Official Development Assistance and the British Council

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Indeed. My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. I gave just one example, but actually we have to look at aid funding holistically, and look at the linkages between areas and the impact of cuts in one area on another area. There is no evidence, I am afraid, from what I have seen from the Government, that that is what they have done. It does appear that they have just cut in silos. We see, for example, that the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery has an 80% cut in its funding and there is a 25% cut in funding for girls’ education, but these are linked. I urge the Government to look at those links.

I want to note that, in their response to the fourth special report of the Select Committee, in late September —28 September—last year, the Government said:

“The Government’s manifesto made clear that we would proudly maintain our commitment to spending 0.7 percent of our national income on development—a commitment enshrined in law and one to which the new Department will honour its responsibilities. The Integrated Review, which will inform the priorities and direction for this new department, will set an ambitious vision for the future of the UK as an active, internationalist, problem-solving and burden-sharing nation. Investing 0.7 percent of Gross National Income…on international development is at the heart of that vision; it shows we are an enterprising, outward-looking and truly global Britain that is fully engaged with the world.”

That was at the end of September 2020, and in November 2020 the funding was cut. Either one hand does not know what the other hand is doing in the Government, or they were just trying to calm everybody into a sense that everything was going to be okay before they actually wielded the knife on this particular issue.

The second point I want to make is about the impact on the UK’s presence on the world stage of the decisions that have been taken. This relates not just to ODA spending, but to the spending of the FCDO in general. I note that the Select Committee, in response to the decision to merge DFID into the FCO, said that it had

“significant concerns that the merger may jeopardise the ongoing effectiveness of future UK aid spending… In the long run, the creation of the new Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office could reduce the UK’s clout on the world stage.”

I fear that it is reducing the UK’s clout on the world stage, and this cut in overseas aid is but one example of that, although we focus, as we have in previous debates on this issue, on the very real impact on the ground of the money being cut from different programmes. The health programme has been mentioned by the Select Committee Chairman, the hon. Member for Rotherham, but there are others, including the cut in funding to starving people in Yemen, for example, and all of these are having a real impact on the ground.

The FCDO also needs to look very carefully at the DFID expertise that is now within the FCDO. As it looks across its estimates and at how it is spending its money in the Department, it needs to make very certain that it does not lose that expertise. There have been times in the past when people have rightly questioned the way in which our aid money has been spent, but I have to say that that has changed in recent years, largely due to and initiated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield when he was the International Development Secretary. We spend our aid differently, and we have developed—and successive International Development Secretaries did this too—real expertise. We are now hitting the needy across the world with a double whammy because they are losing our funding and they are losing our expertise as well.

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend realise that the position is far worse than was set out when the so-called merger took place? What has happened is that DFID has been completely dismantled. Even in the days of her predecessor, Lady Thatcher, there was an overseas development administration within the Foreign Office, which was a sort-of department for development with a Minister of State in charge of it. There is nothing like that today. The whole thing has been completely smashed to pieces, as she is saying in her speech.

[Mrs May]

I thank my right hon. Friend for clarifying that point so well. If we are going to continue to be respected as a country that leads on overseas aid, it is absolutely imperative that we not only spend the money, but that we also have the expertise to ensure that it is being spent properly. Hosting receptions in the British embassy, and getting to know local businessmen and politicians, is a different skillset to knowing how to deliver aid on the ground logistically, so that British taxpayers’ money is spent in the most effective way.

Maintaining that expertise is particularly important if the Government are to be believed, as we hope they are, when they say that they are going to restore the 0.7%. When a programme is cut, we cannot just say, “Well, you are not having that money this year, but next year you are going to have it.” People will no longer be employed to give the aid on the ground. We need the expertise to be able to build the programmes up. We are looking at a perfect storm, where not only has the money gone away but, when the time comes—I hope it will be next year that the Government restore 0.7%—we will find that the people are not in the Department to ensure that that is being done, and being done effectively.

I say to the Minister that I sincerely hope that we can restore the respect that we have had around the world, through our funding and our expertise, restore the 0.7%, look holistically at the aid spending and not lose DFID expertise. If we do that, we might be able to return, as was said in the Government response to the fourth special report, to being

“an enterprising, outward-looking and truly global Britain that is fully engaged with the world.”

Sadly, at the moment, the message is rather different.

