International Covid-19 Response: Innovation and Access to Treatment

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Thursday 5th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) for calling for the debate, and I hope that my speech will amplify the points that she is making.

The International Development Committee, which I chair, has been examining the impact of the coronavirus on developing countries, and the contribution of the UK Government to initiatives to help the global south tackle the pandemic. A key part of the UK’s strategy for the global south is funding an array of partnerships and collaborations aiming to develop, at speed, vaccines, therapies and tests for preventing, treating and diagnosing the disease. The Government have allocated the lion’s share of their global coronavirus funding to the race for those products—£388 million initially for vaccines, therapies and tests and, more recently, another £571 million for the production, purchase and distribution of vaccines. That is very welcome, but a key concern that emerged throughout the evidence that we received was about the importance of legal and practical measures to guarantee equitable access to corona vaccines, medicines and tests around the world, based on need, not economic power. The former chief scientific adviser to the Department for International Development, Professor Charlotte Watts, told the IDC:

“It is not only about finding a vaccine that is going to work, but how to ensure that there are the resources and future investment in production capability, so that that can be distributed to low and middle-income countries.”

It is worth recalling why equitable access to medicines is such a concern. First, let me take the example of the antiretrovirals for HIV and AIDS. In Durban in 2000, at the XIII International AIDS Conference, Justice Edwin Cameron of the South African Constitutional Court famously declared that he had been living with AIDS for 33 months, but that,

“there are 24 or 25 million people in Africa who at this moment are dying, and they are dying because they don’t have the privilege that I have of purchasing my life and health.”

In 2000, the anti-retroviral drugs capable of transforming AIDS into a manageable illness were far beyond the means of most South Africans, costing up to $10,000 a year—much more expensive than any other country when compared with generic substitutes. When South Africa passed legislation to facilitate the use of cheaper, generic and imported products on public health grounds, 39 multinational pharmaceutical companies banded together to sue the Government for violating WTO rules. Rightly, that resulted in a PR disaster for the pharmaceutical industry. The case was dropped and the WTO recognised member states’ rights to take such measures to protect public health and, in particular, to promote access to medicines for all. But even now, the use of that safeguard is largely limited to the original HIV/AIDS drugs because of the complexities required in legislation, health system weaknesses and political pressure.

Let us look at cancer. Cancer drugs are a lucrative pharmaceutical market—for example, representing 27% of the sector’s revenue in the US. Efforts to set prices to recoup research and development costs over a set period are one thing, but funding the inflated billion-dollar trade in whole companies holding just one or two attractive patents seems less defensible. Whatever the reason, low and middle-income countries invariably find the prices set to take advantage of demand in a high-income country an insurmountable barrier to access. Pricing invariably results in wide variations in survival rates. For example, the US five-year overall survival rate for breast cancer is 84%, compared with just 12% in Gambia. That is hardly equitable.

Finally, I want to talk about polio. The polio story is essentially a triumph, with a 99% reduction in cases since the start of the global effort in 1985. However, each year, the oral polio vaccine, which is widely used in the global south, is linked to outbreaks of the disease where the wild virus has been eliminated. The injectable vaccine is an inactive virus, but it costs about $3. The oral vaccine, at about 12 cents, contains live virus. Unfortunately, children can shed a mutated version of the live virus in their stools, which can then infect unvaccinated children in areas with poor sanitation. Clearly there are other considerations than just costs when comparing injected and ingested doses of medicine, but the reality is that cost kills.

Let us hold these examples in our mind as we consider equitable access to future coronavirus products. And let me be blunt: the prospect of the international community behaving morally, or at least rationally, on a global scale over the distribution of an effective vaccine, or even accurate and simple tests, at an affordable price, is not good. In his September speech to the first virtual United Nations General Assembly, the Prime Minister rightly lambasted the international community over its fractious and competitive reaction to the procurement of personal protective equipment during the first wave of the pandemic—and that was just over masks and aprons. Imagine the pressure on every Government to deliver the long-awaited panacea of covid-19 immunity to their own populations.

Any rational response to the pandemic must surely take account of the science and the almost unique status of this crisis by incorporating the sustainable development principle of leaving no one behind. No one will be safe and secure until everyone is covid-free. For once, everyone’s interests are overtly aligned. The UK finds itself in a unique moment in time when we can reposition ourselves as a global leader for good. The soft power gained by doing the right thing for the very poorest in the world, and by standing up to those looking to profit from others’ misery, will be immeasurable. I am grateful for the leading role the UK has taken to date in the development of covid vaccines and products.

