Covid-19: UN Sustainable Development Goals

Lord Judd Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg [V]]

My Lords, the weakness of developing countries’ health systems is one of the biggest risks of the global impact and spread of Covid-19. Equitable, resilient and sustainable systems for health are the foundation for meeting all health needs and preparedness for future health threats. Working towards universal health coverage is more important than ever, given the increased barriers to, and needs for, accessible healthcare. The Government will continue to support access to universal health coverage.

[Lord Judd (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, when, as we all hope, a vaccine to deal with this scourge becomes available, what plans are in place to ensure that adequate supplies of the vaccine are getting to the most needy in the Third World?

[Baroness Sugg [V]]

My Lords, a globally accessible and affordable vaccine is, of course, needed to end the pandemic; we are working very closely with organisations such as the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and Gavi. The noble Lord will know that recently we hosted the Gavi replenishment conference. We will work with the WHO on its ACT Accelerator and with partners across the globe to make sure that, if and when a vaccine is found, it is accessible to all.

Covid-19: International Response

Lord Judd Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister’s significant opening speech demonstrated the indispensability of a vigorous, independent DfID with a really strong Minister at its head. We have debated global interdependence and Covid-19’s underlining of this. It is surely important that we all demonstrate our support for what I understand is the Minister’s position: we must have strong, effective international institutions to meet the challenge and fulfil our role as a global Britain. I am totally convinced that our history will depend on that. History will judge us harshly. Have we been committed, effective players in the world situation?

We have also talked about a vaccine, but what is important is that a vaccine is available at a price that can be afforded by those most in need and is accessible, with effective means of distribution. It would be helpful if the Minister could say in a little more detail what these practical arrangements are.

We need a holistic approach to the whole issue of interdependence and Covid-19: poverty, malnutrition, food insecurity, displaced people, conflict, the arms trade, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and all the implications for the vulnerable. We also have to remember the position of the frail, the handicapped, the elderly, children, women and widows. Underlying all this, we must strengthen our commitment—not weaken it now— to the human rights of everybody in the way we treat them.

International Sustainability: Natural Resources and Biodiversity

Lord Judd Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very glad to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin. She is of course no newcomer to this subject—she has shown a consistent commitment to and interest in it, with a determination to see progress, and I commend her for that. She will forgive me if I say that I wish she were in the driving seat of the Conservative Party and that I had the same feeling about the Conservative Party as a whole.

It is certainly true that at the UN General Assembly in 2019 the Prime Minister undertook to double the UK’s spend on international climate finance. On the other hand, a little earlier in the year the House of Commons International Development Committee report, while acknowledging UK leadership in advancing climate change and sustainable development agendas, said that,

“there does not appear to be an active strategy underpinning the Government’s international Climate Finance spending”.

It is terribly important that we see evidence of that strategy, and a general election is a very good time to hear more about it.

The UN climate change conference in Glasgow will be coming up in 2020. Whichever Government are in power, it will be very sad if the Prime Minister’s statements are not underpinned by a really effective strategy to combat climate change, and that strategy has to encompass all departments and be central to all their work. There must be an inner conviction that this is an overwhelming challenge for humanity—a challenge that threatens humanity in the long run if not in the short term. For that reason, effective co-ordination of government policy is needed across all aspects. There is no evidence of this at the moment. Even today, we read that the Government have approved a new coal mine—the noble Baroness looks surprised but it is true —for coking coal in Cumbria. It is difficult to understand how that can be reconciled with an overriding commitment and strategy.

I should say that my interests are as in the register; indeed, my work in this sphere goes back very many years and I had the privilege for a while of being Overseas Development Minister.

If we are to be effective in combating climate change, trade deals are crucial. How are we ensuring that the necessary measures and commitments are written into trade deals to make sure that we are all on course? Multilateralism is crucial. We cannot possibly deal effectively with the issues of climate change on the basis of insular nationality. We have to recognise that if any sphere demands international co-operation it is this one. I would like the Government to convince me how they intend to make good the loss of co-operation which will follow Brexit. How will we get effective measures in place to enable the international community to work together in furthering the objectives?

