Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Green (Chesham and Amersham) (LD)]

T7.   Earlier this year, the Government cut almost £6 million of funding for a Save the Children programme providing education and other services to girls in Afghanistan, despite a promise to put women and girls at the heart of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s work. Will the Secretary of State work with colleagues at the Department to deliver on the Government’s commitment and reinstate that funding?

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Mr Andrew Mitchell)]

Educating girls is one of the top priorities under the British Government’s international development strategy—indeed, it is the way to change the world. Over the last five years for which figures are available, the British taxpayer procured a decent education for more than 8 million children in the poor world.

The Prime Minister was asked—

Tributes to Her Late Majesty the Queen

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Saturday 10th September 2022 Commons Chamber

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

For all the pomp and tradition, Her late Majesty’s true magic was in her humility. She did not need a gilded throne or royal regalia to touch people; it was in her smile, her poise, her natural charm: understated yet reassuring—the best of Britain.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing me to make this brief tribute on behalf of the royal town of Sutton Coldfield—a royal town now for 494 years and one that, at this sad time, is united with the rest of the country in shared sorrow. The Queen’s visit to the ninth world scout jamboree held in Sutton park in 1957 is still remembered by my older constituents, as she came to join in the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of scouting and had lunch in our magnificent town hall.

I have never visited a primary school where one of the first questions has not been, “Have you met the Queen?” I had the privilege and good fortune to meet the Queen when I was her International Development Secretary. Like millions around the world, I will never forget every second of those meetings. She was intensely interested in the less developed members of the Commonwealth. She was the reason that the Commonwealth not only survived but flourished and grew, reaching out to unexpected parts of the world, with Rwanda enthusiastically joining.

At the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting held in June this year in Rwanda, I watched the binding power of the monarchy, as the King, as he now is, spoke on behalf of Her late Majesty of the ideals and values that she inspired and to which so many nations now aspire. In Kigali, the capital of one of the Commonwealth’s youngest countries, the national flag and the flag of the East African Community are today flying at half-mast and will continue to do so until the Queen’s funeral.

I also remember travelling for many hours in Uganda to the hospital in Masaka run by the 80-year-old sister of the Medical Missionaries of Mary who had recently received an OBE from the Queen for her 50 years of service. In the hospital entrance hung a huge picture of the President of Uganda, Mr Museveni, alongside an equally huge one of Her Majesty the Head of the Commonwealth.

Tomorrow in the royal town of Sutton Coldfield, we will hold a service of remembrance in our town church, Holy Trinity, followed by a reading of today’s proclamation, and we will mourn the loss of our great Queen, who meant so much to us all.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Lady very much for her question, and I can assure her that in a long political career so far—but barely begun—I have of course picked up political opponents all over the place. That is because—[Interruption.] That is because this Government have done some very big and very remarkable things that they did not necessarily approve of. What I want her to know is that absolutely nothing and no one, least of all her, is going to stop us from getting on with delivering for the British people.

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

Q2. The whole House will unite behind the Prime Minister on his determination to hold Ukrainian war criminals to account, but is he aware that there are five alleged Rwandan war crimes perpetrators living freely in the UK, who have been doing so now for 16 years and have neither been extradited nor put before the British courts under our existing laws? As he prepares to go to the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Rwanda, will he look carefully at this issue, because it is bound to be raised with him? Will he reassure the House and the Rwandan Government that he takes these matters extremely seriously, and that what has so far been justice massively delayed for 16 years will not be grotesquely denied?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. He raises an issue on which the UK has campaigned for a long time, and no country is more committed than we are to bringing war criminals to justice. I know that my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has raised the subject recently with the International Criminal Court. However, as he knows—and I will certainly, of course, study the case and take it up appropriately—it is the subject of an ongoing investigation, and it would not be appropriate for me to comment on it further.

Speaker’s Statement

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)]

My husband Henry introduced me to Jack and Harriet when we got together in the ‘70s. We were, as ever, at some conference, Jack was, as ever, preoccupied with fixing some vote, and I was in total awe of Harriet and Jack. Fortunately, I got the seal of approval and we have been friends now for nearly 50 years. Those who knew him well know what a generous, kind, funny, enthusiastic, interested and interesting, loyal, unselfish and consistent friend Jack was.

