Lord Purvis of Tweed
Main Page: Lord Purvis of Tweed (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, it is a particular pleasure to immediately follow my noble friend and to agree with his compelling arguments for UK-Africa relations. I also agree with his remarks regarding optimism. I am a Scottish liberal, and therefore when you have exhausted pessimism, there is only optimism left.
I am very grateful to my noble friend Lady Featherstone for securing this debate and for the way in which she so clearly presented the case. I hope the House will forgive me for saying that we are very lucky on these Benches to have her among us, with the record and the commitment of delivery that she has brought.
The House has also been very lucky to hear two outstanding maiden speeches today from the noble Baroness, Lady Hyde, and the noble Lord, Lord Barber, and we look forward to their future contributions. However, this afternoon was bittersweet because we learned that we will no longer hear contributions from the noble Lord, Lord Browne. He has been a friend across Benches to many people. He and I have joked in the conversations that we have grabbed when we have both been in the country, and I, like my noble friend Lord Oates, have learned a great deal from the noble Lord. He served Kilmarnock with great distinction in the House of Commons and served us as a public servant in this House very well. He will be greatly missed.
When she introduced the debate, my noble friend gave a very clear argument for why development partnerships are in our interests both abroad and at home, especially in conflict prevention. That is why it simply makes no sense whatever to cut this work to the bone, as the Government are doing, when the need is greater, as my noble friend Lady Hussein-Ece said.
A relationship becomes a partnership when it is trusted, predictable and reliable. But our partnerships have been systematically undermined in recent years by a whiplash of ministerial changes that mean that, in the last decade, the average lifespan of a UK Minister for Africa has not been longer than nine months. Devastatingly, there have been rushed changes such as abolishing DfID and slashing development expertise to the bone, often mid-contract and mid-programme, at a critical time when our partners know that their relationship with the UK is critical for them to get closer to meeting the global goals. We abandoned them by ending bilateral programmes—proven to work—in their entirety, often hobbling multilateral bodies on the way by cutting UK contributions.
When the last Government and this Government chose to cut development to the lowest share of GNI in 50 years, they first felt it was necessary to misrepresent what it was. The last Government called it the greatest “cashpoint in the sky”, and this Government say that Britain is no longer a “charity”. It never was. It undermines the hard-working officials who have been development workers building partnerships over years to say that, at the end of the day, they were just charity workers.
First you undermine it, then you can wring your hands when you say that the public do not support it, and you can cut it. Most perniciously, you frame the argument as a choice between development and defence. It is a false choice, but it is worse than that; it is a strategic error to say that there should be a choice in the first place. But even if there is the choice to do that, it simply ignores the law. We still have the 2002 Act when it comes to the objectives of development partnerships, and we have the 2015 Act on scale.
Scale is important. In the excellent debate from the noble Lord, Lord Bates, earlier this month, the Minister for Development said that she did not believe that less investment leads to
“less action, less impact and fewer development outcomes”.—[Official Report, 13/1/26; col. 1674.]
But it is interesting that, in the Government’s Budget in March, the case for cutting development for those most in need in the world was that investment levels do not link with impact and better outcomes. Apparently, that is the only line of the Budget where that applies. Apparently, more investment is needed to meet the Government’s child poverty targets for Manchester but less is irrelevant when it comes to doing the same thing for Malawi.
I hope the Minister can explain to us in clear terms that, after the UK pulled out of water and sanitary health programmes and cut WASH by 75%, we have determined that there has been no impact whatever, because no one is telling us that. In fact, we know that the impact of that has been disproportionate on women and girls. Can the Minister say that it has not been disproportionate for women and girls? When the Government have actively deprioritised education programmes, can the Minister repeat that this is having no impact?
I ask this because we know the facts and we have all met those who have told us about the impacts. The UK was one of the few countries to have met the UN target of 0.7%. When we pulled out, often mid-programme and mid-contract, no one else had the sufficient scale to fill the gap. It has left many of our partners desperate to try to fill the gaps in other ways.
The deep irony of the current negotiations in the US Congress between the House and the Senate is that the proposed budget, which may well come about, would restore US development programmes, which could lead to the prospect that the Labour Government have cut the budget the most of any OECD country. That surely cannot be right for this country.