The World Bank has given us a lead, having established that it has dual goals. It wants to reduce poverty, but also to promote greater equality, which it sees as essential to achieving the first goal. I was glad that the noble Baroness made the point in her very interesting speech that combating poverty is vital to the cause of effective policy on climate change. Perhaps this will ring true in all that the Government say during the next few weeks—that they are determined to eliminate poverty and see this as essential to the survival of humanity. I would love to hear that but, unfortunately, I am not confident that it will happen.

The World Bank has established that, on current economic growth predictions, some 6.5% of the global population will still be living in extreme poverty by 2030. We need to see this as a grave challenge. The pace of global poverty reduction has halved between 2013 and 2015. Sub-Saharan Africa saw the number of people living in extreme poverty increase from 278 million in 1990 to 413 million in 2015. Meanwhile, the wealth of the world’s 1,900 billionaires increased by $2.5 billion each day.

It is also worth facing the challenge that the poorest half of the global population is estimated to be responsible for approximately 10% of global emissions, while the richest 10% is responsible for 50%. Against that challenge, it is understandable that the World Bank could empathise with not just a fight against poverty but the cause of promoting greater stability.

Debates about development are so often dominated by talk of GDP. It has been a sort of totem pole which we are expected to worship. Surely it is becoming increasingly recognised that matters including wealth distribution, quality of life, poverty, climate change, sustainability, health and gender all come together in what we are trying to do.

Against that background, I hope the House will forgive me if I make what might seem to be a rather partisan point in the run-up to an election. It happens to be a deeply genuine conviction on my part. I do not begin to understand how an overriding commitment to the market as the solution to all our problems is viable. How can we welcome the prospect of deregulated markets? The challenge is to have intelligent, sane, rational regulations in place which face up to these interrelated realities and produce coherent and effective results.

Alongside this is the need for tax reforms. We need to put a great deal of work into this. I am not suggesting that the Government have not done a bit, but we need to do a great deal more. We also have to face up to the issue of the race to the bottom on corporate tax. Social justice and a fairer society must become part of the culture of corporate society itself. It is not just a matter of blowing your whistle and calling them to heel, but of generating a realisation that there is an unrivalled responsibility to promote a fairer society and more even distribution of wealth.

The approach that I am advocating for the Government will take courage and leadership. Populism will have no place in a genuine fight. When Churchill led us into the Second World War—thanks to the support of the Labour Party, which came to insist on his premiership—he did not indulge in populism. He used all his powers of rhetoric and his enthusiasm to inspire the nation to what should happen. It is a very sad reflection on our democratic system that, as we go into a general election, that type of leadership, while at a premium, is conspicuous by its absence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I join many others in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, for arranging this crucial debate. Noble Lords may not be surprised that, as a member of the Green Party, I am standing up to talk about natural resources and biodiversity, but it might be useful for them to know that I also have a background in the international development side of this debate. I spent more than four years in Thailand working on a number of UN reports, including on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, and, in the late 1990s, on women’s health and child labour.

I shall begin by perhaps surprising the House by saying that I agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Bennachie, when he expressed concern that the amount of government aid going to pro-poor funding has gone down. However, where I disagree with him is that there is any conflict at all between action on the climate emergency and action on helping the poor. What we need is, in the jargon, a just transition that caters to the poor while also looking after the planet.

