International Development Policy

Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds]

My Lords, I, too, am deeply grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, for achieving this debate and for his powerful opening speech emphasising the positive contribution that aid can make to breaking the “chains of poverty”, to use the phrase of the noble Lord, Lord Roberts. Yet, we heard from the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, of that continuing failure to tackle discrimination based on work, descent and caste. I therefore welcome the renewed emphasis on the situation of Dalits in south Asia, and look to ways in which international development policy can be used to affirm and develop human rights for those who are so savagely damaged by descent and caste.

I hope that we will not be lulled, if that is the right word, into thinking that this is a problem for India and south Asia alone. We need to watch the ways in which such discrimination exists in other societies, including our own, and I therefore welcome the determination of the UN Decade of Dalit Rights to identify and connect with the diaspora of those affected by discrimination based on descent and caste.

Like others, I want specifically to welcome the Government’s defence of their international aid budget of 0.7 per cent of GDP even though that involves some diminution in the actual amount of aid. But to defend that figure through tough economic times is a major tribute to the work of the Minister and of the Government as a whole. I hope that she and they will hear our congratulations on achieving that continued figure. I hope that in her reply the Minister will report on what she expects of the high-level forum on aid effectiveness in Bhutan, to which others have already referred.

I also welcome the establishment of the department’s faith working group, which recognises the importance of faith in many communities around the world and the need to explore how faith can contribute to the success of policies tackling discrimination—not just the work of faith bodies in this country, which I acknowledge and am very grateful for, but the contribution made by religious organisations and faiths throughout the world. In that context it is particularly good to be able to be part of a debate in which the noble Lord, Lord Singh of Wimbledon, is taking part, someone from whom I and many others have learnt much of the place of faith in societies all over the world. I should be grateful for comment on what progress the faith working group has made and whether any concrete steps have been taken as a result of its work.

The UK has a strong record on seeking an international aid policy which will have real impact. In particular, I want to both stress and encourage the new moves being made, not just here but throughout Europe, for greater transparency in the extractives sector. Tearfund’s recent report, Unearth the Truth, gives examples of the need to use natural resources for the real benefit of our poorest communities across the world. Exports from extractive industries are worth something like nine times the value of aid to Africa. Tearfund cites Sierra Leone and also Colombia as countries where conditions could be transformed if the revenue from the extractives sector was reinvested in meeting millennium development goals and in providing basic services such as health, water and sanitation.

I hope that the Minister will be able to comment on how we can have a more transparent picture of the way in which the extractives industry affects relationships with some of the poorest countries of the world and ways in which aid can be directed so that it can provide support and encouragement in the development of those countries.

The condition of the Dalits and of others discriminated against by work or descent must be a wake-up call for all those who believe in fundamental human rights. I am grateful for the stance of successive Governments in the crucial use of international aid to promote the care of the poorest in our world and I look forward to a renewed expression of the Government’s commitment to the breaking of those chains which bind not just those who are themselves in a situation of poverty but all of us in the worldwide culture in which we share.