International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Lord Judd Excerpts

Friday 23rd January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as someone who has worked most of my life outside the confines of Westminster in the spheres which we are discussing today. In particular, I should mention that I am a former director of Oxfam and am currently a trustee of Saferworld. I learnt a great deal from that, and I have very many vivid memories. As I listened to the very significant speech by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Williams, I recalled once standing in the middle of a refugee camp in the middle of Mozambique’s terrible civil war. It was only possible to reach it by air because the fighting was too serious all round it. People were coming into that camp having walked for days. I remember one family which days previously had seen their child chopped to death and thrown into their house to be burnt with the house. The indelible memory that I brought from that experience was that they were not asking just for blankets or food. Very early in their time in that centre they were asking for spades, watering cans and the implements necessary to grow their own food.

The thing that we should all remember is that we are not talking about us fulfilling our responsibilities to the world, or what we can give to the world; we are talking about participating to the degree that we should be in the privilege of working with people who, in the face of such adversity, show so much courage and so much determination to build their own lives. It really is a privilege for this nation to be able to support such people, and if the Bill is going to help in that respect it deserves the support of us all.

I have been impressed by the quality of the speeches. The speech by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, introducing the Bill was outstanding—I think that the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, is a good thing in this House. I would also like to say how glad I was to hear the maiden speech by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, which augurs well for his contributions in future. One of the things that has come out of the debate is that we are concerned not just about quantity but about quality and effectiveness. I was glad to hear my noble friend Lady Royall again give a very committed and—as I always find—effective speech, making it absolutely plain that our support on this side of the House for the Bill and all that it talks about is not rhetorical. It is real.

One of the things which I take great joy from is the very serious work that I know has been going on in the leadership and in many other quarters of my own party as to how we should approach this in office. I am glad that we are committed, among our priorities, to reduce inequality, to push action to tackle climate change—which is disproportionately affecting the poor of the world—to support the introduction of universal healthcare across the world, to improve working conditions throughout the world, and to crack down on tax evasion and help developing countries build their own tax collection infrastructure. I would add only that education and building human resources are crucial, so that we can have good-quality public administration based on good education and integrity.

We also want security sector reform, so that security systems in the countries concerned do not alienate people but win their confidence and support so that, together, stability is being built. We also need to put some muscle into our frequent oral commitments to the rule of law and justice across the world, which has been referred to. The rule of law and justice do not come cheaply: if we want to see the rule of law and justice, we have to be prepared to pay for them. That means making sure that the lawyers are there, that the judges are of the necessary integrity—the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, referred to this—and that the facilities for courts to work effectively are there. If not, we just deceive ourselves and frustrate people across the world, and they just see it as a sort of refrain on our part that we must have the rule of law.

The other thing I believe is that we need to strengthen still further the control of the arms trade. This, I think, is crucial, because if I take away one overriding memory of the frustration in my time as director of Oxfam—going back a number of years in my life now—it is that we wanted to get on with sustained, long-term development but, all the time, were being frustrated by conflict. The irresponsible, easy availability of arms across the world is still a disaster.