International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Friday 23rd January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fowler (Con)]

My Lords, I very much agree with what the noble and right reverend Lord has just said.

Following the sad announcement made at the start of business by the Lord Speaker, perhaps I may preface my comments on the Bill by one or two remarks on Lord Brittan—Leon Brittan—and still be within the five-minute timescale.

You can sense the man by the tributes that have been made over the past 18 hours. They came from people like me who knew him well. I knew him in Cambridge where he was, without doubt, the outstanding undergraduate of our generation; I knew him in the Commons and in the Cabinet. One of the last conversations I had with him was about his ambition to play a bigger part in this House. Regrettably, that was not possible. He was the youngest Home Secretary since Churchill. He was moved from that post for, frankly, no sensible reason. He became Trade and Industry Secretary and was just re-establishing his career when Westland intervened. Anyone who thinks he woke one morning and thought, “I am going to leak the Solicitor-General’s memo” is gravely mistaken: it was a very different story from that. However, what is certain is that he was left to carry the can. Happily, the effect was that he went to Europe and made an indelible contribution there.

The man himself was kind, with a gift for friendship; he was wise, and people went to him for advice. Perhaps above all, in the light of some of the comments today, he was a man of honesty and integrity. That is what I remember and recall. It is a vast tragedy that his very last months should have been scarred by innuendo and gossip. It is inconceivable that he would have taken part in any kind of cover-up. Indeed, Geoffrey Dickens, I understand, wrote to him, thanking him for the way in which the Home Office had dealt with his letters—letters, not a dossier. Now that he is dead, I hope that people will not use the release from libel to attack his reputation; he certainly does not deserve that.

I have lost a lifelong friend, but this is as nothing compared to the loss of Diana, the great love of his life, and of Catherine and Victoria. To them we send our heartfelt commiserations and the small comfort that their sense of loss is very widely shared by a vast number of people in this country.

Turning briefly to the Bill, I support it very strongly and I will tell noble Lords why. Over the last two years I have been researching a book on HIV and AIDS. I went to look at the position on the ground in a number of countries. I saw a hospital in east Africa that had not had a budget increase for a decade; where a visit to the hospital took a day in travelling to and fro; where they did their best to meet the demand, but, frankly, many births were far away from the hospital on concrete floors, under a single blanket. In another country I saw a so-called model treatment centre, where drug users queued for long periods; while in another African country where they were treating TB, the queues started forming at 5 am and patients waited hours to be seen.

I am not overdramatising the position—that is the trouble. There are far worse examples. It is the way of life and death in vast parts of the world. The recent outbreak of Ebola is closely connected to the lack of medical support. In Sierra Leone, there are 134 doctors for a population of 6 million.

I often feel that there is a lack of imagination about the health provision for millions upon millions of people in other parts of the world. Worse, I think that sometimes there is an optimistic belief that private giving and philanthropy can solve all the problems. Valuable as voluntary giving is—it is invaluable—it is never going to meet the gigantic demand around the world, so I support entirely the amount of aid that is going to fight these diseases. I support the 0.7% target. Without that international aid, the world would be facing a catastrophe.

I also support the leading part that this Government are taking in making help available. I also reject some of the headline reports we have seen over the past week which allege that the decision in 2013 to meet the target of 0.7% of national income was rushed and last minute. The decision on £500 million going to the Global Fund was about the best-trailed announcement that I can remember.

I regret the time imperative of this debate. Suffice it to say that I entirely back the emphasis that this Government have given to international aid. It is what I would expect from a civilised and outward-looking country that recognises it has responsibilities to try to help the poorest people in other parts of the world.