Jack’s life was filled by his total passion for social justice, his tribal loyalty to the Labour party, his consummate determination to be at the heart of any and every campaign that might help to make the world a better place, and his relentless optimism that he would always win. Jack’s life achievements were so many, his campaigns so eclectic, that it is impossible to capture everything in a short tribute. I want to focus on his work before he became an MP. From the Grunwick strike to fighting to maintain the Rosyth and Plymouth dockyards, from corralling the first ever equal pay strike at Trico to observing the Luanda mercenary trials in Angola, seeking to stop the execution of three British mercenaries, wherever there was injustice, Jack was there. I remember Jack in the ‘70s leading the occupation of Centre Point in London, when London was littered with empty new office buildings while the homeless slept on the streets; in the '80s, when he bravely led the trade unions to oppose Militant in Liverpool; in the ‘90s, when he served on Labour’s national executive committee and worked to modernise the Labour party and make us fit to govern; and in the noughties, when he organised the cleaners’ strike here in Parliament when they were earning as little as £5 an hour.

Finally, two personal memories. In all our fantastic adventurous holidays together, whenever we arrived at a new destination, Jack’s first question was always, “What’s the wi-fi code?” He was not looking for a local restaurant. He was not finding a place for us to have a drink. His first priority was always, “Is everything okay in Erdington?” On new year’s eve, we would always have a sing-song, me playing the piano and everybody else singing. Each year, Jack, with his great singing voice, would give us a solo performance, that harked back to his Irish roots, of “Danny Boy”, with the women joining in to help him with the high note at the end. We always brought in the new year with a bang.

Our grief at his loss is an expression of our love for the man. Jack will continue to live on in all our todays and tomorrows as we take forward the campaigns he worked on and enjoy the successes he achieved. Thank you, Jack, for everything, and for just being you.

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

It is a privilege and an honour to speak today about Jack, who I am proud to call my friend and colleague in this place. He was my parliamentary neighbour, as his constituency inside Birmingham city ran alongside the royal town of Sutton Coldfield, and there were many mutual issues affecting our constituents, on which we worked seamlessly, constructively and enjoyably together.

Jack’s arrival in Birmingham was somewhat unexpected, not least because those of us keenly watching the outcome of the selection contest had been advised that this was an all-women shortlist, but we quickly established a rapport. The thing I learnt early on about Jack was that he was a brilliant negotiator. Faced with a brick wall, his instinct was not to pound his way through it, but to skilfully manoeuvre around it wherever possible. And he was ineffably charming and patient. He had a considerable knack locally of bringing people of different persuasions to common positions. He did it at times of great anxiety in the automotive industry in the west midlands with Caroline Spelman, our former colleague from Meriden, with West Midlands Mayor Andy Street and, most recently, with me working on Afghans coming to Birmingham from Kabul.

All of which leads me, finally, to a story about Jack’s negotiating powers and—forgive me for name dropping, Mr Speaker—about his relationship with the Marquis of Salisbury, a former colleague in this place, Conservative Minister and Member for South Dorset, Robert Cranbourne. When his lordship was a Defence Minister, he held regular meetings with the unions in Whitehall. These meetings sometimes ran for four hours and meaningful results were slow in being achieved, but during particularly drawn-out moments the Marquis, as he is now, would catch the eye of the then senior trade union negotiator, as he then was, Jack Dromey. After one such meeting, his lordship rang up Jack to suggest that it would perhaps be better if they sorted out the business beforehand, possibly over lunch, and, to Robert’s relief, Jack willingly agreed. “Where should we go?” asked Jack, to which the Marquis replied, “I wonder if you might like to come to White’s, my club in St. James’s,” to which Jack replied, “Ah, I’ve always wanted to go there.”

And so affairs of state and the Ministry of Defence were congenially sorted out by these two distinguished public servants. On the first occasion, as various chiselled-featured members of the British establishment walked through the club’s hallowed portals, Jack drank orange juice, but on the final occasion, after a particularly successful negotiation had been concluded, glasses of vintage port were consumed. As he stepped out on to the street, Jack thanked his lordship for his kind hospitality, and as he left said over his shoulder, “By the way, please don’t tell Harriet where we’ve been. And especially do not mention the vintage port!” [Laughter.] For the avoidance of doubt, Mr Speaker, I can of course confirm that this was a workplace event. [Laughter.]

As we remember an adopted son of Birmingham taken from us far, far too soon, let us remember the words of Harry, Jack and Harriet’s son, who with both sadness and pride spoke of the quality, but not alas the quantity, of the years they all had together.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

To the tributes already paid, I add the profound sympathies of both myself and all the Liberal Democrats who sit on these Benches. As a relatively new Member of the Commons, I confess that I did not know Jack that well, but what I did know I really, really liked.