At the weekend I was speaking at a debate with a young campaigner from the 10:10 organisation and she used a very memorable phrase: “You don’t fix the problems that we have now with the system that created them”. The fact is that fossil-fuel societies have created a deeply unequal world in which many are suffering from the poverty and hunger that many noble Lords have referred to. Many will be familiar with the term “the resource curse”. Even in countries that have lots of resources—fossil fuels and other minerals—the poor have suffered and have not benefited from them. Therefore, the fact that we can now do without fossil fuels is, I believe, something to celebrate for the poor of the world. However, that is not the direction being taken by Britain’s international aid effort. The Environmental Audit Committee has focused on the fact that in the last five years UK Export Finance has put £2.5 billion into fossil fuel finance.

There is a term that is really important in this context—lock-in. By building the infrastructure, you lock in potential emissions for many years to come and, if you stop those emissions, you waste huge amounts of money and leave people trapped. I refer the Minister to a report in Nature Communications in January 2018 by Dr Chris Smith of the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds—I would be happy to provide her with a reference. It is a very important and, I believe, hopeful report because it stresses that if at the end of 2018 we had stopped investing in fossil fuel infrastructure all around the world, we could, using existing infrastructure, have just come in under 1.5 degrees centigrade of warming. Ending new fossil fuel infrastructure is crucial, so the UK should not be funding this.

I turn to my particular passion: food and agriculture. The UK’s efforts in this area include a programme called Building Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Extremes and Disasters, which says that it plans to use the techniques of climate-smart agriculture. I ask the Minister to reconsider and think very hard about this. The term “climate-smart agriculture” has no definitional meaning; there is no classification system for it as there is, for example, for the organic agriculture that I spoke about earlier. But most people who propound climate-smart agriculture would agree that, essentially, it means doing the kind of farming that we do now but much more efficiently. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, who referred to the importance of “no till” and “minimum till”. As the right reverend Prelate said earlier, we have trashed our own soils; our farming methods have done great damage. We have to make sure that we are not exporting these methods with our aid efforts.

Another programme supported by the UK aid effort with funding is an organisation called AgDevCo. I looked up the kind of projects that it supports. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, referred to palm oil plantations and the damage that they are doing. This organisation supports palm oil plantations and cashew nuts; it supports macadamia exports and avocado growers in Kenya; and it supports the Ugandan coffee sector. These are traditional export-oriented, high-input, deeply damaging forms of agriculture. I applaud the keyhole gardens referred to by the noble Lord, Lord German. These are the kinds of permaculture- based, agro-ecological approaches that must be the future, providing food security for the poor, and for us all, on a stable planet.

We have been talking in the debate about biodiversity. Most speakers have referred to the idea of natural, wild biodiversity. I want briefly to mention the importance of crop biodiversity, because 20% of human calories come from one crop: wheat. In food security terms, that is incredibly dangerous. One noble Lord referred to giant, industrial-scale monoculture—huge fields of identical crops, which cannot be the biological future for this planet. Crop biodiversity is also about human health. I refer to another study, from Tanzania, in Ecological Economics, which looked at how crop biodiversity fed into the health of children. The study found, perhaps unsurprisingly, that children who had a more diverse diet were healthier. This effect was most evident in subsistence-farming households and for children in households with limited market access. This is the kind of agriculture that we need to support.

I will briefly address—

[Lord Judd]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. I am very interested in this part of her speech, which, I must say, reminds me a great deal of my own work in Africa. Does she agree that one period of history at which we should look very critically is when top-down cash crops were promoted despite the fact that local communities had self-sustaining systems of their own; we now realise that such systems are exactly what we need. There are great lessons to be learned from this. Perhaps she would also agree that it is not a matter of lecturing people in the third world on what they must do, but of setting examples ourselves.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

I entirely agree with everything the noble Lord just said. I think your Lordships’ are likely to hear me refer often to the importance of strong local economies in which a large amount of the food on the plate comes from not very far away. That is true around the world. We are talking about the aid effort here. What we want to do is support people and help them develop and work on their local systems.

