East Jerusalem: Access to Emergency Care

Lord Bishop of Winchester Excerpts

Tuesday 28th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

We recognise that and of course we acknowledge the absolute right of the State of Israel to defend itself against terrorist attacks. We believe that with good will on both sides, it will be possible to come to a situation where innocent patients are not ending up as the victims of terrorist activities being perpetrated in Gaza or elsewhere.

[The Lord Bishop of Winchester]

My Lords, we have heard how the people of the Occupied Territories continue to face challenges accessing emergency care. The diocese of Jerusalem provides hospitals and health centres across this area, but many of the vital facilities and services are not fully operational because the equipment cannot be calibrated and staff lack accreditation. What conversations have Her Majesty’s Government had with the Israeli Government to facilitate the necessary inspections to ensure that these and similar facilities become operational and therefore reduce the reliance of Palestinian people on reaching hospitals in East Jerusalem?

[Lord Bates]

We tend to raise these issues whenever we meet officials. My colleague Rory Stewart was in the Occupied Territories last weekend. It is a constant issue that we raise with them. We think there are legitimate concerns about the use of some materials, but we believe that there is a way forward on this to make sure that innocent people do not suffer.

International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Lord Bishop of Winchester Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 18th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Winchester]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, for the opportunity to have this debate. I will not detain the House long.

During my time living and working in east Africa, I became acutely aware of the importance of international development, and in attempting to raise funds for educational development I experienced the challenges of having to think in the long term and strategically while being accountable in the short term on financial matters. I suggest to your Lordships’ House that, in framing international development, we need to have a medium or long-term perspective on outcomes but a short-term perspective on requirements for financial accountability. Overemphasising either leads to short-termism or to the dangers of misallocation of funding and lack of appropriate accountability. In the Bill, I therefore suggest that these two dimensions be kept together, rather than split apart and put in opposition to one another.

As with all things, there are both positive and negative points to draw on, some of which have already been helpfully identified, but one further area I want to explore is our use of the words “outputs” and “outcomes” in this context. In proposing this, I am advocating a well-known approach to development: “outputs” are those things that can be counted and recorded, such as buildings put up and people taught, whereas “outcomes” are changes which will need to be measured over time, such as those now engaged in new vocations making a difference. In proposing this approach to development, I am suggesting a short-term approach to outputs and financial reporting, but a medium and longer-term approach to outcomes in relation to strategic development and financial planning.

With those short remarks, I wish the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, well with his Bill, with the proviso that we do not change our overall commitment to the 0.7% annual figure, representing our serious commitment to development.

Africa: European Union Economic Partnership Agreements

Lord Bishop of Winchester Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Winchester]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, for securing this debate. With Malawi on the brink of a major humanitarian crisis, there is no better time to highlight the challenges facing Africa today. I declare an interest as the chair of a small charity supporting education and development in Africa.

The welfare of the east African nations is of particular importance to me. I was born in Tanzania and spent some of my teenage years in Kenya. In the 1990s, I was the principal of a small college in Nairobi—indeed, we still keep a home situated on an old coffee farm near Thika. Through this previous experience and from regular visits, I have observed the finely balanced life which Kenyan agricultural workers live. Smallholdings are a significant element in the agricultural sector of Kenya. Many city dwellers also have a smallholding upcountry. A severe drought might mean the end of their children’s education. It may also result in families being unable to afford even the most basic medicines or in workers having to resort to desperate means of generating income to support their families.

The economic partnership agreements that we discuss today may have as much of an impact on the livelihoods of east African smallholders as a bumper harvest or a deadly drought. We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, a sample of the difficulties caused by EPAs. I want to highlight two issues which could specifically affect the smallholder in Africa.

First, while the tailor-made free trade agreements between the EU and African countries seem on paper to indicate a real determination to encourage development in Africa, they could actually manifest in a very different way when countries such as France, with a vast agricultural surplus, are able to export enormous amounts of produce into African economies. This could be an effective death sentence for African smallholder co-operatives: local farmers’ markets supplied by smallholders cannot respond to bulk imports. How could a farmer, even one in a co-operative with a combined holding of some hundreds or thousands of acres, compete with shipping container after shipping container full of mass-produced, genetically-modified produce arriving from Europe? We have all enjoyed Kenyan beans and flowers, but these are the products of large-scale farming enterprises; reversing the process will hit the smallholder and further weaken existing co-operative farming arrangements.

The second problem I wish to highlight is one of government spending. Due to the difficulties of income taxation in several African countries where a large proportion of the population does not pay tax, one of the main ways that a Government fund public services, infrastructure and defence is through tariff revenues. The problem becomes all too obvious. To abolish tariffs in a country such as Kenya, with all its well-developed horticultural trade, through revised arrangements under the economic partnership agreements, would effectively slash substantial amounts of potential government revenue, meaning less money for hospitals, schools and roads. These are the very services smallholders require in order to make a contribution to the development of African countries.

Imagine these two effects combined; the result could be devastating to developing economies. Large numbers of smallholders would come under new pressures as they fail to compete with European markets; meanwhile the Government begin austerity measures in response to a fall-off in revenue. This is different from a trade dispute between two highly developed economic trading blocs. It is not TTIP, or Schengen arrangements within the well-developed EU market. Large multinationals will not suffer the consequences of a poorly negotiated trade deal. Neither will European citizens. It will be poor African farmers who will bear the brunt of the EPAs if the right course of action is not taken.

Much of what Paul Collier spoke of in his book The Bottom Billion has been acknowledged. New international trade arrangements are needed, accompanied by good governance and international law. Yet 5 billion or even 6 billion of us are still on track to improve our prosperity while the final billion have been left behind. There are many things which need improving if trade, rather than aid, is to be the basis for the relationships between developed and developing countries, but the last thing we want is to encourage instability and insecurity in economies where good governance is truly needed.

In the Church, partnership means working together as one towards the common good. From what I understand of EPAs, they are not quite the kind of partnerships that are envisaged. I will be reassured if we keep in mind the reality of life for the bottom billion and seek to establish partnerships that will lift people out of poverty on the basis of fairer trade agreements.