The Government are asking us now—perhaps the Minister will say it when he winds up—to reimagine development, but that is what we thought the review of the noble Baroness, Lady Shafik, was all about. It has never seen the light of day. Now, the Government are asking us to reimagine development to fit a cut budget, rather than thinking about what is needed and then setting a budget. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Forbes, that one of the virtues of soft power is that around the world we respect the rule of law. That is absolutely right. We have the law for 0.7% on our statute books here. Respecting the law on development would be a good start, before we start saying that other countries need to respect the rule of law.
We have been told that we will return to the law when the fiscal circumstances allow. Now, the Development Minister has regarded the UN target as not valid. Hidden in the spending review—the previous Government’s and this Government’s—is the fine print saying that when the Government have got close to meeting the fiscal circumstances for the development rules, they have changed them. We are now on the fourth iteration of the fiscal rules for meeting the targets. Are the Government still operating to fiscal rules? If they are saying that the fiscal rules will not be met at the end of this Parliament, they are admitting that they will not be met for the budget as a whole.
Parliament and the public know the impact that value for money in aid development has because we have an Independent Commission for Aid Impact. We do not have to listen to what a Minister might think: we are able to rely on an independent—I stress, independent—commission that reviews all elements of UK development partnerships and reports to Parliament and the public on their impact. Judging by what the Minister told the Development Committee last week, it seems that the Government are going to abolish it, DOGE style. Will the Minister make it clear in winding up that we will not abolish ICAI and that we will keep it as a vital resource for transparency?
Finally, all the speakers today have said that the need is greater than ever and partnerships are more important than ever, but this Labour Government, who have never met a UN target, could be leaving a lower level of aid than it inherited—indeed, the lowest share ever reported in development statistics. When the need is greater than ever and partnerships are more important than ever, that is not the best record, if we are going to be seen as a soft-power nation around the world. Depressingly, the Official Opposition are now committed to reducing it even further. This is wrong for our moral compass around the world, wrong for our security, wrong for our safety, and wrong for our soft power and our relationships abroad. It is mostly wrong, however, for the people who are greatest in need, and we are letting them down.
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Lemos) (Lab)
My Lords, I join with others in congratulating the two new Peers on their maiden speeches. It is with great pleasure that I welcome my noble friend Lady Hyde of Bemerton to her place in your Lordships’ House and congratulate her on a really inspiring and wonderful maiden speech. I am delighted to hear that she has such a long-standing and impressive commitment to prison. As it also one of my interests, we are both, if I can put it like this, alumni of the prison system and I look forward to collaborating with her on that. We already know from the poem she quoted in her maiden speech that she deserves to be here.
I also congratulate my noble friend Lord Barber of—I have to pause to get it right, in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Callanan did—Chittlehampton on his excellent maiden speech. I thank the noble Lord for all his work, but particularly in recent times as the UK envoy for Palestinian Authority governance and for his support to the Palestinian Authority to build its delivery and governance capabilities to progress the vital reform agenda. I have been an admirer of my noble friend Lord Barber for many, many years—decades, in fact—from a distance and I very much look forward to working with him now.
I would go so far as to say I adore my noble friend Lady Liddell, but I deplore her attitude to cricket—as I am sure my noble friend Lord Barber does, too, so we will have to work on her together.
On behalf, I think, of the whole House, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton. I knew this was going to be his last contribution in your Lordships’ House, but he, in typical fashion, did not want any fuss and did not want it labelled a formal valedictory—which characterises the sort of person he is and why we have come to respect him so much. I want to thank him for his outstanding work as a parliamentarian serving your Lordships’ House, and also for his 29 years in the House of Commons. His personal and political qualities ensured that he served in the Cabinet of two Prime Ministers of the last Labour Government.
He has successfully been able to be both loyal to his party and to Parliament and a genuinely original thinker. His reputation is as someone kind and generous to all, from the most junior staff to the most senior. On a personal note, my first appearance at this Dispatch Box was to answer a Question from my noble friend Lord Browne of Ladyton. He laid great stress on the fact that it was my first Question, with the result that everyone was nice to me, including, if I may say, the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, who indeed was again today. Your Lordships’ House will be diminished without him, but we wish him and his family the very best, and I particularly want to applaud his departing comments about optimism, which I must say I share.
I am grateful, as all contributors have been, to the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, for securing this debate. I pay tribute to her long-standing commitment and passion, and to her delivery and achievements in this area of development as Minister and in other ways.
I am also grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. I share with the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, the feeling that there is a shared sense of commitment and responsibility across your Lordships’ House in this area. There are of course differences of opinion, but there is also a strong consensus about the importance of this work and the key priorities that we have as a nation.