The noble Lords, Lord Bruce and Lord Cameron, mentioned the issue of population. I often hear the question, “Why are we not talking about population?” The IPCC says we have 11 years to turn our planet around. The human ecological footprint is a product of the equation of the number of people on the planet multiplied by their consumption levels. The number of people on the planet will not change very significantly in the next 12 years. What we have to change is the consumption levels, particularly those of societies such as Britain: we are using our share of the resources of three planets every year, yet we have only one. However, if we were to talk about international aid going to women’s rights to control their own bodies and have access to contraceptives, abortion, economic opportunities and education, perhaps we could find some points of agreement.

I am aware that I have taken quite a bit of time. The noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, made a really important point that I want to come back to, because I think it should be highlighted and be the takeaway message from this debate. She asked the Minister whether we should first do no harm with our aid. That is a very important question and it should surely be answered only in the affirmative. We cannot afford the harm of funding new fossil fuel infrastructure, or of funding, supporting or encouraging types of agriculture that trash the planet and fail to provide food security. We cannot afford to support the growing of crops to be fed to animals in industrial agriculture. That is food waste, and I think this House would generally agree that food waste is a bad thing. The simple question I would like to leave with the Minister is this: whatever role she may play after the election, could she work on ensuring we have an aid policy that first does no harm?

World Bank: Selection Process for President

Lord Judd Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

Absolutely. I am grateful to my noble friend for drawing that to the House’s attention. I am sure that noble Lords will welcome not only that vote of confidence in Britain but Forbes magazine’s assessment of the UK as the top place in the world to invest in and do business in, and its continuing to be the number one location for foreign direct investment in the European Union.

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government repeatedly say that they are committed to a proactive foreign policy following Brexit, in which we will play a full part in building a constructive, peaceful world based on human rights and the rule of law. Despite whatever the Minister may say in good faith, the perception worldwide is that certain traditional powers see these key posts as a carve-up for them. How is that acceptable, and why is the world not given the opportunity to find the strongest possible candidate, committed to the UN objectives, at such a crucial time?

[Lord Bates]

These Bretton Woods institutions were set up in 1944-45 on the basis of shareholdings. The United States has a shareholding of 16%; ours is some 3.8%. It is natural for the largest shareholder to represent the money it put on the table to get the Bank off the ground. We should consider their putting forward a candidate a good thing.

Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2019

Lord Judd Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB)]

My Lords, I want to say a word about Africa, because, interesting as this debate on Hezbollah has been, the order also concerns west Africa. The Minister tiptoed very skilfully through the acronyms, so I thought I would take a minute to ask her a question. I used to know towns such as Timbuktu and Bamako in Mali quite well when I visited on behalf of Christian Aid.

I imagine that the motivation for proscribing these organisations is simple—relations of Daesh are living there and the world is a small place, especially as far as terrorism goes, and it crosses frontiers. The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, referred to Brexit. I do not want to go that far but I am particularly interested in whether the order is shared with our fellow European members. As the Minister well knows, we are part of a joint mission. British troops are involved. Sometimes there are casualties and it is much nearer to home than we realise. I know that the joint mission will go ahead after Brexit, but I would be grateful to hear whether this is part of joint thinking, unlike with Hezbollah, where there have been differences.

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to put on record my deep appreciation to my noble friend Lord Rosser for the speech that he made at the beginning of this debate. It was penetrating and analytical, and it is absolutely essential to the cause to which we all subscribe that he gets a full and explicit reply from the Government. I have been a Defence Minister and a Foreign Office Minister, and I totally understand that when we operate in this kind of context there are things that have to be confidential. But that makes it doubly important to be as explicit and transparent as we can possibly be in the support of the case that we pursue. If there have been, in a short period of time, the changes that have been described in this debate, it is absolutely, inescapably obvious that we have to give a very good account for why this has happened.

One good thing about this debate is that it has aired the issues a little more widely. It would be totally naive to imagine that the issue of anti-Semitism is simply about Jewish people. I personally believe that the total unacceptability of anti-Semitism is because it is about people. But not to understand that it has sinister—I use that word quite deliberately—implications would be very naive. It is obviously about other political objectives as well. To refuse to face that fact will not help at all.

