DfID Economic Development Strategy

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, for securing today’s debate. I also place on record my appreciation of the efforts of the Minister, who also helped secure this debate. It has been important for the Government to recognise the need for parliamentary debate and scrutiny of this issue and I welcome his efforts.

I am totally with the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, in his analysis of the debate that we face. Language is quite important. We say, “development assistance” and “the Department for International Development” and then we suddenly switch to “aid”, which fuels some of the negative comments from the likes of the Daily Mail. It is “development”. We have a responsibility. Like the noble Lord, Lord McInnes, I welcome the fact that we have a party-political consensus on the 0.7% for ODA. But we have to recognise that despite that consensus, we have not necessarily gone far enough to persuade many of the public. We should and must make the case every day we can. When a budget as important as this is ring-fenced, there is a fiscal responsibility and a moral duty to ensure that the money we invest makes as much change as possible.

We also need to make the argument that development is also in Britain’s interests—better off, growing and trading within a strong global economy, with a sustainable climate, supported governance and secure borders. All those things that we have heard in the debate are potential risks to the United Kingdom can be addressed through our commitment to the 0.7%.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, that we need to encourage the private sector to do more. We need the private sector to be engaged. When Priti Patel was Secretary of State, she argued that the private sector needed to play an even greater role by integrating the aims of the SDGs into its business practices—absolutely right; I could not agree more. Of course, developing countries currently face an annual investment gap of $2.5 trillion to achieve the SDGs by 2030. Current investment levels are less than half that. Over the next decade, 1 billion more young people will enter the job market, mainly in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Africa’s population is set to double by 2050 and its urban population is set to triple. As many as 18 million extra jobs a year will be needed. This challenge can be addressed only by working with the private sector, including organisations such as the CDC. The SDGs and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda produced an international consensus that the private sector must play a vital role in achieving sustainable development.

Again, I very much welcome DfID’s strategy, which sets out how the UK will invest to support inclusive economic growth in the poorest regions by building the potential for developing countries to trade more, as well as entering into technical partnerships with partner Governments to tackle the constraints—policy, legal and regulatory—that have been identified in today’s debate, which deter investors and prevent business growth. CDC, wholly owned by DfID, has a central part to play in delivering that strategy, particularly in developing local financial sectors, deepening links with the City of London and pioneering investments in businesses to create jobs and catalyse private sector investment—to pump-prime and get things started in those difficult areas.

As we have heard in the debate, poverty and bad governance are still holding too many countries and their people back. Many women and disabled people and too many minorities are discriminated against and denied access to their fair share of goods, services and opportunity. Economic growth has the potential to be the engine to drive change. But growth without jobs, inclusion, healthcare, education or human rights—growth without power—will not deliver for the many. DfID’s strategy assumes that growth means poverty reduction. As my noble friend Lord Judd said, that is not necessarily the case. Rising inequality in high-growth countries has been a manifest problem. If we are serious about leaving no one behind, we need to address that. Perhaps the Minister can tell us how the strategy will deliver on inclusion and identify the most marginalised.

Decent jobs are a vital part of goal 8 of the SDGs. I know I have said this before but it really bugs me that the SDGs can be described in a review, yet no mention is made of trade unions and how people are to be empowered. Trade unions are vital to making change. By supporting trade unions, women’s groups and other civil society groups, we can give them a voice in mounting their own advocacy in defence of human rights, including workers’ rights. That is how we make change happen on the ground.

DfID and the CDC need to consider the growth diagnostics when measuring economic development. It is not sufficient to have markers that measure only the quantity of jobs created; job quality also needs to be measured. These measurements should of course be in line with the standards set by the ILO. I hope the Minister can tell us just how trade unions will be involved in the dialogue on the quality of jobs created as part of the strategy.

I want to turn to one other aspect of inclusion. I declare an interest as an officer of the APPG for Global Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights. There are still 13 countries where being gay is punishable by death and 75 where same-sex contact remains a criminal offence. That covers 2.9 billion people—some 40% of the world’s population. LGBT rights, like women’s rights, are workers’ rights, too. That is what we need to address. The trade unions have long argued the benefits that flow when equality flourishes. On LGBT rights there is a business case to make, too, and this is where DfID’s strategy and the CDC have a role to play. I recently raised this issue with the officers of the CDC and I hope that the Minister will also take this up.

The positive case for equality has recently been made in the five standards of conduct, published by the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, to support the business community in tackling discrimination against LGBT people. I have met with the United Nations officials who were responsible. We can often say that investment is leverage but I am not one of those people who think that we should stop support or development assistance because a country makes same-sex contact illegal or criminalises homosexuals. I believe there is a case for engagement: engagement by making the case that inclusion, equality and empowerment deliver better growth, better jobs and better workers. We need to make that case strongly, so what steps have DfID and the CDC taken to work with the United Nations and the European Union on this issue? It is vital that we have that sort of response.

We have now seen the CDC investment plan and the strategic framework for the next five years. During the passage of what became the Commonwealth Development Corporation Act 2017, I think we all made the case that we wanted Parliament to have the fullest possible engagement with that five-year plan.

I am pleased that the strategy focuses on Africa and south Asia, where 80% of the world’s poorest people live. I am pleased that capital is being mobilised towards the UN SDGs. If we are to measure our success, the tools that we have are the SDGs—they are what we must always be focused on. I certainly welcome the CDC’s commitment to increase its transparency and improve accountability. It is not being critical of the CDC’s actions to say that, in the past, there has not perhaps been as much transparency as we ought to have. But with our investment strategy, we can say that a much more robust approach needs to be taken to measuring development impact. As I said before, it is simply not enough to say we have created X amount of jobs. What sort of jobs, and of what quality? What training and opportunities are there for young people? There is not enough in the strategy about the needs of young people.

Another way to increase transparency is to allow the Independent Commission for Aid Impact to play a much bigger role; for example, by carrying out a regular assessment of CDC investments. I would like Parliament to debate the CDC’s annual report. Bearing in mind how much money is now being funnelled through this important arm of government, why can we not have a yearly debate rather than having to wait for gaps in government business? Although I welcome this gap, I would like greater parliamentary involvement.

We have heard examples of the CDC’s positive impact, particularly on health. I will not repeat them all, but one thing that is worth repeating is its role when such incidents happen. For example, when Sierra Leone was hit with Ebola, the CDC’s engagement with Standard Chartered helped many businesses survive that terrible period. We talked about other incidents where the economic viability of a country can be affected, but the CDC’s work with the private sector to ensure that businesses could continue was vital, and we should say more about it.

When we are faced with negative publicity in the Daily Mail, we should not be defensive about it. I know the Minister has been very strong on this issue, but we need to talk more about how it is in our interests to support a sustainable global economy. Whatever threats Brexit will bring—and whether we are in or out of the European Union—the fact is that we need better and sustainable development. I welcome this debate and very much hope we will have more in the coming months.

I end on a point that I have made before. This generation—this Government and Opposition—has the opportunity to eliminate aid dependency for good by empowering the powerless. That is our vision and that is what we will press the Government to do.