Official Development Assistance

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Tuesday 4th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

First, I commend the noble Baroness for her own work and her track record of being a champion for women and girls globally and for the work she did as part of government—we should all thank her for that. Ordinarily, yes, we would conduct an impact assessment; that is part of making sure that we make sensible decisions and that we understand the impact of the choices that we make. She made that point very well.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Minister. Will she agree with me that a key part of our national security and defence is working with allies, especially those smaller vulnerable nations, through ODA commitments for technical resilience against interference from both state and non-state actors? This is a large part of ODA funding, which the Government have now signalled will be cut by more than three-quarters. What security assessment was carried out before the Government indicated they were going to remove our technical and security support almost entirely for the very nations on which we rely for our national security?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

That is complete nonsense; we are not going to do that. When we talk about prioritisation, that is about making choices. The idea that the Government, who have just reallocated the money into defence, are then going to be blasé or relaxed about reducing spending that contributes towards our security is, frankly, ridiculous.