The one crucial point that I want to make is this. I know that I have made it before, but I will go on making it until my dying day. We are ultimately in a battle for hearts and minds. It is in the sphere of hearts and minds that we will build lasting security, not by administrative arrangements or containment operations. It is by winning people’s conviction, understanding and appreciation of why the values about which we like to talk in this House are so indispensable to the future of humanity. That is the issue: hearts and minds.

That is why, when we are introducing anti-terrorism legislation, it is terribly important that all the time right in the forefront of the minds of those charged with the responsibility of coming to a conclusion are the words and thoughts: what are our values? What will be the down cost of this? What will play into the hands of extremists, as they exploit genuine anxieties and doubts amongst young people but not only young people? That is the issue that must not be ignored. What is the counterproductivity of what is being proposed?

It is a very difficult balance and a very difficult decision, but I urge that we always keep that concern about counterproductivity very much in mind in our deliberations.

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Judd, whom I have known and admired for a good few years. I am delighted to say that he has lost none of his firebrand qualities. He articulated what the Labour Front Bench and the Liberal Democrat Front Bench were saying in shades of blancmange—as a kind of procedural thing, that somehow we have to make sure the procedures are right. I kind of understand that, when the issue is very difficult and you would like to say “Let’s ban them” but you do not want to do that, you hide behind a load of procedures.

Essentially, this is a subjective decision for the Minister to make. The Minister receives advice, weighs that advice and has to come to a conclusion. There will be no magic moment at which the Minister says, “This is the advice that has changed”. If noble Lords on the Opposition Benches do not like this order, they should vote against it. They should not say that they will not oppose it but that they think in their hearts that they should oppose it, or that they would like to oppose it but it would look bad with some members of their party. It is important to decide on the issue.

Much has been said about my honourable friend the Security Minister, whom I have known for a good few years. In a brief gap in the proceedings of this House, I took the opportunity to go into the Gallery of another place and watch the proceedings. Having had the opportunity to watch the Minister in his previous speech, when I watched him on the Front Bench his body language looked much more relaxed on this occasion than it did on the previous one. I have no doubt that this is the right decision. I argued with my party, and I pay tribute to my right honourable friend the Home Secretary for coming to this decision.

If the House will allow me, I also pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Polak, who has been a champion of this over a number of years and has kept this issue in the minds of both Houses of Parliament. He deserves considerable credit for arriving at this decision.

The strange thing is that the difference between the military wing and the political wing is an entirely separate western construction. It does not exist in the minds of Hezbollah. We know that those who chair the grand jihad council and the Shia council are one and the same people. They do not see any distinction. It has been a convenient device for us to talk to them. The Minister made an immensely important point: Hezbollah is not just against Israel; it is against the Jewish people.

We heard the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, quoting Hassan Nasrallah; perhaps for reasons of delicacy she did not read out the quotation in full. I will do so:

“The Jews are a cancer which is liable to spread at any moment … If they all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide”.


That is pretty unambiguous.

It is not a question of saying that, if we help the political wing, we will somehow help the military wing; they are the same person. The military wing does not decide to go around bombing various people and trying to organise the deaths of British soldiers or citizens elsewhere, while the political wing discusses the price of tickets at the theatre in Lebanon; they are one and the same people, and we need to recognise that.

We also need to recognise one other thing. The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, commented very reasonably on this and made an interesting pitch, perhaps offering her services as a spin doctor to No. 10. The point is that our population—and our British Jewish citizens—need to feel safe; it is about their ability to go out without facing these flags of hate or the chanting, about feeling safe in the United Kingdom. It is important to set down the message that this country will have no place for anti-Semitism. You cannot have that view if you allow an organisation like this to move freely.