I first met him in a mindfulness meditation class, which he, the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) and I attended with other MPs as we sought to find some calm in the storm of the 2017 to 2019 Parliament. I dare say that it was, at times, hilariously awkward. I remember Jack taking those classes with great humour. He oozed wisdom and kindness, and I think it was that shared experience that meant that, when we caught each other’s eye while passing each other in the Lobby, he would ask how I was, and he really meant it. Since his passing, I have learned that that kind man, whom I liked so much, had a similar effect on pretty much everyone he met. The tributes today are proof of how respected he was across the political spectrum. While a trade union man through and through, he was a pragmatist. He would work with anyone who could deliver his aims and shared his values.

Part of Jack’s appeal and great strength was that he was so obviously driven by his values and by a deep desire to help people. Quite simply, Jack Dromey was one of the good guys. I think it says it all that he worked to the last. In that final debate on Afghanistan, he urged Parliament and the Government to take a more compassionate approach to those in the world who need us the most and said:

“Our country has a proud history of providing a safe haven to those fleeing persecution.”

He also spoke of our country’s most fundamental values

“of decency, honesty and fairness.”—[Official Report, 6 January 2022; Vol. 706, c. 129WH.]

Jack embodied those values.

To the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham, to their children, Harry, Joe and Amy, and to the whole family, there are no words, but I hope that from today’s tributes they can take some comfort in knowing the impact that Jack had and how he affected not just this House but the whole country.

Sue Gray Report

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It’s all right; we do not need to bother. Let us move on. I call Andrew Mitchell.

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

Does my right hon. Friend recall that ever since he joined the party’s candidates list 30 years ago, and until we got him into No. 10, he has enjoyed my full-throated support? But I am deeply concerned by these events, and very concerned indeed by some of the things he has said from that Dispatch Box, and has said to the British public and to our constituents. When he kindly invited me to see him 10 days ago, I told him that I thought he should think very carefully about what was now in the best interests of our country, and of the Conservative party. I have to tell him that he no longer enjoys my support.

[The Prime Minister]

I must respectfully tell my right hon. Friend, great though the admiration is that I have for him, that I simply think he is mistaken in his views, and I urge him to reconsider upon full consideration of the inquiry.

COP26

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman knows very well that, after UK leadership, we secured at COP an end to the international financing of coal around the world. China has done that, leading to a number of other countries immediately following suit, so progress is being made. As I said in my opening statement, the UK is also abandoning exports of hydrocarbons and we are going to be followed in that by other countries.

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

It is clear that the COP in Glasgow has gone better than many of us feared, but, as I am sure my right hon. Friend would agree, there are no possible grounds for complacency. Will he use the remainder of the UK presidency to redouble efforts to share excess vaccine doses with developing countries? Quite apart from making us safer in the UK, it will also bolster internationalism and British international leadership in the meetings ahead envisaged in the Glasgow agreement.

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, indeed; although vaccines per se were not discussed at COP, there was a long discussion at the G20 in Rome, and the UK has a fantastic record of supporting at-cost vaccines around the world—the 1.5 billion AstraZeneca doses, to say nothing of the huge contributions the UK has made to both Gavi and COVAX to ensure that people around the world get vaccinated, because nobody is safe until everybody is safe.

Afghanistan

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Immediately that the crisis broke, I spoke to UN Secretary-General António Guterres about what the UN should be doing and what the UK was going to do to support. As the hon. Member knows, the UN continues to be in-country in Afghanistan and we have doubled our humanitarian support. We will be working with friends and partners at the UN General Assembly and beyond to ensure that we tackle the humanitarian crisis as well.

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

Certainly the last months have seen the shattering of many illusions. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, if we are tonight to help the people of Afghanistan, millions of whom are out in the open and will not be fed, we need to ensure that the whole international community focuses on doing so through the mechanism of the United Nations and probably through the traditional mechanism of a regional contact group, and that Britain—through its experience on these matters, its membership of the UN Security Council and its G7 chairmanship—is now in a pivotal position to help the people I mentioned?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is completely right to raise the contact group in addition to the other forums that I have described, and to pay particular note of the role of the UN; my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has just talked to Jean Arnault, the UN Secretary-General’s special representative to Afghanistan. The contact group is a vital part of the way in which we should co-ordinate our efforts.