[Patrick Grady]

I will be brief, because there is pressure on time, but I just want to say that the hon. Lady is making an incredibly powerful speech that is demonstrating the importance of the scrutiny that her Select Committee has been able to provide. I want to re-emphasise the point I made to the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) that the Scottish National party fully supports the continuation of that Committee, either as a non-departmental Select Committee or as a wider official development assistance-scrutinising Committee. I hope that those on the Government Benches will bear that in mind.

[Sarah Champion]

I am extremely grateful for the hon. Member’s support of the International Development Committee. Development is a specific and key area of the work that we do, and it demands parliamentary scrutiny.

I ask the Minister to give us some certainty today on the Government’s commitment and resolve to fight to ensure that covid drugs and treatments are accessible to everybody, not just those with the deepest pockets. Will the Government support the proposed waiver of all intellectual property monopolies related to covid-19 tools, as put forward by India and South Africa to the WTO? Can the Minister confirm that, for all R&D projects that the UK has funded, transparency on finances and an obligation for resulting products to be free from monopolies were embedded in those contracts at the start and will be enforced? Finally, will the Government follow Germany, Australia, Canada and Israel in championing the use of legal safeguards that all World Trade Organisation members can implement to override patent monopolies if public health is at risk?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Wendy Morton)]

I thank all Members for contributing to the debate. In particular, I am grateful to the hon. Members for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) and for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) for securing the debate. I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Rotherham for her work on this issue in her role as Chair of the International Development Committee. As a former member of that Committee, once upon a time, I recognise the work that it has done over many years.

I am conscious that Members asked a number of specific questions of me on a number of themes. I will do my best to answer as many of them as I possibly can, but I shall also make some comments of my own.

Innovation and equitable access to treatments are critical in the fight to end the covid-19 pandemic. The UK is committed to ensuring rapid and equitable global access to safe, effective vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics. On 26 September, the Prime Minister told the United Nations General Assembly that

“no one is safe until everyone is safe”—

a phrase that I have heard Members use in this Chamber on many occasions. It is that important that I am sure we will continue to use it.

The Prime Minister also told the UN General Assembly:

“The health of every country depends on the whole world having access to”

safe and effective vaccines, treatments and tests. The Government are working to deliver on that commitment through our innovation and scientific co-operation, our leading levels of funding and our close collaboration with other nations and multilateral partners. Scientific co-operation has led to swift breakthroughs and enhanced our collective knowledge of how to tackle this virus. The UK has played its part by supporting clinical trials of life-saving treatments and backing vaccine research at the University of Oxford and Imperial College London.

In June, the recovery trial based at the University of Oxford announced that dexamethasone, a low-cost corticosteroid, was the first treatment in the world shown to reduce the risk of mortality in hospitalised covid-19 patients who required oxygen or ventilation. Dexamethasone is a widely available and—crucially—affordable drug that is now being used to help covid-19 patients. This was the first robust clinical trial anywhere in the world to show a treatment that significantly reduces patient mortality for those with covid-19. Such a breakthrough was possible only thanks to our world-class British life sciences, and has been described by Dr Tedros, director-general of the World Health Organisation, as a “lifesaving scientific breakthrough.”

From the beginning of the pandemic, we have focused on robust clinical research. This enables us to take evidence-based decisions, backed by rigorous science, to improve access to effective treatments both in the UK and around the world. More broadly, the UK is committed to collaborating with public and private partners at home and abroad to accelerate development and equitable access in all countries to affordable health technologies to respond to covid-19. This includes exploring voluntary arrangements and approaches such as non-exclusive voluntary licensing that promote affordable access for all while also providing the incentives that help to foster the innovation needed to create new vaccines, treatments and tests.

The UK is proud to be the largest donor to the access to covid-19 tools, or ACT, accelerator. The ACT accelerator brings together leading international organisations in global health to support collaboration in developing and ensuring access to the new vaccines, treatments and diagnostics that will be needed to bring this pandemic under control.

[Sarah Champion]

Just out of curiosity, I am interested why we did not join ACT when it was initiated in April.

[Wendy Morton]

I will cover that point off later, if I may, but I make clear that we have made commitments to the ACT accelerator partners across the health technologies of up to £813 million. Our commitment is very clear. That includes up to £500 million to Gavi, the vaccine alliance, for the COVAX advance market commitment. The support will also help to ensure access to covid-19 vaccines for up to 92 low and middle-income countries, providing up to 500 million people with vaccinations. The UK is also the largest ACT accelerator donor to the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics, or FIND, which is leading the way in developing diagnostic tools for the world’s poorest countries.

In terms of treatments, the UK is providing up to £40 million to the covid-19 therapeutics accelerator, alongside the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, Mastercard and other funders. The covid-19 therapeutics accelerator and Unitaid lead the work of the ACT accelerator therapeutics partnership. Unitaid has a track record of helping companies to bring affordable health technologies to developing country markets quickly, and the UK is the second largest funder.