Noble Lords do not need me to remind them that we live in a time of, as it was characterised in the national security strategy, radical uncertainty; a number of noble Lords discussed that, including the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone. The Government make no apology for making a positive and definitive choice to strengthen our hard-power capabilities in pursuit of national security and the national interest. I very much agree with my noble friends Lord Browne and Lady Liddell that hard-power and soft-power capabilities go together, and I entirely agree with the comment by my noble friend Lord Barber that together they represent a superpower.
I do not intend to make a partisan speech, but I will just say that this Government have greatly enhanced the UK’s national reputation by the standards of recent UK Governments. I also say to the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, that my noble friend Lady Chapman is in Africa doing her job and I am here doing mine.
As a number of noble Lords have acknowledged, the UK has deep expertise and experience in development, conflict prevention and resolution, as well as in soft power. Our long-standing track record in these areas gives us significant convening power alongside our direct and multilateral delivery. The world’s problems are interconnected, as the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, said, and therefore our responses must be interdependent, mutually reinforcing and more strategic. I entirely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, that security will not be achieved by defence alone, although we all agree that defence and security are extremely important.
I begin by confirming that this Government’s commitment to international development remains firm, but we feel, perhaps contrary to what was suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, that it is time for a new approach. The last few decades have seen significant reductions in extreme poverty, which was an overarching goal for the last Labour Government. At the same time, humanitarian need—particularly humanitarian need that arises from conflict and indeed climate change, which perhaps has not been mentioned so often today—is rising, while resources come under increasing pressure not just in this country but across the globe. We are also seeing international humanitarian law facing renewed challenges. I emphasise that the context in which the Government intend to set out our plans in this area reflect that changed context, and it is an important backdrop to our conceptual and policy thinking in this area.
A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord McConnell and Lord Bates, mentioned the cuts that have been made to the official development assistance budget. As I think everyone in your Lordships’ House knows, there will be further announcements about allocations in the coming weeks.
At a time when resources are challenged, we need to prioritise. That is why we are sharpening our focus on three big development priorities: humanitarian need, health and climate change. We are backing multilateral development organisations—which I note that the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, supported—because we believe that that is how we make the biggest difference and achieve the greatest impact; it is something that the noble Lord laid a lot of emphasis on. We are significant contributors to Gavi, the Global Fund, the World Bank’s IDA programme and the African Development Fund. The latter is an African-led organisation; I emphasise that because we believe that these partnerships need local as well as international leadership.
We know that multilateralism is not perfect, so we are championing much-needed reform, including the UN Secretary-General’s UN80 Initiative. The noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, and the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, mentioned the need to improve the performance of some multilateral institutions, and we strongly support that.
We also strongly support the work of the UN’s Emergency Relief Coordinator, and the impressive humanitarian reset that Tom Fletcher has put in hand. The noble Lord, Lord Bates, kindly invited me to a briefing that I think sounds absolutely terrific. He also acknowledged the history of others in that place, including my noble friend Lady Amos, who I think was here earlier. That is a very important and impressive part of what we are supporting, particularly Fletcher’s commitment to what he called “hyper-prioritisation”—that is something that I really want to get across.
The principles behind the Government’s important strategic shift in development reflect the changed world; I know that this has been set out in other contexts, but this is the context for today’s conversation. We want to move from being a donor to being an investor; from service delivery to strengthening systems in government; from global delivery to more local delivery; and from giving grants to providing expertise. That is what our partners want to see; they are ambitious to move beyond aid.
The noble Lord, Lord St John, and the noble Lord, Lord Oates, talked about Africa with their great expertise, and they drew our attention to the opportunities of the big demographic, digital and other changes that are going on there. Those are the countries that want to move beyond aid. It is through these multilateral partnerships—with respect, I do not agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, on this point—that we maximise the impact of every pound that we put in, as well as the many strengths and capabilities that the UK brings to the table, from financial to scientific and technical expertise. Those areas of expertise will be worth more than money.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
Can the Minister provide clarity on the move from being a donor to an investor? Before the cuts, what proportion of UK ODA was purely a donation and not linked to a partnership programme with the country that we were working with?
Lord Lemos (Lab)
As I have said, we will set out the context and the decisions that surround ODA funding. However, I stress to the noble Lord that we still have, and we will continue to have, country-based programmes. That is still an important part of the mix. If he was asking me to characterise some other change, I do not have much more to add. Turing to conflict and diplomacy—
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
Can the Minister clarify where the donations came from? If there were any, what proportion of UK ODA was from donations? The Minister said that we have gone from a donor model to an investor model, but there were no donations.
