Future of DFID

Debate between Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi and Lloyd Russell-Moyle

Wednesday 27th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mr Dhesi]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Indeed, he may be telepathic, because I was just about to mention that, but I concur fully with his view.

The Pergau dam affair was declared unlawful in a landmark court case in 1994. More recently, as my hon. Friend says, fears have been raised that our aid budget has not focused solely on poverty reduction. An article in The Guardian revealed that charities such as Oxfam, Save the Children and ActionAid were deeply concerned that some of the funds were used by

“classing politically convenient projects as aid,”

rather than exclusively helping the most vulnerable. We must of course contribute vital overseas aid owing to our obligations as one the wealthiest nations in the world. I am sure that the Minister will offer warm and emollient words. She will no doubt tell us of the commitment to DFID as a Department and that the 0.7% target remains in place.

At this point, it is pertinent to pay tribute to both the former Liberal Democrat MP Michael Moore, for introducing a private Member’s Bill to enshrine the 0.7% target in law, and the then Government for allowing it to become law. We should welcome the commitment in the 2017 Conservative manifesto to maintaining that 0.7% commitment, which I am sure the Minister will mention in her speech.

Why exactly should we be concerned about DFID’s future? The tectonic plates of politics have shifted in recent months and the voices that considered overseas aid a waste of money have become louder and more mainstream within the governing party—the critics are moving from the fringe to centre stage. The former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), seemed more aligned with the TaxPayers Alliance than with the global anti-poverty movement. She resigned after running errands for the FCO in Israel rather than running her own Department.

The previous Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), called the establishment of DFID in 1997 a “colossal mistake”.

This month, he endorsed a report by the Henry Jackson Society that calls for a dilution of DFID’s role in alleviating poverty, with a diversion towards broader international policies such as peacekeeping. He told the BBC’s “Today” programme:

“We could make sure that 0.7 % is spent more in line with Britain’s political commercial and diplomatic interests.”

Commercial interests? What could he possibly mean by that?

My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) has made it clear that he believes this is the opening act in a move to downgrade DFID and to slash overseas aid. It is hard to disagree that that is the Secretary of State’s secret agenda.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

On that “Today” programme, it was telling that no Minister was put up to defend the Department or to shoot down such ideas. To me, that suggests complicity with the idea itself.

[Mr Dhesi]

That is precisely why I and others of like mind applied for and secured this debate. We are concerned about the lack of leadership in the Government, or of Government members saying “We do not agree with that.” I will elaborate on that shortly.

We are rightly concerned that UK aid and the Department with the primary responsibility for spending it are under threat, or will be diverted from the alleviation of poverty and into being linked to trade. Today, will the Minister go beyond the same old stock phrases committing the Government to the continued existence of DFID and the 0.7% target, and instead give us some cast-iron guarantees?

First, will the Minister distance herself absolutely from the comments made by the former Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, about the future of DFID? Secondly, will she guarantee that any review of DFID’s departmental policy post Brexit will in no way undermine, downgrade, obfuscate or dilute the commitments enshrined in the International Development Act 2002 and the International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Act 2015? Thirdly, will she guarantee that her party will enter the next election with a manifesto commitment to maintain, as a minimum, the existing levels of expenditure on overseas aid, with the aim of eradicating poverty and tackling gender inequality? The Minister has an open goal; will she settle the issue once and for all?

Finally, I am sure that we all stand united in our gratitude to the staff of DFID, whether they are freezing in the mountains of Tajikistan or sweltering in the heat of Mozambique, or are in the offices at Abercrombie House or just up the road at 22 Whitehall. We offer them our thanks—they are truly the best of British.

HIV and World AIDS Day

Debate between Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi and Lloyd Russell-Moyle

Thursday 29th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

On 1 December 1988, we observed the first World AIDS Day. It was created as an international day to raise awareness of the AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of HIV and to mourn those who had died from the disease. In two days’ time, we mark its 30th anniversary, and this event gives us pause to reflect on how far we have come and to remember those we have lost.

Such events are also deeply personal to me, because next year I will be marking an anniversary of my own —10 years since I became HIV-positive. It has been a long journey from the fear of acceptance to today and, hopefully, advocacy, knowing that my treatment keeps me healthy and protects any partner that I may have.

When you are first diagnosed, you get that call from the clinic and they just say, “You need to come in.” They do not tell you the details, and you know immediately that something is wrong. All the different worst-case scenarios flash through your mind, and of course, being a sexually active young man, HIV is one of them. Going in, you kind of know that something is wrong and it might well be serious, but at the same time you are working out all the ways that this is just some joke, some technical error, some tiny thing they are going to tell you that you will be laughing about later. You try to imagine the ways you are going to get out of this, and then in that NHS room, with those cream carpets and the plastic seating we all know, they tell you, and it hits you like a wall. Although you have prepared yourself for it in your mind, nothing quite prepares you for when they say those words. I remember looking up at that ceiling—those false ceilings you get—and wishing that one of the tiles would rip away and it would suck me up, and that I would wake up and it would all be a dream and all be over.