Our funding to the ACT accelerator is supporting a pipeline of promising treatments, including monoclonal antibodies and new antivirals. New clinical trial data will emerge in coming weeks. The ACT accelerator is also preparing the way for the rapid deployment of new therapeutics as soon as possible after they have proved effective. We have seen some impressive results so far, but we recognise that the scale of the crisis means more funding will be needed across all three health technologies. We will continue to work with our international partners to encourage them to join us in stepping up their support and to support new and innovative solutions to address this challenge.

The UK is proud to be at the forefront of international efforts to develop vaccines, treatments and tests and ensure equitable access for the world’s poorest countries, but we recognise that we cannot do that alone. Only through global collaboration with our international partners and working through effective multilateral systems will we bring the pandemic under control. That is why on 30 September, the Foreign Secretary co-hosted a side event at the UN General Assembly with the UN Secretary-General, the World Health Organisation director-general and the Health Minister of South Africa. The event raised up to $1 billion in bilateral contributions for the COVAX advance market commitment. The World Bank also announced a package of $12 billion of support for countries to access vaccines, treatments and tests, and a coalition of 16 industry leaders announced a shared commitment to equitable access, including not-for-profit pricing. The commitments by this range of partners are a powerful demonstration of the international support for the ACT accelerator and the need for partnership across the international system.

Vaccine nationalism was raised by Members on the Opposition Benches. In the UK, we are challenging vaccine nationalism. We are a leading supporter of the COVAX facility, which is open to all countries and aims to make vaccines widely available when they are proven. At the UN General Assembly, we used our diplomacy to convene countries in support of that and announced UK aid to fund the COVAX advance market commitment.

Intellectual property rights provide incentives to create and commercialise new inventions, such as life-changing vaccines. They keep innovators innovating, creators creating and investors investing. The UK believes that a robust and fair intellectual property system is a key part of the innovation framework that allows economies to grow while enabling society to benefit from knowledge and ideas. Multiple factors need to be considered to ensure equitable access for all to covid-19 vaccines. These include increasing manufacturing and distribution capacity, measures to support or incentivise technology transfer, ensuring that global supply chains remain open, and ensuring that effective platforms are utilised to voluntarily share IP and know-how.

The UK has long supported affordable and equitable access to essential medicines. We have not signed the solidarity call to action, but we remain committed to collaborating with public and private partners, including by exploring voluntary arrangements and approaches such as non-exclusive voluntary licensing.

[Wendy Morton]

I would just like to make a bit more progress so that I can cover as many points as possible.

Several hon. Member asked about the allocation of vaccines. I assure them that this is being considered. The World Health Organisation’s allocation framework recommends the highest priority populations by age, underlying conditions and health workers—estimated at about 3%. We cannot prevent a country from administering doses as they want, but there is a framework and countries will submit national deployment plans that will be reviewed by the WHO and COVAX.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) raised the issue of inequalities for minority groups. I assure all hon. Members that we are working closely with organisations such as UNICEF and Gavi in that regard. These are organisations that we have worked with for many years.

I really hope that the House is reassured by the Government’s comprehensive approach to supporting innovation and equitable access to covid-19 vaccines, through scientific co-operation, working with industry, funding and multilateral collaboration. The UK is leading efforts to respond to the pandemic by developing and delivering the medical tools that are essential to ending the pandemic for everyone everywhere, but we must all work together to develop safe, effective and affordable vaccines, treatments and tests that can be produced quickly and made available to all.

[Sarah Champion]

I appreciate the Minister giving way. I just want to challenge her on the use of the word “voluntary” when it comes to intellectual property sharing and access to the vaccine. With all respect, big industry—particularly big pharmaceuticals—is not known for equitable sharing on a voluntary basis, so will the Minister please answer this specific point? When the UK taxpayer has been putting money into R&D, what right do we have to ensure that the information that we are paying for is shared in an equitable way?

[Wendy Morton]

As I explained, we believe that a robust and fair intellectual property system is a key part of an innovation framework that allows economies to grow while at the same time enabling society to benefit from knowledge and ideas. There are existing mechanisms that facilitate the sharing of IP—for example, expanding the mandate of existing organisations such as the Medicines Patent Pool to cover covid-19.

We have played a leading role, with our international and national partners, to identify end-to-end solutions that ensure affordable access for all, such as mechanisms to support the voluntary sharing of IP and know-how, manufacturing at scale and ensuring that no one is left behind, including the poorest and most vulnerable. We are committed to collaborating with public and private partners in the UK and internationally, including by exploring voluntary arrangements and approaches such as non-exclusive voluntary licensing, to help deliver what we all want, which is the promotion of affordable access while providing incentives to create those new innovations.

