment of refugees who have made their way to our shores—or not, as the case may be. At last week’s EU Council meeting, we saw the pressure that this mass movement of people—the largest since the Second World War—is bringing to bear in the West, with the media focused on whether it will or will not bring the German Chancellor down. Currently, it looks as though Angela Merkel will survive but, in the eyes of many, our contortions in the West dealing with people desperate to escape murder, rape and starvation, does not reflect well on us. Although Uganda’s refugee policy is considered exemplary worldwide, the country is reaching its limits.

Will our vision and leadership on this most momentous issue of our time include a concerted effort massively to increase support to refugee camps such as those in Uganda? This is surely a much better use of scarce resources than building walls of dubious benefit or fanciful disembarkation platforms. It would also have the added benefit of keeping people close to their former home. I do not want to live in a petrified fortress Europe, I want to live on planet earth.

The KPMG report, South Sudan Economic Snapshot H2 2017, paints a picture of an economy with significant unrealised potential, not least in agriculture. Of its 90% vast arable lands, 50% is considered to be prime agricultural land, yet only 4% is currently under cultivation. We know of South Sudan’s vast oil reserves, but research carried out in more peaceful times indicates rich mineral deposits, as well as gas. In April 2016, South Sudan joined the East African Community, opening up a massive regional market and, with it, hopes of export corridors to the south through Kenya. The peace dividend is potentially great, particularly if, as the noble Lord, Lord Curry, said, the talent of the youth of South Sudan is harnessed.

For what it is worth, the troika released its statement last Friday on the success of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development’s efforts to drive forward the South Sudan peace process, culminating in the Khartoum declaration of agreement between President Kiir and Dr Riek Machar. Whether the ceasefire demanded will go the way of others remains to be seen. It has certainly got off to a shaky start. However, I welcome its rejection of self-monitoring as well as the statement of intent by the international community to stand ready to support action by IGAD and the African Union to put an end to allowing individuals to act with impunity. Given that, I seek the Minister’s assurance that Her Majesty’s Government will continue to give this agenda their full and wholehearted support and that nothing will dilute our commitment to hold to account those responsible for human rights abuses.

It is only through transparency and accountability that we can ensure that new streams of revenue will directly benefit the South Sudanese people and enable them to rebuild and create a framework of institutions that will allow peace and stability to return. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Curry, that we should call time on recent practices when government revenues have either been siphoned off into rearmament to fuel more conflict or squirrelled away into tax havens.

Overseas Development Assistance: Fossil Fuel Subsidies

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Sheehan]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how much overseas development assistance was spent on fossil fuel subsidies in the most recent reporting period.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, the UK does not spend bilateral overseas development assistance on fossil fuel subsidies to benefit consumers. Our assistance helps countries to develop appropriate energy policies, attract private sector investment, and generate clean and renewable energy.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

I thank the Minister for his Answer. CAFOD figures released last year for the reporting period from 2010 to 2014 show that at least £931 million of overseas development aid was spent on fossil fuels, rather than subsidies. What plans exist to reduce fossil fuel spending so that this contradiction in DfID policy—fighting climate change on the one hand and worsening it on the other—becomes history?

[Lord Bates]

The noble Baroness makes a good point. As she rightly said, the CAFOD report refers to 2010-14. That precedes the SDGs, which have brought about a whole host of changes in how we promote renewable energy, and another change was the Paris Agreement on climate change. The numbers she referred to also include UK export finance, which supports the UK’s oil and gas industry, but it is not overseas development assistance. We do not use ODA to support fossil fuel subsidies at present.