Official Development Assistance

Alyn Smith Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I thank my hon. Friend the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee. He is absolutely right, and he said it at the outset: we make this decision with regret. I do not want to be in a position of having to change any of the ODA spend. I know how valuable it can be and, notwithstanding our absolute commitment to strategically focus it on the places and people who need it the most and the areas of maximum UK interest, of course this is something we do with regret. We do it as a matter of necessity, given the economic situation we face, and it will be temporary, in that we will revert to 0.7% as soon as the fiscal position allows.

My hon. Friend asked a range of questions about whether we could reconfigure money. We are not going to unilaterally pull out of the DAC rules, but he makes a good case for reform of the DAC rules. For example, some of the military spend, particularly on peace keeping and other things, is not counted. Clearly, it is not just good for military security in the countries where it is focused but an important element of soft power, and it is something we should do. However, I think that the right thing to do is to work on that reform from within DAC, rather than pulling out unilaterally, and that will take some time to do, but I take on board his comments.

My hon. Friend asked how we will make sure we get back to the target, and I am very happy to keep talking to him about that. The No. 1 thing in my view, and I would gently suggest this to him, is that we are still spending £10 billion next year on ODA. When I think of what he said about his constituents and how they will feel about the latest measures—we all are challenged by this—I think that they will think that we are making difficult decisions, but the right ones and the justifiable ones, in the very exacting situation in which we find ourselves.

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

To govern is to choose. As one Government to another—of course, the SNP has been in government since 2007—we understand that it is difficult. We are in unprecedented times; there are tough choices; and a lot of people are afraid and feeling very vulnerable. However, there will always be domestic pressure on the aid budget, and the UK Government have made a choice—an active choice—of deep consequence.

The fact is that this is not what was promised. This is not what was promised to the people of Scotland in 2014. This is not what was promised in the Conservative manifesto 11 months ago. The Foreign Secretary talks about scrutiny of spend, and I absolutely agree, but my inbox—I dare say colleagues feel the same—is unanimous this morning against this move. It is fair to say that in Scotland we have a disproportionate interest in international development, because of the history we have with our churches, our non-governmental organisations, our trade unions and our universities. Civic Scotland is keen on international development, and DFID—now merged, of course, into the FCDO—is based in East Kilbride. This is a betrayal: not just a betrayal of those promises, but a betrayal of some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world, who are also facing covid, the economic consequences and climate change, and they are going to be left by this in a dreadful situation.

When I say it is a betrayal, I would actually exempt the Foreign Secretary from that. I do not think that this is coming from him. I do not think that he has stopped it, but I do not think it is actually coming from him. I think that it is coming from the people around him and behind him. They are the people in the shadows, with their phoney think-tanks and their blogs. They are the people who proudly denigrate international aid because it is against their project and the people who want to link international aid to trade policy in the most grubby way possible. They are the people who get excited about a red, white and blue flag on a tail fin, and the people who think that what we need right now to buoy our spirits is a new royal yacht. They are the people who want to spend, as the Government have committed to doing, £120 million on a festival of Brexit—ye Gods!

We have today a moment of real clarity and divergence—that Scotland and the UK are two different places with two different ambitions on two different paths. It is a matter of fact that the cynics were right. After the UK’s politicisation of aid by merging DFID into the FCDO, there has been a crippling raid on its budget. DFID in East Kilbride is a deeply sad place this morning. Scotland independent—because of our interests, our history, our capacity and our ambition—will put international development at its heart. We will be committed to 0.7%, and it is clearer than ever today to the people of Scotland that the best way to achieve that aid policy, to be that global citizen, is independence.

[Dominic Raab]

First, may I say in relation to East Kilbride, and notwithstanding the pressures we face, we will be expanding the UK Government Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in East Kilbride because we know the great work that it does and because we are stronger on the international stage when we are united?

The hon. Gentleman said that this decision was not what was promised in 2014 or at the last election. I hesitate to remind him that that was before the pandemic and the coronavirus, and before we were faced with—[Interruption.] Well, he is quite right to say that there are always domestic pressures and competing priorities in relation to the public finances, but we are not under any normal set of circumstances. We have got the worst economic contraction in over 300 years. We have a deficit double the size that we faced after the last financial crash, and we are having to make very difficult decisions. If he thinks we have made the wrong decision, I would like to hear from the SNP—a rhetorical, not an actual question—what he thinks should be cut in the investments the Chancellor announced yesterday in order to hit 0.7%.

The hon. Gentleman referred—in what I thought was actually pretty unsavoury language—to a crippling raid on ODA. We will spend £10 billion next year. His inbox may be different from mine, but I think our constituents will understand, because they live in the real world, that we have to make difficult decisions. This is still an extraordinary contribution that the taxpayers of this country will make to alleviate suffering and poverty around the world.