International Aid: Treasury Update

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Programme motion
Tuesday 13th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for his work on and expertise in this matter. I know how deeply he cares about this, in common with many other Members across the House, and I can indeed give him that confirmation. The decision that we made was temporary, to reduce our aid budget to 0.5% of national income.

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

Will the Prime Minister give way?

[The Prime Minister]

With great respect, if the House will allow me, I will make as much progress as I can in this speech, and then allow the, I think, 77 others who wish to contribute to have their say, so I will not take any more interventions.

In the teeth of this crisis, amid all the other calls on our resources, we can take pride in the fact that the UK will still invest at least £10 billion in aid this year—more, as a share of our GDP, than Canada, Japan, Italy and the United States. It would be a travesty if hon. Members were to give the impression that the UK is somehow retreating from the field of international development or lacking in global solidarity. As I speak, this country is playing a vital role in the biggest and fastest global vaccination programme in history. We helped to create COVAX, the coalition to vaccinate the developing world, and we have invested over half a billion pounds in this crucial effort, which has so far distributed more than 100 million doses to 135 countries.

The Government’s agreement with Oxford University and AstraZeneca succeeded in producing the world’s most popular vaccine, with over 500 million doses released to the world, mainly to low and middle-income countries, saving lives every hour of every day. The UK’s expertise and resources have been central to the global response to the emergency, discovering both the vaccine and the first life-saving treatment for covid. We have secured agreement from our friends in the G7 to provide a billion vaccines to protect the world by the end of next year, and 100 million will come from the UK. We are the third biggest sovereign donor to the World Health Organisation, and the top donor to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which vaccinates children against killer diseases.

We are devoting £11.6 billion, double our previous commitment, to helping developing countries to deal with climate change, including by protecting their forests and introducing green energy. I can tell the House that this vital investment will be protected.

When it comes to addressing one of the world’s gravest injustices—the tragedy that millions of girls are denied the chance to go to school—the UK has pledged more than any other country, £430 million, to the Global Partnership for Education, in addition to the £400 million that we will spend on girls’ education this year.

Later this month, I will co-host a summit of the partnership in London with President Kenyatta of Kenya. Wherever civil wars are displacing millions or threatening to inflict famine in Syria, Yemen, Ethiopia or elsewhere, the UK is responding with over £900 million of help this year, making our country the third-largest bilateral humanitarian donor in the world. It bears repeating that we are doing this in the midst of a terrible crisis, when our public finances are under greater strain than ever before in peacetime history and every pound we spend in aid has to be borrowed. It represents not our money, but money we are taking from future generations.

Last year, we dissolved the old divide between aid and diplomacy that once ran through the entire Whitehall machine, by creating the new Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. In doing so, my objective was to ensure that every diplomat in our service was actuated by the mission and vision of our finest development officials, and that our aid was better in tune with our national values and our desire to be a force for good in the world. So I can assure any hon. Member who wishes to make the case for aid that they are, when it comes to me or to anyone in the Government, preaching to the converted. We shall act on that conviction by returning to 0.7% as soon as two vital tests have been satisfied. The first is that the UK is no longer borrowing to cover current or day-to-day expenditure. The second is that public debt, excluding the Bank of England, is falling as a share of GDP.

[Mr Mitchell]

Will the Prime Minister give way?

[The Prime Minister]

I am just coming to the end. The moment the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts show that both of those conditions will sustainably be met, from the point at which they are met we will willingly restore our aid budget to 0.7%.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keir Starmer]

I have to say that it is a bit rich from someone who may break the manifesto commitment to say that the vote today and the words today are hollow, but just to take that straight on, it is a false economy, I am afraid. Cutting aid will increase costs and have a big impact on our economy. Development aid—we all know this—reduces conflict, disease and people fleeing from their homes. It is a false economy to pretend that this is some sort of cut that does not have consequences.

[Mr Mitchell]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is making a House of Commons speech, not a partisan speech. Can I ask him what I would have asked the Prime Minister if the Prime Minister had given way? First, will he confirm that the cut we are discussing today is 1% of the borrowing the Prime Minister described that he quite rightly sanctioned last year? Secondly, will he underline the fact that this was an all-party promise made at the general election by every single one of us, and we really should not break our promises to the poorest in this terrible way?

[Keir Starmer]

Yes and yes. It was not ambivalent in the manifestos and it was not conditional; it was clear.

