Lord Campbell-Savours
Main Page: Lord Campbell-Savours (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Campbell-Savours's debates with the Leader of the House
(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
I am afraid that I disagree with my noble friend. He is absolutely right that the merger will take place in September. The work to implement it is being led by a team in the Cabinet Office, working closely with teams from the FCO and DfID. That work is being overseen by the Cabinet Secretary, who reports to the Prime Minister, so it can go on at this time. We believe that it will enhance our ability to play a leading role in the global world.
Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [V]
As part of the shadow ministerial team in the 1990s behind the policy of ODA/Foreign Office separation, and having heard the questions up to now, I say to the Minister, in summary, that this decision will kill DfID morale; it will distort DfID’s current poverty alleviation priorities; it will leak resources from development into other Foreign Office activities; and it will downgrade the roles played and positions held by DfID officials. It was precisely to deal with those problems that Labour set up DfID under Clare Short as a separate department in the 1990s. Is this not the third time that the Conservatives have wound up the department? They did so in 1970 under Ted Heath, in 1979 under Thatcher and now in 2020 under Johnson. It is madness, and it is the work of development aid bigots.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
Obviously, I fully respect the work that the noble Lord has done and he is, as ever, entitled to his views. I am afraid that I cannot agree with him and certainly do not accept being called a development bigot. As I have said, we believe that this is the right move at the right time. We want to take the best of the departments, both of which are a credit to our Civil Service, and bring them together to enhance the work that they do. We believe that this will be a positive, strong move. We will be involving staff in this decision and making sure that this department is at the vanguard of our international policy efforts.