Official Development Assistance

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Campbell of Pittenweem for asking this Question and outlining it so clearly and powerfully. Many of his points were supported by those taking part in this short debate.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Greengross, referred to the relatively little-noticed but devastating submission by the World Health Organization to the IDC in the Commons, which referred to the set of 20 neglected tropical diseases which

“affect the poorest people in the poorest countries”

and which

“kill, blind, disfigure and maim, causing considerable and largely untold suffering to millions of people worldwide.”

The submission goes on to say that,

“as a consequence of the aid cuts, 20,000-30,000 individuals are likely to die, with the uncertainty in that estimate related to expected recent increases in disease incidence due to COVID-19-related programmatic delays.”

It concludes:

“the withdrawal of UK funding makes it likely that an estimated in-country inventory of”

277 million tablets

“donated by British and international pharmaceutical companies will expire and need to be incinerated”.

Can the Minister commit that no tablets meant for the poorest people in the world will be destroyed as a result of these cuts? That is my first question.

My second question relates to something that the Leader of the House was unable to provide me. Last week I asked her, as a member of the Government, to do something which members of the British Government have been doing for 25 years, which is to encourage the other richest countries in the world to meet their UN target of 0.7%. She was unable to do that, so I would like that reassurance in this debate today that it remains the position of the Government that we are encouraging all other developed countries to meet their obligations, which this Parliament enshrined in our law.