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[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee and, indeed, the International Development Committee, which is so ably led by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion). It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali), who shadowed me for a period of time when I had responsibility for some of these matters. I want to underline what has already been said about our respect for and gratitude to humanitarian workers and others around the world who put themselves in harm’s way for their fellow members of humanity and also, of course, to our brilliant diplomats, who are the subject of these estimates debates.

The Prime Minister, when responding to me last week, mentioned the possibility of a vote on these estimates. Languidly, that ball was tossed to him by the Leader of the House, but it is worth making clear, not least for those outside this place, that there was never any question of having a vote on the estimates. The Leader of the House was merely teasing the House by suggesting that, because he knows perfectly well that it is neither sensible nor serious to vote in that way. I believe he sleeps with “Erskine May” on his nightstand, and he knows that very well. The estimates have never been rejected by this place. They can either be reduced or rejected, but they cannot be increased. Of course, many of us want to see them increased so that we honour our commitment to 0.7%. If we had accepted my right hon. Friend’s invitation on the estimates, and if we had rejected them, the Foreign Office would have needed to send out redundancy notices on Monday in order to meet its legal obligations, like Liverpool in the days of Derek Hatton and the loony left. And they think that we who stand up for the 0.7% are the irresponsible Members of this House!

Let us be absolutely clear on the estimates. To oppose them would have given my right hon. Friend the Chief Whip all his Christmases in one go. No responsible Opposition would support such a thing. What we seek from this Government, who are rebelling against their own promises and manifesto, is a meaningful vote, not a show of force or something that the Government can ignore, and we do this in accordance with Mr Speaker’s specific instructions to the Government at 3.30 on 14 June, just a couple of weeks ago.

Why do we care so much about this issue? I would like to make just three points, because the House has probably heard enough from me on much of it. These cuts are hurting our reputation and threatening our foreign policy ambitions. My right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), who spoke so eloquently today, made the 0.7% her first commitment in the 2017 election, because she understood the importance of standing by the 0.7% in reinforcing our values and our promises. Much worse, these unprecedented cuts in the heart of a pandemic are damaging hundreds of thousands of people’s lives and leading to many avoidable deaths.

There are three examples that I want to mention quickly. The first is education for girls, which the Prime Minister has spoken about so eloquently, and on which British policy has been driven passionately and effectively by my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin). However, we are cutting that investment by 40%, meaning that 700,000 fewer girls will get into education, and we are also cutting by 60% our grant to UNICEF, the agency that is the very engine of getting girls into school. In 2010, the British Government doubled their UNICEF grant. A third of all girls in secondary schools in Africa drop out because they become pregnant, yet we are cutting by 85% our funding of the work of the United Nations family planning agency across the world. That is not, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead indicated, joined-up government.

[Anna McMorrin]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is often women and girls across the world who face the brunt of climate change in their own communities, and that the cutting back of aid within those countries and communities is not only having a devastating effect over there but, given the interconnected nature of climate change, is impacting on us here? In the year of COP, five months away from it, surely we should expect better from this Government.

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Lady makes an extremely good point. We cannot understand international development unless we see it through the eyes of girls and women.

My second point, which has already been mentioned, is on the 90% cut in funding for work on neglected tropical diseases. That funding is a huge British taxpayer investment. It is also one of the best investments we can make in global health. The Prime Minister, in a superb video earlier this year, promised strongly to support that work, yet it has now been cut by 90%. That means that 74 million schoolchildren will not receive drugs to prevent parasitic worms. It means that huge numbers will be maimed, blinded, debilitated, disabled and killed. The UK was a world leader in this extraordinarily important area, stimulating public and private sector partnerships. As a result of this cut, hundreds of millions of drugs, vaccines and tablets will be wasted and probably burned.

My third point has been very well made by my hon. Friends the Members for Somerton and Frome (David Warburton) and for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron). It is about the work of the British Council, the Voluntary Service Overseas and the International Citizen Service, which I had the privilege of setting up some 10 years ago. There is no clarity about the future funding of the International Citizen Service, which has sent thousands and thousands of youngsters overseas, many of them not from well-off families but from families that were on free school meals. They have been brilliant ambassadors for our country as well as doing such a good job in international development. The British Council, which I know my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay is going to talk about, is now far more self-sufficient in raising its own money and giving the taxpayer a better deal than ever before, and to let it down in this way is really quite wrong. Is it any wonder that my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead rather movingly made the 0.7% her first pledge in 2017 general election?