We must also remember that the issue is not just about security concerns; a substantial part of this organisation is funded by the smuggling of drugs. It is a main player in the trafficking of drugs throughout the world. We have seen arrests in France and in the United States. It is not a single part of our community only that is affected, but the whole community. Our streets will be perhaps just that little bit safer by removing from this organisation a convenience that, frankly, we should never have granted it.

Brexit: Proposed UK–EU Security Treaty (European Union Committee Report)

Lord Judd Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, to pick up on what my noble friend Lord Bach said, there is a tendency to be mealy-mouthed on these matters and to talk about the irresponsibility of the failure to prepare properly and take these issues seriously. If noble Lords will forgive me for saying so, it is much graver than that. I believe that, as the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, said so strongly, no deal would be—and here I choose my words carefully—treachery and a betrayal of the British people on what is vital to their interests: their security. It is an extremely grave matter. That is why the report of this committee is so important. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Jay, without qualification, for giving us the opportunity to look at it this evening and for the sensible way in which he introduced it. We are indeed fortunate to have someone with his experience chairing and leading on these matters.

A fundamental failure on the part of successive British leaders has been the failure to face the reality that the European project was always political. Where this naive idea came in that somehow we were interested only in the common market dimensions of it and were not really interested in the political union I do not know. Going back to the origins, when we were talking about coal and steel, it was important to have sensible arrangements for coal and steel in the future of Europe but that was not the end: the objective was to build a stable, secure Europe and never again to have the searing experiences of the Second World War. It has been a tragedy that we have failed to understand this in British culture, because we have ill prepared the British people to understand the significance of the issues with which they are now confronted.

We are talking about the importance of Europe in security matters. The times in which we live underline this, because the volatility and unpredictability of US foreign policy under its present leadership are dangerous. My noble friend Lord West spoke with so much authority about the importance of the intelligence relationship with America. That underlines the dangerous situation in which we are placed. Everything my noble friend said was true, but, in reality, that is in the context of unpredictable and extraordinarily volatile happenings in the United States.

There are a couple of other reasons why this is so vital. One is the new policies of Russia under Putin: the interventionist lines he is following and the deliberate destabilisation of many parts of the world, including western Europe. That is another reason why we should be holding together with the European community as a whole—of course it is. However, closer to home, there are also the issues of Poland, Hungary and Romania, and some might say that this is therefore an unwise time to be more involved in the politics of Europe. Quite the reverse; this is a time to be in there playing our part, devising and strengthening the policies which are necessary to confront the forces of reaction and destabilisation. It is tragic to see Britain walking away at the very time when the challenge is greater than it has ever been.

In conclusion, I have become totally convinced that crime, trafficking, drugs and terrorism are all international. It is absolute madness to be moving away from close co-operation with Europe. Everyone I have heard giving evidence to the Home Affairs Sub-Committee, for example—anyone who has any kind of responsibility in these fields—has said that it would be nothing but to the detriment of the effectiveness of all that has been achieved in recent years if we were to move away. We need very convincing policies from the Government and there is no sign of them yet.

Universal Sustainable Development Goals

Lord Judd Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sure I will not be alone in expressing real appreciation to the noble Baroness for giving us the opportunity to look at this issue again. The forthright and challenging way in which she introduced the debate was a model of what accountability should be all about.

We are not a model for the world, as the noble Baroness has made very clear. Sometimes there is a fundamental confusion about structures, processes and motivation. I have not, anywhere in my life, seen a structure, a process or a goal which in and of itself changed the situation. Some structures inhibit change while others facilitate it, but it is the motivation and determination of people that get results. What the Minister has to do is to persuade us that running right through the Government at all levels and in all the relevant departments—most of them are relevant—is a culture and a spirit of determination and stamina to get things done. That is crucial and it depends on leadership.