But, of course, the reality is that that is not what happens. Instead, you walk out of that room and, even with all the greatest support and advice that they offer, you feel totally numb. You have a million things running through your mind and, at the same time, a sense of absolute nothingness.

I have decided to make this announcement and speech today, because earlier this year I was at an awards ceremony in Brighton. I had nominated Gary Pargeter, who for a number of years has been running a local club for people living with HIV called Lunch Positive. He had won the award and people were coming up to talk about how important the project was and how brave he had been to talk about his HIV status, and I felt like, “I am watching someone who has done inspiring work, and I am proud to have nominated him, but I have not told anyone else in this room that I am HIV positive, too.” Just like so many who attend Lunch Positive, I am lucky because the medication means I will not get sick and I cannot transmit HIV. I felt that if Gary and so many others can talk openly about it, then so should I.

The second reason I wanted to have this debate today is because we are genuinely on the cusp of eradicating new HIV transmissions in this country. Figures today show that we are already, in parts of this country, halting the rates of HIV diagnosis, but we are at a fork in the road and I worry that we might be starting to head in the wrong direction, with £700 million of cuts to public health having been made between 2014 and 2017. We are not investing in the universal roll-out of PrEP—Pre-exposure prophylaxis—the pill that prevents HIV. So it is important for me politically to speak out.

Finally, I wanted to be able to stand here in this place and say to those who are living with HIV that their status does not define them and we can be whoever we want to be, and to say to those who have not been tested, perhaps out of fear, that it is better to live in knowledge than to die in fear. HIV in this country is no longer the death sentence it once was. A recent study led by the University of Bristol found that due to the advances in HIV treatment, people living with HIV can expect to live a near normal life. The improvement in survival rates for people with HIV is one of the greatest success stories of recent times. What was once considered a terminal disease is now seen as a manageable condition. Yet this information has not changed the narrative, which is still, sadly, framed in those scare campaigns of the tombstones of the 1980s. So much of LGBT culture also is marked by this spectre of HIV, which has led to an incredible sense of fear about the disease.

In that hospital room, and in the days and weeks that followed, I had to come to terms with that fear myself. I am a HIV-positive man, but because I have been taking the right medication for several years I am what the NHS calls “HIV-positive undetectable”. That means not only can HIV not be detected in my system and so I do not get sick, but I cannot transmit HIV to someone else. As the virus lie undetectable and dormant in my body, my medication ensures that the virus does not reactivate, does not progress and cannot be passed on. That is why the NHS says “undetectable equals untransmittable”. UNAIDS highlights three large studies conducted between 2007 and 2016 of HIV transmissions among thousands of couples where one partner was positive and the other was negative. In those studies there was not a single case of sexual transmission of HIV from a positive undetectable person to a HIV-negative partner. It is safer to have sex with someone who is HIV-positive undetectable than with someone who does not know their status, because undetectable equals untransmittable.

Understanding that I was unable to transmit HIV sexually has been life-changing, too. I went from thinking that I would never have a HIV-negative partner, or that if I had sex with someone, I could pass this on, to knowing that I can live a normal life and that any partner I have is totally protected. I cannot transmit HIV to my sexual partner, I have a perfectly healthy life, so my announcement here today should go totally unnoticed—

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is being immensely courageous in what he is doing today. I, for one, am sure that his bravery will reduce the stigma and the fear of so many living in our country and beyond.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I thank my hon. Friend for that. He is right to say that my name will help those people, and it might appear in tomorrow’s newspapers as a result of my being the first MP to declare themselves HIV-positive in this Chamber and the second, after only Chris Smith, to openly live with HIV as an MP.

Erasmus Plus Programme

Debate between Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi and Lloyd Russell-Moyle

Thursday 21st June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I agree it is very likely that the European Union would want our engagement to continue, which is why, to some extent, this is an easy door to push against and walk through. The foreign students coming into the UK are economically an export for us, because they bring foreign money to invest in this country. It might seem strange but higher education is a net export, as it brings cash into this country.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

We would all acknowledge that the Erasmus+ scheme has been of huge benefit to our country. Indeed, over the past 30 years, 600,000 people from the UK have benefited. Erasmus+ is unique in providing additional funding for disadvantaged and disabled students, which is why the Government should fully support the scheme.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I totally agree, and I believe the Government are in favour of the Erasmus+ scheme. We have heard positive sounds from the Government, but we now have to put our money where our mouth is.

Erasmus+ is a valuable resource that contributes a vast amount of scope and depth to the British university and youth sectors. My former colleagues and I spent three years in and out of Brussels negotiating the current scheme, which was formed in 2014, and it brought together the Socrates, Erasmus, Leonardo, Grundtvig and Youth in Action programmes—the higher education, technical education, schools exchange and youth work programmes—and sometimes we forget that Erasmus+ incorporates all those different sectors of exchange.