I want to draw the House’s attention to the words of the deputy Foreign Secretary—the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa, my right hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (James Cleverly)—who, as little time ago as 9 July last year, said this from the Dispatch Box:

“The Government remain completely committed to the 0.7% of GNI to ODA. That has been called into question a number of times, so I will repeat myself, despite the fact that my time is short: the Government are completely committed to the 0.7% target…That commitment is embedded in law, but we do not spend 0.7% because it is embedded in law—we spend 0.7% because it is the right thing to do.”—[Official Report, 9 July 2020; Vol. 678, c. 1198-1200.]

I end on two points. First, when are the Government going to abide by Mr Speaker’s instruction to the House at 3.30 pm on 14 June to bring forward a meaningful vote? Secondly, post-Brexit, with the emphasis on returning powers to this Parliament, we stand here today on an issue where we all promised—all 650 of us—to stand by the 0.7%. It is an issue on which the Government gave undertakings on the floor of the United Nations General Assembly; that is enshrined in law, with the most senior lawyers in the country warning that the Government have changed the 0.7% and not missed the target; and on which the Government have avoided a vote on the Floor of this House because they know they will lose it. If that is the case, what is the point of the good people of the royal town of Sutton Coldfield sending me here? What has become of the pride we all feel in being Members of this place? If we cannot secure a vote on an issue of life and death, do we not need to look afresh at the balance of power between the Executive—the Government—and the legislature of this House of Commons, in order that we do have powers to vote on something that is so important and to which so many of us have been, for years, so committed?

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[David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)]

It is a first for me to follow an Alba member in this Parliament. The hon. Member for East Lothian (Kenny MacAskill) may have changed parties, but he has not changed his passionate delivery, and I thank him for that contribution. I thank, too, the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), the Chair of the International Development Committee, for her part in bringing forward today’s important debate, although, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) made clear in her very forceful speech, it will not lead to a vote on the restoration of the 0.7%. I have made it very clear that I want to see that restoration.

It is vital that our aid budget, whatever it is, is spent efficiently and with maximum impact. That is why I find it inconceivable that the rumoured cut of 80% to the nutrition budget can be true. I say “rumoured” because of the difficulty in establishing the facts, as others have already set out.

As chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on nutrition for growth, I have no doubt that the commitments to nutrition to date have achieved a great deal. Nutrition is like rocket fuel for our aid budget. Our interventions in health, education and emergency humanitarian response are all the more impactful when coupled with long-term interventions that improve nutrition. That is because children can develop healthy and robust immune systems only if they get the right nutrition. A strong immune system is the first line of defence against illness. It is essential for a healthy and productive life.

According to the World Health Organisation, 45% of all deaths among the under-fives are linked to malnutrition and, heartbreakingly, as a result of covid-19’s disruption to food systems, an estimated further 433 children are expected to die of malnutrition every single day. Malnutrition not only costs lives; it drives absence from school and reduces concentration, thereby preventing children from learning and reaching their full potential as adults, which perpetuates a cycle of poverty. As well as the impact this has on individuals, malnutrition prevents economic growth and, as a result, puts our own aid budget under even further strain. All of what this Government say they hope to achieve through the aid budget and the seven principles—be it girls’ education, women’s health or economic development—is enabled and enhanced through nutrition.

I recently chaired an APPG meeting with the aid watchdog, ICAI—the Independent Commission for Aid Impact. It reviewed the FCDO’s nutrition work and gave it a green/amber rating. Green ratings are very rare, but it said that the rating was more green than amber. That is because this work represents fantastic value for money, with every £1 invested yielding, on average, a £16 return. Our failure to sufficiently support nutrition comes at a cost of some $3.5 trillion, with some countries losing 11% of GDP each year to otherwise avoidable healthcare costs and reduced workforce productivity. As well as having exceeded its target of reaching 50 million people with nutrition interventions, the FCDO has a strong track record of reaching the most vulnerable people and delivering high-impact interventions based on evidence and science. I do not want to see that success thrown away.

In addition, ICAI praised the FCDO for raising global ambition for improving nutrition. By hosting the nutrition for growth summit in 2013, which mobilised over £17 billion for nutrition, and stepping up as a major donor to nutrition ourselves in the years since, the UK has developed unrivalled convening power and is able to catalyse funds for nutrition from other donors and domestic Governments. We must build on that influence, not take actions that diminish it.

[Mr Mitchell]

My right hon. Friend talks about the convening power of the British Government, and he is absolutely right, but does he also think that by breaking our promise, and being the only one of the G7 to do so, we will fundamentally cut away and undermine that convening power?

