Combating Atrocity Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide

Lord Bishop of Leicester Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Leicester]

Like other noble Lords, I am in awe of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for his patience and persistence in keeping the question of atrocity prevention before this Chamber. I thank him and indeed all those who have spoken. It is not my intention to repeat any of what has already been said: rather, I shall go deeper into the area of the relationship between conflict prevention and overseas aid.

The wholesale dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development has given us for the first time something close to a controlled experiment in what happens when a major donor abruptly walks away from fragile states. A study published last month in Science examined 870 subnational regions across most of the African continent in the 10 months before and after USAID came to an abrupt stop. Using a difference-in-differences design, it compared places that had been heavily reliant on USAID with otherwise comparable places that had not.

Before January 2025, the trends in violent conflict in the two groups moved in step. After January 2025, they diverged sharply. In the most exposed regions, the probability of a violent conflict event rose by roughly 6.5%. In some subnational analyses, conflict events and combat deaths rose by about 10%. This translates, on the authors’ own conservative estimates, into roughly 1,000 additional deaths from armed violence in a single calendar year, and that is before we count the indirect mortality from collapsed clinics, interrupted food programmes and displacements, all of which are estimated to lead to more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, including 4.5 million children under the age of five.

Another study conducted by Jimmy Graham, a genocide and atrocity prevention research fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, finds the same headline result, but he also notes that civilian unrest increased first, followed by armed violence, which suggests that the increase in conflict was not just a coincidence but rather a response to institutional weakening. Graham also argues that the withdrawal of aid acts as a signal of short-term state weakness. Rebels, militias and other armed actors infer, with good reason, that the state has just been deprived of a major source of administrative capacity, basic service delivery and economic stability, all of which gives them a window of opportunity.

That evidence should concern us greatly, because we too are embarking on significant further cuts to our aid budget. By next year, UK aid spending will fall to 0.3% of GNI, reducing proportionate aid spending to levels not seen since the late 1990s, and the total value of FCDO programmes will fall by 31% compared with 2025-26. The Government will tell the House that the share of bilateral aid going to fragile and conflict-affected states is rising, and that is correct, but it is rising against a sharply shrinking total, and the rise is achieved largely by protecting four countries—Ukraine, Sudan, Palestine and Lebanon—while the other 34 fragile states share a much smaller pot. Bond’s analysis finds that bilateral aid to Africa will have fallen by 56%, or £874 million, by 2028-29 compared with 2024-25, and the UK Integrated Security Fund, the principal instrument for stabilisation and peacebuilding, has already been cut by one-third in a single year.

Yet, at precisely the same moment, Ministers rightly tell us that the world is becoming more dangerous. As we have already heard, we face instability in Sudan, catastrophe in Gaza, conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, worsening food security across the Horn of Africa, and growing geopolitical competition in fragile states across the Balkans, the Sahel and the Indo-Pacific. If the world is indeed becoming more dangerous, this is surely the wrong moment to dismantle one of the principal instruments through which Britain has historically reduced instability peacefully.

So I ask the Minister: will the Government set out a credible path back to 0.7%? The 2016 Act remains on the statute book. The commitment remains in the Prime Minister’s own words, but a commitment with no timetable lacks resolution. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that, where bilateral programmes are being wound down, they are wound down in a sequenced way: strengthening local institutions, transferring capacity to domestic authorities and civil society, and giving partners reasonable notice, so that the reduction in UK presence does not itself become a driver of instability? Atrocity prevention requires more than public statements and diplomacy after violence has begun. It requires sustained investment in the conditions that make atrocities less likely in the first place.

UN Sustainable Development Goals

Lord Bishop of Leicester Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Leicester]

My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, for securing this debate in advance of the Budget, which is due to be delivered in a fortnight’s time. Undoubtedly, that Budget will involve difficult decisions and sacrifices. It is easy to lose sight of how very fortunate we are as a nation when compared with many others around the world.

As noble Lords have mentioned, the UN has warned that progress towards the sustainable development goals has ground to a halt and in some cases been reversed. Over the last year, the prospect of achieving the 16th sustainable development goal of

“peaceful and inclusive societies”

for sustainable development, and

“access to justice for all”

has seemed even further out of reach as war in the Middle East has become broader and deeper, and multiple conflicts in Africa have also worsened.

With religious differences front and centre of the conflict in the Middle East, as with many others around the world, it may seem at first glance that religion is an obstacle to achieving the sustainable development goals. I have been told this quite often by those who work in development and peacekeeping. However, because of the potential for faith to divide, it is especially important for us to support the efforts of faith groups around the world who seek peace and reconciliation, in order truly to see sustainable development.

There are examples of such initiatives all around the world, from Northern Ireland to Nigeria, advocating for peace, de-escalating tensions and healing the wounds left by conflict, so that communities can experience lasting peace. For instance, the South Sudan Council of Churches has played a crucial role in peacebuilding efforts since the outbreak of civil war, serving as a mediator, brokering ceasefires and peace agreements, and providing humanitarian aid and many other things, leading to reconciliation at high level and at grass roots, although there is a long way still to go. In countries such as Nigeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, interfaith networks help foster understanding between different religious groups, bringing people of different faiths together to work for a common understanding and to stop conflicts spiralling out of control.

As anyone who has been involved in conflict resolution and reconciliation work will know, these efforts, as valuable and precious as they are, are not always popular and their fruits can be fragile. The new Government have outlined their commitment to reconnecting Britain, strengthening our reputation on the international stage and our moral leadership in humanitarian crises. I would be interested to hear what they are planning from the White Paper that was published last year. As they develop their own foreign policy, I urge them to champion and invest in locally led interfaith and reconciliation programmes at home and abroad. This is because, quite simply, Britain is connected. As we saw so clearly in the summer, our communities are not insulated from the impact of conflicts elsewhere in the world. Promoting peace and reconciliation across religious difference in other countries can help to make the UK a safer and more cohesive society, just as supporting interfaith efforts here in Britain can in turn serve as a model and inspiration for others.

This I know is an ambitious project, but one that would be markedly more feasible with proper use of our overseas development aid budget, as I think every speaker has mentioned so far. So, like many other noble Lords, I would like to see it restored to 0.7% of gross national income. The Government have suggested that they will do so when fiscal circumstances allow. That is to miss the point of setting the budget as a percentage of GNI—which means that we spend more when our economy is doing better and less when it is under greater strain. Nevertheless, in the meantime I urge the Government to commit to moving their spending on housing asylum seekers and refugees from the overseas development aid budget to the Home Office, and spending ODA where it is most needed, which is overseas, as the name implies.

I conclude with the thought that conflict has the potential to reverse the progress made across all the sustainable development goals. So I urge this Government to be courageous in standing with and resourcing those seeking peace and reconciliation, even where it seems most hopeless.