To conclude, it is fair to say that, if we are to defeat covid-19, and if we are to achieve a global recovery and avoid a future pandemic, we must work together across borders. Covid-19 is a virus that has no respect for borders or barriers, which is why the UK is promoting multilateral solutions to end the pandemic, working with international organisations, our partners in the G7 and G20 and industry.

Sexual Abuse and Exploitation

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I apologise for my tardiness this morning, Mr Hollobone; I got a little over-excited with the one-way system. I am incredibly grateful to follow in the wake of my colleague and friend, the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham). I use the word “wake” determinedly and decidedly, because she has really ploughed a way that the rest of us have followed. I can honestly say that the work of the International Development Committee has been led by her championing this, and I am incredibly grateful for that.

The IDC first started to work on this topic in February 2018, following the Haiti scandal. I am really glad that the Government took this seriously and, as the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire said, held the summit. We had high hopes for that, and I speak of my optimism both as someone who has campaigned for child protection and now as the Chair of the IDC. The non-governmental organisations took up the challenge led by the umbrella organisation, Bond, that put in place training, policies and lots of resources. The UK NGOs saw this as an opportunity to better their practice and get on top of the issues.

Unfortunately, what we have seen is an endless cycle of scandals leading to policy change, rather than work to address the actual problem that is obvious to all of us if we only take the time to look. It is quite simple—people who prey on the vulnerable go to where the vulnerable are. We have seen big movements within faith organisations and children’s organisations to prohibit and prevent this sort of behaviour, to call it out and to prosecute, and I am incredibly grateful for that.

I am, however, shocked that the aid sector is probably 20 or 30 years behind that. The culture that existed, for example, in faith organisations, still exists within the aid sector. They see themselves as doing good work, as being virtuous, and think that everyone is there for the right reasons, so they do not dig down into the fact that perhaps a very small minority is there for very, very wrong reasons.

Abuse can always happen where there is a power imbalance. By very definition, aid workers work with the most vulnerable people on the planet. The IDC is currently running an inquiry into the sexual exploitation of beneficiaries by aid workers, and I have discovered that there is a very unpleasant layering of racism, colonialism, and deep, deep sexism coming from the aid workers to the beneficiaries. We have to challenge this. We really need to see the Government stepping back onto this platform.

I spoke to a number of women aid workers who belong to a Facebook group that they set up when one of them was raped and did not know where to turn. There are now 8,000 women aid workers in that Facebook support group. They set it up to support one another when they were sexually harassed and abused by their colleagues, but when I spoke to them about the beneficiaries they said, “Of course it is going on there. If they do it to us, of course they are going to be doing it to the beneficiaries, where there is even less comeback or awareness and the power imbalance is even greater.” They described it as the wild west: these men—and it is almost exclusively men—coming in as saviours on their white horses, but now they tend to be white UN Hummers and Land Cruisers.

I want to focus a little bit on the UN, because a lot of the abuse we are seeing is by UN peacekeepers. We are very grateful that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and UNICEF appeared before our Committee. They are the two branches of the UN that have been on the front foot in trying to address abuses in the system. However, there are many branches to the UN and unfortunately the abuse is repeated time and again. It should not be. In 2013, a UN investigation declared sexual exploitation and abuse

“the most significant risk to UN peacekeeping missions, above and beyond other key risks including protection of civilians”.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon himself asserted that “a single substantiated case” of SEA

“involving UN personnel is one case too many”.

Yet civilian and military personnel associated with peacekeeping operations continue to perpetrate sexual exploitation and abuse, despite the development of policy frameworks designed to prevent it and hold perpetrators to account. However, the cycle of abuse—oh, shock!—and action, rather than focusing on prevention, is the reason we are constantly in this loop; and it is a loop and has been going on since that statement. Haiti continued from 2004 to 2017, with peacekeepers stationed there trading sex with children for food, and dozens of women left pregnant from rape.

I have discovered that there is almost a currency exchange going on. I speak to different peacekeepers and aid workers in camps around the world, and it is standard: “If you want a tarpaulin, I spend the night with your daughter.” That is the exchange that we are allowing to be perpetuated. From 2013 to 2015 in Central African Republic, more than 108 cases were investigated, including the sexual abuse of women and children. Twenty-six peacekeepers, from France, Chad and Equatorial Guinea, were accused of forcing children into acts of bestiality. Human Rights Watch also documented gang rapes by armed UN peacekeepers near the base where women were scrabbling around looking for food. They were then threatened with death if they reported it.

In 2017 in the Democratic Republic of Congo, UN peacekeepers were accused of rape, sexual abuse and exploitation, accounting for roughly a third of all allegations against peacekeepers in 2017. Women, again, were left pregnant and forced to care for children on their own. Video from Tel Aviv in 2020 shows a woman straddling a man in the back seat of a vehicle from the UN Truce Supervision Organisation unit.