[David Mundell]

I agree with my right hon. Friend. He has referenced the cuts; it is important that the actions that we take build on our influence and do not diminish it. His point is well made.

I believe that the FCDO’s work to date on nutrition represents global Britain at its best, and that is what I want to see continue. I want the Government’s excellent track record on nutrition to be maintained and therefore, to me, as I have said, it would be inconceivable that the budget could be facing a cut of roughly 80%.

When the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge), winds up the debate, will he confirm that the Government are not going ahead with the rumoured cuts of that level to the budget, for the reasons that I have set out? I also want confirmation that the Government will attend the nutrition for growth summit, hosted by the Japanese Government in Tokyo at the end of 2021. The summit comes at a critical time, midway through the United Nations decade of action on nutrition, but with only five years left to achieve the World Health Assembly targets on maternal, infant and young child nutrition, and 10 years to reach the strategic development goals. Finally, will he assure the House that whoever represents the Government can make a generous pledge at that event, and in so doing, demonstrate to the world that Britain really is a force for good and takes its international obligations seriously?

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[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

I should like to begin by saying that although I may disagree with my hon. Friends the Members for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford) and for Dudley North (Marco Longhi), it is welcome to see a debate taking place in this Chamber. This is a small step forward to returning to normal, when we can look beyond these pandemic measures and have proper, right and rigorous discussion about how we can reform and improve things in this country and across the world. As we have a bit of time, I thought I could start with a bit of rebuttal. I listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley talk about how we should focus our spending in the Commonwealth, but I respectfully say to him that aid goes where it is most needed. If he wants to have value for money, it cannot be directed specifically to a cultural, historical, political trading organisation. That is why we must make sure we have an aid programme that delivers for the people, be it in Syria or any Commonwealth country.

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend is already making a brilliant speech. Does he agree that vast amounts of our humanitarian support and development aid do go to Commonwealth countries, because British aid goes above all to the places where we have a historical connection?

[Anthony Mangnall]

I totally agree. The point I am trying to make is that although we should use aid to support the Commonwealth and to enhance our ties, allowing them to see it directed as something that benefits because of our history, it is also an opportunity for us to look beyond that.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), as it is always a pleasure to follow her in her debates and to listen to her speak on a host of different issues. We have heard a number of hugely impressive speeches, including from my right hon. Friends the Members for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) and for Maidenhead (Mrs May), and the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), to mention just a few. They have all stood up and spoken about the value of international aid from this country to others and what it does to motivate, save and assist. The point was made at the beginning that the International Development Committee has not been given the true and accurate figures it deserves. I stood up and spoke on retaining that Committee, as I believe it has a value in scrutinising our foreign aid budgets and it must be secured. If it is not getting the correct information, I hope we might hear more about this, because it is essential that the Committee is given the tools to do its job.

The problem with estimates debates is that they take away from the reality of what we are actually talking about. We are standing in this Chamber talking about the vaccinations donated, the school books gifted, the sexual violence perpetrators brought to justice, the deradicalisation of terrorist organisations, all of which happens through our aid budget—it all happens through that 0.7% budget. So to talk about estimates takes away from the reality of the extraordinary work that we do across the country. Members may disagree with that and suggest that their constituents are not supportive of it, but when we stop polling and start asking them about international security, women’s education, vaccinations and justice for those who have committed rape in conflict zones across the world, we get a very different answer from that given in the polls that are put out.

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[Lee Rowley]

On the hon. Lady’s second point, I hope she will accept that different polls are saying different things. I may just leave that one there. On her first point, I absolutely accept that I stood on a manifesto commitment. There is a broad philosophical discussion to be had with every Member of Parliament within and without this building about the manifestos that they stood on, some of which have been discarded more extensively by other Members on other Benches than the particular principle that we are talking about now, on a temporary basis. As politicians, we always seek to agree to the manifesto on which we have the greatest consensus and with which we have the greatest affinity, but that does not mean that we cannot accept challenges to it or that changes will not be appropriate or necessary in extraordinary circumstances.

My concern—I say this gently and with caution—is that this place is becoming fixated on a single number, and while the consensus may be in place here, I hope that even if people disagree with it they will accept that that is not the case outside these walls. It is the duty of any Government to make decisions on spending based not simply on the transient allure of consensus from this usually fractured body, but also with regard to the much less exuberant considerations of our national finances, or perhaps even to the views of those who put us in this place. That is before we even reference the millions of people who have never, ever been reconciled to a single arbitrary figure.