Lord Lemos (Lab)
I do not think I have anything to add. There is a long history of the use of the term “donor” to characterise providers of overseas aid, but we are not debating that now, if the noble Lord will forgive me. I do not really recognise the characterisation he is putting forward.
A number of noble Lords mentioned conflict and diplomacy. Conflict in the world, as we all know, has become ever more deadly and complex, and the UK’s diplomatic, development and security levers are more than the sum of their parts. We are working very closely alongside our international partners, old and new, wherever we can. This work expands effort to prevent conflicts as well as to resolve them.
A number of noble Lords stressed the need for conflict prevention, and that too is part of what the Government are committed to. We want to stabilise fragile places for the long term, not just to respond to conflicts once they have arisen. We also want to protect our shared security online—that has not had much attention in this debate, but it is important nevertheless—and improve our ability to identify and assess risk and strengthen the systems. We need to issue early warnings of conflict—a point that my noble friend Lord Browne emphasised.
Above all, our commitment is to save lives. We also want to uphold international law. We want to break the vicious cycles that blight so many lives with appalling violence and cause people to flee their homes. We must work to strengthen democratic structures and civil society organisations in exactly the way that my noble friend Lord Barber has been working in Palestine. This commitment to both preventing and helping to resolve conflicts and stabilising the situation sits alongside our efforts to target life-saving humanitarian relief in a deeply troubling world. The UK remains a leading humanitarian actor, and we will continue to support those in crisis, especially in Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan.
The noble Lord, Lord Callanan, asked me to set out the Government’s approach to UNRWA and Palestine, and I am very happy to do so. Following the US-led ceasefire agreement, there have been some improvements in the level of aid co-ordinated by the UN entering Gaza. It remains insufficient and needs upscaling rapidly to ease the suffering. The UK has provided £81 million of humanitarian and early recovery support as part of our £116 million programme for Palestine this financial year. The UK is doing all we can to alleviate suffering. Quantifying how much UK aid has entered Gaza is difficult due to the complex operating environment. Despite the restrictions on access, we know that UK aid is having an impact. The Foreign Secretary met UNRWA Commissioner-General Lazzarini in November and was clear that the UK continues to support UNRWA politically and financially, recognising its vital role in delivering essential services such as health and education to millions of Palestinian refugees across the region. This financial year the UK has committed £27 million, which will enable UNRWA to scale up life-saving aid including food, water, shelter and medical care for Gazans facing famine conditions.
A number of noble Lords mentioned women and children. The UK is a long-standing leader in preventing sexual violence in conflict, and we are setting a gold standard globally for engaging survivors through our survivor advisory group and survivor champions. The International Alliance on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict, which the UK helped to create, remains at the forefront of global action to prevent sexual violence. Importantly, as well as supporting services we are backing global efforts to make sure that perpetrators of appalling violence are held to account.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, kindly warned me of her question—so I am prepared to answer it—about what the UK will do during our presidency of the UN Security Council. I can confirm that we will embed women, peace and security considerations across the council’s work. As the Foreign Secretary set out in the high-level event commemorating the 25th anniversary, which the noble Baroness referred to, the UK is committed to amplifying women’s voices, participation in building peace, stepping up efforts to end impunity for sexual crimes in conflict, and ensuring that our humanitarian work goes further to address the particular impact of crisis on women and girls. This work will be underpinned by the UK’s refreshed approach to women, peace and security, including our ongoing work to strengthen delivery, accountability and cross-government co-ordination.
Lastly, on conflict, I draw attention to something that I do not think anyone has mentioned, which is our amazing worldwide demining and action groups, the Halo Trust and the Mines Advisory Group. The UK has done more than any other country on demining, and it represents an extremely important building block in conflict, security and stabilisation.
I turn to soft power. The UK regularly appears near the top of the league tables on soft power, but we are not complacent and we are obviously aware of the rise of other global actors. Soft power is about people-to-people relationships, going beyond government to government, as the noble Lord, Lord St John, and others noted, and our soft power assets allow us to reach the people that government finds it difficult to reach. We will be saying more about the links between development soft power and ensuring the UK’s security when we publish the soft power strategy later this year, which I hope will answer some of the questions that noble Lords have asked. Our work in soft power, as a number of noble Lords have emphasised, is stressed by the British Council, and I should declare my interest as the longest-standing trustee of the British Council for many years.