The reason it keeps on happening is that the focus is on the victims to report, and then on banning the perpetrators once they are discovered. It is just not realistic. In the DRC, one organisation had 23 reporting mechanisms, but they were not being used and it took journalists to uncover what was going on. We keep hearing, particularly of the UN, that there is a culture of impunity. The UN says that it has zero tolerance, but in the DRC, UN-marked vehicles were driving the perpetrators to hotels to “interview” the women for jobs. There was also a lot of hostility in DRC towards aid workers. Are we really surprised?

Yesterday, we had a session looking at the report by the Independent Commission for Aid Impact on abuses carried out by peacekeepers, and it became clear that there was a lack of commitment in middle management, leading to that feeling of impunity. There is no regulatory body for the UN. The UK could push for that. Transactional sex versus sexual exploitation: there is allowed to be a grey area for what is or is not acceptable. Let us just say that sex with any beneficiary is not acceptable. The UN’s whistleblower protection is, to be honest, useless.

We need an independent mechanism to give confidence to victims. To make lasting change we need strong leadership. I say that, because I know the Minister can do this: he can give us that leadership and take personal responsibility for tackling sexual exploitation and abuse in the aid sector, and make it his priority. He can ensure that the UK uses its diplomatic ties with the UN and Governments around the world to start meaningful discussions on how we can get justice for victims and survivors.

Why does the UK not contribute to the UN trust fund in support of victims of sexual exploitation and abuse? As to prevention, mechanisms to prevent SEA and provide support for victims and survivors should be incorporated in the design of all aid programmes, and budgeted for, from the start. The Government should fund only aid organisations that can demonstrate how to militate against sexual exploitation and that that is integral in all of their work. Aid organisations should challenge the extreme power imbalances between the people delivering aid and the local populations receiving it. The Minister should be championing that and challenging those imbalances. I understand why we are shifting resources from the ongoing humanitarian crisis to the covid-19 response, but we still need to do the base work. The Government have put significant time, energy and resources into looking at the perpetrators and how to prevent them from working, but we need to put the same energy into preventing those abusers from having access to potential victims.

I echo the final point made by the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire: we cannot expect victims to come forward and report. We need to be there on the ground—preventing, looking and, most importantly, listening. I have one final ask for the Minister, which is really simple. Currently, NGOs cannot access DBS checks. We need to expand what is classified as regulated activity, and then we can stop this parade of people going to exploit the most vulnerable in the world.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. He is absolutely right to raise this matter. We believe that democracy, human rights and the rule of law are the absolute foundations on which open, stable and prosperous societies thrive. I am more than happy to commit on behalf of the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss this issue.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab) [V]]

The International Development Committee is currently holding an inquiry into sexual abuse and exploitation by aid workers of the beneficiaries, and I am ashamed to report that we are finding that it is rife. I welcome the fact that the new Department has brought forward a safeguarding document as one of its first publications. However, will the Minister please comment on why the FCDO’s terms and conditions for staff say:

“Sexual relations with beneficiaries are strongly discouraged”?

Why is this not gross misconduct when there is an obvious power imbalance, and what will the Minister do to remedy this immediately?

[Nigel Adams]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising a very important issue. I do not have those terms and conditions in front of me, but I am more than happy to meet her to discuss what sounds like an incredibly serious point that she has raised.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I thank my right hon. Friend. I share his commitment to making Britain an even stronger force for good in the world. We have engaged far and wide. We are engaged with the Foreign Affairs Committee’s inquiry on the integrated review. We are engaged with think-tanks, from the Royal United Services Institute to the Overseas Development Institute. In the other place, Baroness Sugg is chairing regular meetings with representatives of civil society, led by Bond and including Save the Children and Plan International. Those meetings are related to the covid recovery, but they also touch on the merger, both of which are key elements of the IR.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab) [V]]

The integrated review was unpaused in late June. It is supposed to be the most comprehensive evidence-driven evaluation of foreign policy since the cold war, so why did the call for evidence go out only in mid-August for 20 working days, and why are the sustainable development goals absent from the scope of the review? Should we assume that the outcomes are a foregone conclusion?

[Dominic Raab]

I thank the hon. Lady. She should not assume any foregone conclusion. It is precisely because the consultation is open that we have not stipulated any particular thing with the level of specificity she has asked for. I have explained to the House the breadth of consultation. She is right to note that it was interrupted—that was an inevitable result of covid-19—but I reassure her that we are absolutely committed, as the merger into the new FCDO shows, to bringing all our international assets and attributes together to be an even stronger force for good in the world.

Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

We have a global leadership role next year, not only with the G7 but in hosting COP26 and various other international fora. Our specific items for the G7 have not been set out yet—we would not expect that this early—but I can tell my hon. Friend that we will want to show that we are a global force for good across the piece, whether it comes to trade, climate change or girls’ education. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office will be a major motor—an engine for driving maximum impact, not only in value for taxpayers’ money but in helping the very poorest in the world.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab) [V]]

I am grateful to the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary for their commitment to 0.7%, but do they also commit to the Development Assistance Committee’s definition of what constitutes aid? Does the Foreign Secretary agree that the Independent Commission for Aid Impact needs to remain fully independent?

[Dominic Raab]

I think I answered the ICAI question earlier, but I am happy to reassure the hon. Lady and reaffirm that we will not just keep ICAI but strengthen and sharpen its focus, because we welcome and want to see the scrutiny. Indeed, I would like to see more practical policy recommendations, not just the critical analysis. I thank her for what she said about 0.7%. She is right that the DAC rules are an important part of the global infrastructure. There is plenty of scope, and it is absolutely right, for us to ensure that we get maximum value for British taxpayers’ money and to drive a foreign policy that deals with some of the challenges we share with other countries around the world and fulfils our moral responsibilities but delivers for the British people here at home as well.

Official Development Assistance

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for scheduling this debate. We can see from the number of people who want to speak just how important a topic this is.

I am here as Chair of the International Development Committee. I was elected by the House to scrutinise development, and I hope that I will be able to continue in that role in some form. The merger came as a complete surprise, especially as the integrated review was formally paused in April and is not due to start until the autumn. I fully accept that it is in the Prime Minister’s gift to change the machinery of government; however, it is unfathomable that a merger is being carried out in the midst of a pandemic, with no consultation of the sector or staff and no evidence that the move will save money or, indeed, make us more efficient at delivering the global Britain the PM so dearly wants.

I would like to start by speaking the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma), who is a member of the IDC. He said: “As a boy growing up in India, I saw the crushing weight that poverty exerts on people. I saw the lives blighted by ill health and by lack of education.” Fundamentally, that is what DFID does: it raises people up. Those same children, were they born today, wherever it may be—in Pakistan, Ethiopia or Nigeria—could expect a different course.

UK aid saves lives and changes lives—not the lives of those who promise to support a global Britain or buy whatever service our diplomats are hawking that week, but the lives of the most in need. That is why aid should never be linked to political pressure: the ones who lose out are never the ones in charge, but the weakest, the poorest and the sickest. Furthermore, there needs to be a system in place to scrutinise the aid that is given to eliminate poverty, to enable education and health provision for all and a better life for all, and to meet our commitments on the sustainable development goals.

I would also like to speak on behalf of another IDC member, the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham). She urges the Government to embed gender equality into the new Department. A commitment to girls’ education is meaningless unless child marriage, female genital mutilation, gender-based violence and cultural stereotypes are challenged, so we both also request that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office makes sure that the Department for International Development safeguarding unit is retained, as the UK needs to deal with sexual abuse by aid workers, not just the abuses that are carried out by people in their own country.

The recent IDC report on the effectiveness of UK aid examined the impact of UK aid spending. On humanitarian assistance, from 2015 to March 2019, UK aid reached 32.6 million people; from the start of 2015 until the end of 2017, UK support immunised an estimated 56.4 million children, saving almost 1 million lives; and between 2015 and 2019, UK aid supported 14.3 million children to gain a decent education and 51.8 million people to access clean water and better sanitation.

UK aid spending amplifies our voice on the world stage. It promotes our national interests by projecting our core values and transforming the lives of the very poorest in the world. A shift away from that is counterproductive. Global poverty drives conflict and instability. I agree with the Secretary of State that, unless we use our aid now to address covid-19 in the global south, 30 years of development investment could be wiped out. That position is evidenced by the World Bank’s estimate that 49 million people will be pushed into extreme poverty this year alone.

The IDC is finalising a report on the merger, to be published next Friday, which will examine the management of the transition to the new FCDO, the principles underpinning UK aid, and future scrutiny arrangements for official development assistance spending. I hope that the Government will use the report to strengthen the new Department and avoid the pitfalls of other countries.

The UK voluntarily adheres to an internationally recognised definition of aid. That gives us great international standing, as it is seen to be doing the right thing. ODA is designated as assistance given

“with the promotion of the economic development and welfare of developing countries as the main objective”.

UK aid is also bound by four Acts of Parliament, notably the International Development Act 2002, which put poverty alleviation at the heart of the UK aid programme. I am therefore relieved that both the PM and the Foreign Secretary keep reiterating their commitment to spending 0.7% of gross national income on aid, keeping within the OECD Development Assistance Committee’s definition, and preserving the primary focus of UK aid on poverty reduction. However, we all know that the devil is in the detail.