An awful lot of economic nonsense is being talked about how our current systems and priorities are ultimately in the interests of the poor because unless you have a strong, throbbing financial and economic system, there is no chance of generating the resources needed by the poor. Superficially, and in some ways quite realistically, that is a truth which cannot be avoided. It is right that we have to produce the cake before we slice it up and perhaps that has not been taken as seriously as it should have been in our political past. But it is not like that; for anyone who has worked anywhere near the front line, of course it is not like that. People who are grotesquely disadvantaged, certainly abroad but also in our own society, and are in a way institutionalised in their disadvantage and poverty, need specific help to start playing. There is sometimes talk of having a level playing field for everyone, but some people have to be helped to be fit to play on that level playing field. You must have specific poverty-orientated and disadvantage-orientated policies designed to put people in a position of self-confidence and give them the ability to carry things forward. Of course, education is absolutely central to that.

What also matters deeply in fulfilling the objectives of the development goals is justice. We talk too easily about how we want to see justice across the world, but justice has to be built. That means setting up quite an expensive agenda of preparing people in their education and professional background for playing the key part that is necessary within the judicial system. Sometimes I think that these matters should have been spelled out more clearly when we adopted the goals. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the goals got the universal support they did—they got an enthusiastic response from, and the endorsement of, a large number of people in this country—because they were going to tackle poverty and social injustice. They were going to produce statistics about not just economic growth and development but how ordinary people’s quality of life would improve.

There are specific matters on which it would be good to hear the views of the Minister. Are the Government and their relevant departments focused on the poorest—the poorest individuals in different countries, as well as the poorer countries in the world—or are they allowing themselves to be tempted in this aid programme and related programmes into saying, “We must generate growth”? Growth will not ensure social justice. We must have in place specific systems to balance economic growth and ensure that it works in the interests of everyone.

That will take great international economic co-operation. I hope that the Minister will tell us how that co-operation is going. A number of us are very concerned that one implication of Brexit and our withdrawal from Europe will be the undermining of the co-operation with Europe that has developed commendably through European programmes. What real, not theoretical, arrangements are being made to ensure that this is not lost? What about government departments? Is there enough liaison? Is there enough overarching leadership to ensure such liaison between individual departments?

What about NGOs? They have a rich tradition in this country. How far is their front-line experience being listened to? How far are they being drawn in as key players? Perhaps most importantly, are we ensuring in our approach the imperative of the countries we are supposed to be assisting being partners in all this? What part are we really giving them in the evaluation process—in working out whether what is being done is achieving what they are looking for? I hope the Minister can illustrate that point. Of course, civil society, not just government, needs to play a part in that evaluation process in those countries. Then, there is the question of how much the devolved Administrations are being involved and how much co-operation there is between them. Are positive outcomes of that being achieved?

On the issue of children, who are central to the challenge of development goals and their purpose, the Save the Children Fund reminded us that 60% of high-risk youngsters are being stunted in their educational and intellectual development. Some 40% are more likely to die before their fifth birthday and 15% are less likely to complete primary school. Girls in this group are 80% more likely to be married off as children. We have to face the realities of such issues. It is no good being seduced into looking at overall global statistics and saying that the record of growth is so much and that the record of achievement in getting homes and education for people demonstrates that we have made progress. We should be concerned about those who are excluded. Unless the excluded become central to our considerations in the development goals, we are failing.

United Nations Relief and Works Agency

Lord Judd Excerpts

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

My noble friend is absolutely right: that dialogue is critical and at the heart of this. One of the elements within the economic development package announced by Alistair Burt was a strong emphasis that progress on economic development and trade is in both their interests and has to be part of a wider peace agreement. We encourage and support those calls.

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

Does the Minister not agree that, while it may be essential that we try to keep the dialogue going, this ill-advised action by the United States makes that very much more difficult because it plays directly into the hands of the extremists? Is it not therefore essential to ensure, for political and security reasons, that the services of UNRWA—particularly the education of the young—continue without interruption? Should this House take the opportunity to put on record our admiration for the work of UNRWA in the most difficult circumstances?

