UN Sustainable Development Goals

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)]

I respect the noble Lord and what he says. We have been leaders on this through the Paris Club and other mechanisms; in many cases it has been the right thing to do to write down a country’s debt. With respect to climate change, these climate resilient debt clauses can make a great difference in helping these countries. Fundamentally, if we want to achieve the SDGs, we need to motivate global finance, and one of the ways that we can do that is through the multilateral development banks because if they expand their balance sheets there is probably an extra £400 billion that they can invest to help these countries with their growth.

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)]

My Lords, the Foreign Secretary has said he thinks that the merger of DfID and the Foreign Office, and the cuts in aid, were justified; that was not what he said at the time. How much does he regret that his successors have trashed his proud legacy and, more to the point, how assured can he be that the funding for Africa, which is still being cut even if an increase has been promised, will not be diverted to the Home Office, as has happened in the last two years?

[Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)]

That is not exactly what I said. I am very proud that we reached 0.7%. I had some disagreements with this Government before I joined but politics is a team enterprise; when you decide to join a Government, you accept Cabinet collective responsibility and you accept you are going to work with that team and the policies they have. I am proud that, with 0.5% and a growing economy, we are seeing more money going to overseas development. Now that the refugee crisis is abating—I mentioned Africa—we will see, in our budgets, an increase from £600 million to over £1.2 billion, and we are committed, when the fiscal rules allow, to get back to the 0.7% that we historically achieved.