Although DFID remains the largest distributor of UK aid, at 73%, its share of spend has been decreasing over recent years. Non-DFID aid has a very different geographical profile, with around three quarters of it going to middle-income countries, including China, India and South Africa. The shift to increasing amounts of ODA being administered outside DFID has created significant challenges for the management and oversight of spending. Not all ODA programmes administered outside DFID are adequately targeted towards poverty reduction. Seven of the 10 UK Government Departments assessed, including the Foreign Office, were failing to meet aid transparency targets. DFID, however, has been rated very good for seven consecutive years.

It is the Committee’s view that stronger accountability and oversight is needed to help to prevent future distortions in the uses of development assistance and undermining the case for aid. In the International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Act 2015, it became a requirement for the Secretary of State to ensure that the value for money of UK ODA expenditure was subject to independent review. I commend the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) for the creation of the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, which carries out this task. In addition, parliamentary scrutiny is currently carried out via the International Development Committee. Because of the scale of the ODA budget and the fact that this is cross-departmental, I ask the House to look favourably on the Committee’s request that its remit be extended once the merger is completed so that it can continue to scrutinise ODA spend and continue to have responsibility for receiving and considering reports from ICAI. I quote the Centre for Global Development’s Ian Mitchell:

“The Government should create a cross-cutting committee like the Public Accounts Committee to focus on questions of aid value for money. This would provide visibility and reassurance to taxpayers and Parliament alike on aid spending and enable the Foreign Affairs and Development Committee to focus on policy.”

Merging Departments may seem attractive in the short term, with the possible administrative savings and improved policy coherence, but it can be extremely disruptive and costly and impair organisational effectiveness. In the long run, the creation of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office could reduce the UK’s clout on the international stage, rather than enhancing it. Australia’s merger led to the departure of significant numbers of skilled AusAID staff, taking their expertise with them. This had a clear impact on Australia’s aid effectiveness, with AusAID’s former deputy director general Richard Moore estimating that up to 2,000 years of expertise may have been lost. Canada merged its development department with foreign affairs to create Global Affairs Canada. Administration costs in the new department immediately increased and the merger was beset by poor transparency that it is still recovering from. Narrowly defined economic or foreign policy goals can create tension with UK aid’s other objectives, such as poverty reduction, with the risk that neither is done well. There is also a risk that the pursuit of mutual benefit and national interests goals might lead to the tying of aid, so the Government need swiftly to put in measures to prevent that.

In conclusion, the Government need to set out how they intend to ensure that ODA administered through the FCDO meets the necessary high standards of transparency and value for money in its programme and spend, regardless of which Department spends it. Parliamentary and independent scrutiny must continue through a dedicated ODA spend committee, as must the maintaining and resourcing of ICAI. We urge the Government to present a statement to Parliament setting out an evidence-led rationale for any change in development priorities, quantifying expected costs, setting out how the changes would be beneficial and, crucially, dealing with how ODA spend will be measured and controlled.

Finally, DFID is not perfect, but on every international rating it scores among the best in the world for transparency and value for taxpayers’ money. I strongly recommend that, rather than fully blending both Departments, which could lose the sum of its parts, the Government instead transpose DFID wholesale, allowing its good work to continue for the benefit of global Britain.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Hong Kong National Security Legislation

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: we are concerned about that provision and it is not entirely clear how it will be applied. It has already been raised with Carrie Lam by the consul general in the past 24 hours. We will be expressing our concern. It is, of course, something that the entire international community, and tourists and visitors from all around the world, will be concerned about, which is why it is so detrimental, not just to Hong Kong and the international community but to China itself.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab) [V]]

The UK has benefited from Hong Kong for 155 years; we have a legal and moral duty to it. It just cannot be right that a Hongkonger protesting peacefully for rights that we bestowed on them 23 years ago could now end up in jail for life. I really welcome what the Foreign Secretary has said about BNO passport holders, but will he speak a little about what he would do for the human rights of all Hongkongers in Hong Kong, not least because last year his Department funded China with half a million pounds of foreign aid specifically in respect of human rights?

