Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
Debate between Alex Ballinger and Nusrat Ghani(3 weeks, 5 days ago)
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Alex Ballinger
Absolutely. I think that those of us who have served would recognise that development and defence are completely complementary. When we reduce our development spending, our defence spending needs to go up.
After leaving the Royal Marines, colleagues and I worked with civil society in Syria, helping to keep hopes of a different, more tolerant country alive during that civil war. Those groups are probably now the best hope for Syria’s civil society and for a more tolerant and stable country.
Aid helps to mitigate the worst impacts of conflict and to prevent further conflict. I am concerned that cutting our development budget so deeply will undermine our ability to stabilise fragile states, reduce the drivers of extremism and stop further conflicts emerging. The implications of that will be felt here in the UK, with a greater chance of spikes in food and energy prices, increased migration and threats from extremist groups. Our military and security services will face those challenges at a time when their attention should be on Ukraine. While I wholly support raising our defence spending, I encourage the Government to look over the next two years at opportunities to avoid such drastic cuts to our aid budget, in particular our investments in conflict zones and on conflict prevention. Each pound we spend on conflict prevention can save £16 in aid to mitigate the destruction caused by conflict.
I welcome the pledge the Prime Minister made for an international fund for Israeli-Palestinian peace last December, and I hope that that remains a priority for the FCDO after the latest announcements. I strongly support the increase in defence spending announced last week, but, as a former marine, I also urge the Government to value the critical role our aid budget plays in delivering vital aid in conflict zones and preventing conflicts altogether.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Due to time constraints, we now come to the Front Benchers. I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Business of the House
Debate between Alex Ballinger and Nusrat Ghani(5 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call Alex Ballinger—your patience has been noted.
Alex Ballinger (Halesowen) (Lab)
I recently met headteachers across my constituency to talk about the challenges they are facing after 14 years of Conservative mismanagement of the education sector. They raised several issues, but in the interests of time I will mention only curriculum reform, which they were particularly interested in. I ask the Leader of the House to schedule a debate in Government time on curriculum reform, so that we can consider the views of teachers in my constituency.