Queen’s Speech

Lord Bates Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, many noble Lords have highlighted the essential work being done by our courageous servicemen and servicewomen around the world in protecting us at home from the global terrorist threat. I join in paying tribute to their service and what they are doing for us. But there is another global war—the war against poverty. Many British NGOs and people who work for them are putting themselves in harm’s way in very difficult countries and situations to provide healthcare, sanitation and education to the world’s poorest—organisations such as Save the Children, Christian Aid, Oxfam, CAFOD and the British Red Cross. We can be equally proud of their work in the name of this country and what they do to represent our interests.

According to the most recent global terrorism index, there were 4,564 terrorist incidents, resulting in 7,473 deaths, in the past year. Most of those incidents have been clustered in Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. In the global war against poverty, we live in a world in which 11 million children die each year from preventable diseases. In the six hours so far of this debate, more children have died from preventable diseases around the world than have died in the entire previous year through terrorist attacks. That is not to minimise one and emphasise the other, but it is very important that we remember that.

When I say that those diseases are preventable, research shows that 6 million of those 11 million children who die each year could be saved by low-tech, evidence-based and cost-effective measures, such as vaccines, antibiotics, micronutrient supplementation, insecticides and bed nets. They could make a profound difference to people’s lives. Supplements of vitamin A taken every four to six months can reduce child mortality from all causes by as much as 23%, measles deaths by 50% and deaths from diarrhoea by 33%.

Bill and Melinda Gates have done so much in this area. In fact, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has already dispensed £21 billion, which is three times the level of the entire British aid budget, as existed last year. It has given that money to seek to eradicate certain diseases. Bill Gates said:

“All you need is over 90% of children to have the vaccine drop three times and the disease stops spreading. The number of cases eventually goes to zero. The great thing about finishing polio is that we’ll have resources to get going on malaria and measles”.

There is a realistic possibility, presented by Bill and Melinda Gates, of the eradication of those diseases that kill so many children in our world. That is not surprising, given that I regard this Government’s commitment to achieving 0.7% of GNI and their realisation of that as perhaps their most significant political decision, and one of the most courageous political decisions that I have ever witnessed. To raise it to that level, to increase over the past year, at a time of acute economic hardship, the budget for overseas aid by almost £3 billion, is something that required real leadership. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to capitulate on that and pander to some of the populist press, which would prefer that the money was spent elsewhere. But David Cameron has shown immense leadership and courage in standing firm on that, which is something for which he deserves credit and in which we can all take great pride. While Britain is increasing its aid budget in the current year, other countries in Europe such as Germany and France are cutting their aid budgets. Even Sweden is cutting its aid budget this year by 3.3%. It is a tragedy that this should be the situation when the war on poverty was beginning to be won and victory was getting closer. However, we wish the Prime Minister well in trying to bring people to the table.

Some people have made the point that what we actually needed in the gracious Speech was a piece of legislation to tell us to do what was morally right. Personally, I do not think that we need a piece of legislation. We have had endless promises from the UN. The 0.7% commitment goes back to the Pearson commission in 1969. It has come up through the OECD, it was raised at the UN Security Council and at the Gleneagles summit and still has not been honoured. However, today, it is being honoured. There ought to be an annual debate about the world’s poor. We ought to see that as a conscious moral choice and an obligation. I would not want to see a piece of legislation take that away and be almost like a direct debit. I would like it to be seen as a constant ongoing debate in which we remember the world’s poorest.

In conclusion, there is a wonderful campaign at present called the “If” campaign. Sometimes charities and NGOs can compete with each other for resources and projects. However, they have all come together around the simple concept that there is enough food for everyone and yet 2.3 million children die each year because of malnutrition. The Prime Minister, who organised a hunger summit during the Olympic Games on 12 August last year, made a pledge to reach 25 million children under the age of five by the time of the Rio Olympics in 2016. There will be a follow-up hunger summit on 8 June in advance of the G8 summit. It is critical that the Prime Minister uses all his considerable diplomatic skills to encourage other members of the G8 to step up to the plate this time. Things are extraordinarily tough for us economically but nowhere near as tough as they are for the bottom billion and the poorest in our world.