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend is making an interesting speech. I am not absolutely certain that he absorbed all the lessons from our visit to Rwanda, on which I remember that he was a tremendous colleague to have along. We are not delegates here; we are representatives. Our constituents send us here on the fine Burkean principle of exercising our judgment. When my hon. Friend says that the whole House seems to agree on this point, he is right: very large numbers of people in the House agree about it and the Government would not win a vote, I assert. Will he join me, at the very least, in saying that the House should have an opportunity to vote on this important matter, on which he and I both stood in the general election?

[Lee Rowley]

My right hon. Friend raises an important point, which I know he has pursued relentlessly; I am sure that he will continue to do so beyond the confines of my very limited contribution to today’s debate. I am sure that he can take the point up with a representative of the Executive, and I hope that he is successful in his course.

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[Sir Edward Leigh]

That is precisely the point that I wanted to make.

By the way, I am proud of the work that we did on the Public Accounts Committee to get an estimates day debate that actually discusses estimates. In the past, before our successful campaign, the one thing we were not allowed to discuss was estimates. Indeed when one of my colleagues, the then MP for Southport, stood up and tried to discuss estimates he was ruled out of order by your predecessor, Mr Deputy Speaker. So we are talking today about money, and this is precisely the point I want to come to.

I am No. 39 on the call list. I could devote my entire speech to the humanitarian arguments, but I have listened to previous speeches and I associate myself with them entirely. I just cannot for a moment understand why we are cutting aid to Yemen by 50%. The scenes there were appalling. The Chancellor very kindly paid me in the summer to go to Doddington Hall and have a very nice meal with my family under Eat Out to Help Out. Was that money well spent? Then I look at what is happening in Yemen, where some poor boy goes out and his leg is blown off, or the father goes out and he is never seen again. This is dire poverty, war, deprivation. Leaving aside whether this problem washes up on our shores or not, do we not have a duty to these people?

I so well remember talking to a woman in northern Iraq. That very thing had happened to her—one day her husband had gone out and he was never seen again. So of course we have very serious problems in Lincolnshire, but not compared to what is happening in Yemen. We just cannot turn our back; we cannot walk down the other side of the road.

[Mr Mitchell]

My right hon. Friend mentioned his constituency, where he has been and is much loved for many, many years, and he says that he thinks that his advocacy may or may not convince his constituents. I have to tell him that he is the last Thatcherite—or possibly one of two—left in this House, a point that the House will award him, and I have to tell him that what he says in his constituency on this matter, and what he says to Ministers on this matter, is having a very significant effect.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

My right hon. Friend is very kind. I suppose being the last Thatcherite is better than being the last Majorite.

Actually, funnily enough, according to the latest opinion polls, opinion is changing, because people are waking up to the fact that in the middle of a global pandemic it is probably not a very good time to cut aid—all these problems are now coming back to bite us.

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[Mr Ellwood]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and indeed I would go further and say that not only is that what we do, but it is required.

I come to this debate today to add a defence and security perspective. Hard power and soft power cannot be seen in isolation; they are two sides of the same coin. If our failure in Afghanistan, where we are now essentially giving up and going home, should teach us anything, it is that we cannot build and maintain peace by military means alone.

[Mr Mitchell]

My right hon. Friend is making a brilliant speech on the link between defence and development. In the case of Yemen, we have a very complicated relationship, because of course we are part of the coalition that is bombing that country back to the stone age, but we are also trying to help those caught up in the conflict. Does he not think that the one thing we ought to be able to agree on is that we should not, at this stage, be taking food from starving people there?

[Mr Ellwood]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I congratulate him on the work that he is doing. There is a great example of where British leadership can be seen on the international stage. Yemen requires leadership. We have been there for some time and have not utilised our relationship with the Saudis to prevent them from doing what they have been doing. We could have better harnessed our friendships and capabilities in order to bring a conclusion to that particular challenge.

I worked as a Minister in both the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as it then was—I was Minister for the Middle East and North Africa—and the Ministry of Defence, and I can confirm how siloed our Whitehall Departments still are. I concede that things are definitely getting better, but if global Britain is to have meaning, exhibiting increased resolve to play a role on the international stage, it will require greater cohesion between our internationalist-facing Departments, which even today remain too siloed.

I would go further than the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee and introduce the role of a Deputy Prime Minister, with the arc of responsibility to co-ordinate the MOD, DFID, FCO and trade initiatives, so that we can develop grand strategies to tackle some of the global hotspots that we are engaged in. We do need to expand our Whitehall bandwidth.