International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Debate between Adam Holloway and Kerry McCarthy

Friday 12th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I am delighted that the Bill has been introduced by the right hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Michael Moore), and I am pleased to follow the former Secretary of State for International Development, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell).

During my nine and a bit years in the House, I have had the huge privilege of visiting overseas projects to see at first hand the excellent work done by DFID, along with NGOs such as Results UK, Oxfam, World Vision, Farm Africa and so on. The visits have ranged from looking at health projects in Malawi, where they are tackling TB and HIV through vaccination programmes and advice on family planning, to going to the camps for internally displaced people in northern Uganda, which was the first time I had been overseas as an MP—I was with the right hon. Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce), who I hope will speak in a moment—and sparked in me a realisation that we can do so much for people. Those in the camps, who had been displaced from their homes for the best part of two decades, were living on one meal and their clothes were charity handouts from the UK, but we could see the work that DFID was doing. Since then, I have had the privilege of seeing many other projects on the ground.

Today I will focus on an issue that was touched on briefly by the right hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk—that of climate change and the need for overseas development assistance to be directed towards the countries that are most at risk to help with adaptation and mitigation. As the shadow Secretary of State for International Development said on another occasion:

“The climate is the central development issue of the next century. If we fail to tackle the changes in our environment, all the gains we make elsewhere—from health and poverty to food and sanitation—will be reversed.”

I have just returned from three days in El Salvador with my hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker), the shadow Minister for International Development, and Christian Aid. That country is the fourth most at risk from climate change. El Salvador is not currently in receipt of DFID funding, but much of what I have to say is relevant to countries that are.

[Mr Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

As a former trustee of Christian Aid and television foreign correspondent, I agree that we must support the poorest people in the world, but does the hon. Lady not agree that it is completely crazy for a deeply indebted nation to ring-fence any spending, especially when we are failing in our first duty by cutting defence spending?

[Kerry McCarthy]

No, I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. That point has been more than adequately answered by other Members in this debate.

As I said, El Salvador is not in receipt of DFID funding, but some countries that do receive it are also at risk from climate change. In Kashmir, 460 people have died in monsoon floods and 1 million people have been displaced from their homes. Countries such as Bangladesh, the Philippines, Malawi, Kenya and many small island states are also extremely vulnerable. Of the £12 billion the UK spends on ODA each year, about £500 million is officially classified as climate finance. I will make the case for continuing to fund those projects and, indeed, for strengthening them.

Changing weather patterns and extreme climatic events have left El Salvador suffering both droughts and flooding. We saw on our visit how this year’s maize harvest has suffered because of the drought. As most of the farming is subsistence farming, people are going hungry as a result. There is a growing food security crisis in El Salvador and a food aid programme has been rolled out across parts of the country.

We also saw efforts to combat flooding by building levees, replanting mangroves and undertaking reforestation programmes. As in the UK, changes in agricultural land use, deforestation, and soil erosion and degradation have exacerbated the impact of the floods and increased the likelihood of landslides.