On the first part of the argument—the national interest—British aid saves lives, it builds a more secure world, and it promotes democracy and British soft power. For the last 20 years, that has been the political consensus across this House. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown first set the goal of the UK reaching the 0.7% target—[Interruption.] I am making a speech to the House and for the House. David Cameron and the right hon. Member for Maidenhead made it a reality, and we acknowledge that in the right way. It has been supported—[Interruption.] The chuntering is all very well, but this has been a cross-party position for 20 years, and successive Prime Ministers have kept to the commitment. Every other living Prime Minister thinks this is wrong; there is only one Prime Minister who is prepared to do this, and he is sitting there, on the Front Bench. I acknowledge what those on the Benches opposite did in relation to this—the previous Prime Minister is sitting opposite. I am openly acknowledging that, and it has been supported by all parties, and rightly so. As the sixth richest country in the world, Britain has a moral obligation to help the world’s poorest, and our aid budget has done that with fantastic results.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I draw the House’s attention to my interests, as set out in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

The Government have done the right thing today in ensuring that this House has a vote on this matter, and thank you, Mr Speaker, for standing up for Parliament in that respect. There is a straight choice here, as was outlined by the Leader of the House yesterday in his statement. It is between rejecting this motion, in which case the Government will restore the 0.7% from next year—that was the olive branch that my right hon. and hon. Friends and I suggested—and accepting this so-called “Treasury compromise”. I tell the House that it is no compromise at all; it is a fiscal trap for the unwary.

First, it is quite possible that these conditions will never be met. We do not need to look in the crystal ball—we can read the book. It is indisputably the case that there has been only one occasion in the past two decades—in 2001—when these conditions would have been met. If we look at what the OBR has said, we see that it is incredibly clear that the debt to GDP measure will not fall until 2024-25 and day-to-day debt will not fall until 2025-26. Given that the 0.7% goes up and down with our economic performance, a very important point is that the 0.7% policy protects us in that respect.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend not accept that the OBR has exaggerated the gloom on the debt and deficit, particularly in the last two years? It exaggerated it by £50 billion for last year between November and March, so why on earth does he believe the OBR’s gloomy figures now? I am sure we are going to get the deficit down.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Mitchell]

My right hon. Friend is looking in the crystal ball, but I have read in the book: in the past 20 years, this would have happened on just one occasion. So a vote for the Government tonight is a vote to end our 0.7 commitment.

[Anthony Mangnall]

I am sorry to interrupt my right hon. Friend, but does it say something when every economic and political commentator has said that this new mechanism will not see the 0.7% return in the way that it should and that this is a cop-out of the highest order?

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As I said, this is a trap for the unwary and a tribute to the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s silver tongue. So I shall certainly be voting against this motion and against the Government today. I shall do so with absolute conviction and profound disappointment. This is only the third time since I was elected in 1987 that I have voted against the Government, and on one of those occasions I was in the company of the Prime Minister in the Lobby. It is never easy to rebel and I thank those who have stood with us to support our manifesto. We should not be breaking our promise in this way. We should certainly not be seeking to balance the books on the backs of the poorest people in the world. I am incredibly proud to have been a member of a Conservative Administration who declined to do that even with the austerity that we faced.

For goodness sake, this is 1% of the borrowing that the Chancellor rightly made last year to shore up our country from covid. It is a tiny figure and it is the only cut that he has announced. That will have an enormous impact on our role in the world and, above all, on the huge number of people who will be severely damaged, maimed, blinded, as often happens, or indeed who will die as a result of the cuts. I remind the House that the cuts include a 25% cut to girls’ education, which is a top priority of our Prime Minister and this Administration. For neglected tropical diseases—thank goodness, the philanthropists have stepped in for one year only to protect the British taxpayers’ investment—we have cut aid by 90%. In Yemen, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) said, we have cut it by 60%, which is literally the equivalent of taking food away from starving people. This is what we are doing to the world’s poorest. This is how we are trashing our international reputation. We are the only country in the G7 that is cutting in the middle of a pandemic. Everyone else is increasing. This is a decision that we do not need to make. Since we started this campaign, there has been a 9% increase in support across our country for the Government’s policies. It is, to coin a phrase, worse than a crime; it is a mistake.

May I say, finally, in humble respect to my own party, that some of us have seen this movie before? It took us 23 years—until 2015—to achieve an overall majority by wiping out the Liberal Democrat seats, and to achieve it we secured the support of decent, internationalist, pro-development spending people, who saw from our time of austerity that we would stand by this promise. The former Brexit Secretary—my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis)—and I visited Chesham and Amersham. May I say that our much-loved former colleague, Cheryl Gillan, would have been voting with us on this issue tonight? Anyone who thinks that this issue is not affecting our party’s reputation is living in cloud cuckoo land. Chesham and Amersham has the biggest Christian Aid group in the country.