[Dominic Raab]

I thank the hon. Lady, who chairs the International Development Committee, and share her concern about what is going on in Hong Kong. I also welcome her support for the position that the Government have taken; she joins Members from all parties in doing so. We are obviously deeply concerned about all aspects of the national security legislation and will do everything we can to encourage the Chinese Government to think again. We need to be realistic about it. In relation to BNOs, as the hon. Lady will know, there are close to 3 million eligible BNOs and more than 300,000 passport holders. The offer that we have made is right, given the responsibilities that we have. We are clearly concerned more broadly about the residents of Hong Kong, and that is a conversation we are rightly having with our wider international partners.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

What discussions he has had with international (a) development non-governmental organisations and (b) counterparts of the Secretary of State for International Development on the creation of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

What the timescale is for the merger of the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office; and if he will make a statement.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

What discussions he has had with international (a) development non-governmental organisations and (b) counterparts of the Secretary of State for International Development on the creation of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dominic Raab]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are committed to spending 0.7% of GNI on aid. The examples of GAVI and COP26, the questions on Yemen and this pandemic all illustrate why bringing together all the different aspects of foreign policy—particularly bringing together aid and development policy with the Foreign Office’s network—is an opportunity for us to be bigger than the sum of our parts abroad and to have an even greater impact as a force for good.

[Sarah Champion [V]]

The Foreign Secretary is correct that we are starting to manage covid-19 in the north, but in the global south it is causing chaos, decimation and loss of life, as can be seen from the Afghanistan figures today. Will he explain why, when DFID staff are trying their hardest to shore up the global south against covid-19, he has chosen this moment in time to bring forward a confusing, complicated and expensive merger? Is he still looking for the merger to be completed by 1 September? Will the 30% cuts in the ODA budget that the Treasury is asking for be in this financial year or in future spend?

[Dominic Raab]

I reassure the hon. Lady that we are still committed to delivering the merger by September. She asks, “Why now?”. The reality is that coronavirus has illustrated just why it is so important to have an integrated and aligned approach. We have achieved a huge amount through the international ministerial groups we have brought together, but it has also shown how much more powerful we can be as a force for good abroad if we bring all those different elements together, such as aid and the foreign policy network. The GAVI summit is one example, but there are others. We have a moral duty to support the most vulnerable countries around the world to protect them against and prevent a second wave, but it is also important to save the United Kingdom from the implications of that.

DFID-FCO Merger

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I thank my right hon. Friend, the Chair of the Education Committee, who always manages to get apprenticeships into every question he asks with fantastic zeal and enthusiasm. I share his passion. I would be very interested to look at any suggestions he had. One of our priorities is ensuring that every young girl can have a quality education at least up to the age of 12, and that is a good example of where we want to maximise, strengthen and reinforce development policy within our wider international agenda.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab) [V]]

This rushed merger was done without consultation with the sector, Parliament, staff or the staff trade unions, at a time when the global south is about to be hit by a global pandemic. The Government urgently need to clarify the implications of the merger on the 3,600 DFID staff. Does the Foreign Secretary agree with the Prime Minister that there needs to be an ODA Select Committee? Is he committed to the Conservative Independent Commission for Aid Impact? Can he confirm that existing DFID projects will continue and funding agreements will remain in place, and what will happen to the current review of DFID projects?

[Dominic Raab]

I pay tribute to the work that the hon. Lady does in this area. I do not think it is right to say that we are having no scrutiny. I am here before the Chamber, the Prime Minister has made a statement to the House, and we want to continue that as we go through this process. She asked about accountability. Of course, we want maximum accountability for not just the process but the new Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, in terms of the structures that apply to it and here in the House of Commons.

I have already answered the question about the Select Committee. Our view is that, in the normal course, it is right for Select Committees to mirror Government Departments, but ultimately that is a matter for the House. There is a huge opportunity in this process to leverage the very best of our aid—not just money but ethos, passion and commitment—with the muscle and clout that comes with our diplomatic network, and that is what we are committed to delivering.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Wednesday 29th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

The UK has confidence in the WHO and the work that it is doing globally to bring together every country to do the best they can to look after their communities and citizens. The WHO is co-ordinating PPE for all those countries, and we are supporting it by putting funding into the central pot, so that it can ensure that the countries that are most in need will have the PPE that they require.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

What assessment she has made of the effect of the covid-19 pandemic on the (a) delivery and (b) effectiveness of UK aid programmes and projects.

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

What steps she is taking to ensure the effectiveness of international development assistance during the covid-19 pandemic.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

We now go over to Sarah Champion.

[Sarah Champion [V]]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. [Inaudible.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

We will now go back across to Sarah Champion.

[Sarah Champion [V]]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Bond’s recent covid-19 survey reveals that 86% of UK NGO members are cutting back or considering cutting back in-country work, so how is DFID making sure that 30 years of work in alleviating poverty does not unravel as health systems come under more strain in lower-income countries?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. There is a real challenge for those of us who are committed to helping vulnerable countries to become stronger and more self-sufficient. We have had to bring some of our team home, but many are still in country. We are finding as many ways as possible to support in-country work on the economic and the healthcare sides, to make sure that those countries do not fall over and that the work that has painstakingly been built up to help them to develop in strength and self-sufficiency does not go backward.