[Lord Bates]

I am happy to do as the noble Lord requests. UNRWA currently has a deficit of $270 million, which is unsustainable and needs to be sorted out. It relies too heavily on the United States and has too narrow a base of donors; the finances are not there. We understand that it has sufficient funding to keep the 711 schools open this month, but thereafter we are not sure. These are very serious times; as a result the Government are looking urgently at what more we can do in this area. Because of the vagaries of parliamentary timing between the House of Commons and here, I am not sure whether Minister Burt has yet made his announcement about what we might do, so I am slightly restricted in what I can say. However, we will today be announcing yet another increase in funding to meet the shortfall and ensure that people get the support and help that they need.

EU Settlement Scheme

Lord Judd Excerpts

Thursday 21st June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

UK citizens in Europe will, of course, be a matter for Europe. We did declare our hand very early; we had a lot of pressure in Parliament and the country to do so, and to do so in good faith, and that is what we did.

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, while this Statement will obviously need a great deal of scrutiny, I certainly join with those who have welcomed it most genuinely. Together with other things that are happening, it seems to indicate that there is a long overdue and welcome change of direction in the atmosphere at the Home Office and in the role that it is trying to fulfil. That is to be encouraged. I like these words in the Statement:

“Throughout the process, we will be looking to grant, not for reasons to refuse, and caseworkers will be able to exercise discretion in favour of the applicant where appropriate, to minimise administrative burdens”.


That is the right kind of language.

As I say, we will need to look at the detail. In the meantime, will the noble Baroness agree that the Government have yet to legislate for settled status in domestic law? What legal guarantees will those who have registered for this status prior to agreement of the withdrawal agreement be given under UK law? Can she guarantee that the agreement on citizens’ rights that has been reached with the EU will be honoured even if the UK is unable to reach an acceptable deal with the EU 27 under Article 50?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank the noble Lord. On the legal status, when an applicant applies for settled status they will receive a digital token and a letter that says that they have obtained settled status in this country. I think that the noble Lord is asking what will future-proof that status. Is that the point he is making? I cannot look into the future to see what a future Government might do, but this Government will do as much as they can to ensure that these people are here with settled status as proof that they are legally here.

[Lord Judd]

May I just respond to the question that the noble Baroness put to me? My point is that it is not yet established in law. How soon will it happen, and can we be sure that it will happen? In the meantime, how will their status be guaranteed in law? That is the point. Perhaps I may also say that, in view of all she has been saying, I hope that the position of the vulnerable and those who do not have access to high-tech means of communication will be covered in the spirit of what has been said in the Statement.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I hope that the noble Lord will be more satisfied with this response. It will be established in law. I cannot say what those future laws will look like under perhaps another Government because laws change, but it will be established in law.

Drugs Licensing

Lord Judd Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My noble friend has read out the question of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, very well. I knew that there was mischief going on behind me. The answer to those questions is yes.

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, I feel that we should certainly put on the record our appreciation of the steps the Government are taking. I declare an interest in this because for some time my daughter and her partner worked with drug addicts. They would never leave me in peace on the issue of how soon we could move to an understanding in our society that drugs are primarily a health issue, not a crime issue. They used to berate me about the amount of resources used for anti-criminal activity and how they could have been deployed so effectively in positive work, not least education in and around the subject.

I should like also to put on the record our deep appreciation of the courage of the parents and families who are standing by these two boys, but I hope that we are now beginning a process which will have its own self-generating logic within it so that we can reach a more enlightened and effective—that is the important word—policy on drugs and their use in medical treatment.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

As my right honourable friend the Home Secretary said today, this is not about the recreational use of cannabis. This is entirely about making medicines available to very sick children as well as adults, should they need them. We are not going into the pros and cons of the recreational use of drugs because this is an entirely separate matter. I take on board what the noble Lord has said, but I think he will appreciate that I will not go there today.