There is an unpleasant odour wafting out from under my party’s front door. This is not who we are. This is not what global Britain is. I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to vote against this motion.

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[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

I consider myself an economic Thatcherite, yet when I come to choose between money and lives, I always choose lives. This House should remember—this should be at the forefront of every Member’s mind today—that this is a vote where we are choosing whether or not to intervene to save lives. That is the key issue, not the monetary issue, which I will return to in a second.

The Government argue that this is a policy the United Kingdom cannot afford, but while we have heard about this being a small fraction of our borrowing, we should remember that it is an even smaller fraction of our spending. We spend, in a non-covid year, at least £800 billion; the £3.5 billion saving we are talking about is less than 0.5% of that. That is what the Treasury tells us is the critical, overwhelming measure that forces us to do something that has such dramatic consequences.

The Chancellor might say, as his press spokesman did in the course of last week, “Well, you find the money from somewhere else”—saying that to a past Public Accounts Committee Chairman is very dangerous for a Chancellor. We were in Chesham and Amersham a week or two ago, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) said, and Cheryl Gillan would have said to the Chancellor, “Well why don’t you just cancel HS2?” That is between £100 billion and £200 billion; it would pay for 25 to 50 years of this shortfall. It is really that simple.

So I do not really accept what the Chancellor is saying—that the only place, indeed the best place, for savings to be found is cutting aid, which will cost lives. Such a choice is morally reprehensible. Let us be clear about that—morally reprehensible.

[Mr Mitchell]

My right hon. Friend is making an incredibly good point, but has he also noticed that, in the Chancellor’s outstanding policy on spending announced last November, the cut that he is referring to—this cut of 1% of the borrowing on covid last year—is the only cut that has been announced?

[Mr Davis]

My right hon. Friend is right. The prioritising of this cut makes it even more morally reprehensible. Indeed, at the same time, as I think the spokesman for the SNP, the hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law), said, we are increasing spending on defence. I happen to agree with increasing spending on defence, but I do not agree with cutting spending on things that will lead to the need for more defence because of migration, civil wars and the rest of it.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield, the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and the Leader of the Opposition have pointed out, the Government’s proposed double lock on returning to 0.7% is deceptive. It is designed to look reasonable. However, in fact, none of the people who have spoken so far has actually stated the full case. Although we say that the condition has been met only once since 1990, under a Conservative Government, and has never been met, really—well, it was once, just about—since the 0.7% policy was put in place, it has actually never been met since 1970, because the wording is not “a current budget surplus” but

“a sustainable current budget surplus”.

All the current budget surpluses we have been talking about so far have been for one year—and frankly, the one under us in 2018 lasted about 10 nanoseconds; it was a very tiny surplus. In practice, we have not had a sustainable current surplus since the 1970s, so I am afraid that, under the actual wording in the statement, we are not looking at 0.7% for a very long time indeed. We heard the Leader of the Opposition say it would be years, possibly decades, possibly never, and I think he is right about that.

Even if the conditions were to be met, the proposal will do nothing to deal with the crises that are caused by the policy already, right now. The Government argue that the cuts are temporary, but death is never temporary—and this will cause deaths.

--- Later in debate ---

[Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)]

I am glad to see the Chancellor in his place; I have a couple of specific questions for him on science policy.

First, in the context of this debate, I am very proud of our leadership and our contribution to supporting people right across the world. I voted enthusiastically for the Act of Parliament that brought the 0.7% commitment into law. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) for his work on that Act, but, in so doing, he will know that it specifically anticipated circumstances in which, temporarily, the 0.7% target may not be met, including

“any substantial change in gross national income”

and/or

“fiscal circumstances…in particular, the likely impact of…the target on taxation, public spending and public borrowing”.

It is hard not to consider that the circumstances that we are experiencing fall plumb into line with what the framers of the legislation and those who supported it had in mind.

[Mr Mitchell]

I was involved in the drafting of the Act and I do not believe that that is what we intended with those clauses. Has my right hon. Friend noticed that the Governor of the Bank of England has said that the economy will have been restored to pre-covid levels by next month? Does he not think that that is a very significant indicator of why we should not be doing what the Government would like us to do today?

[Greg Clark]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. I quite agree that that is an encouraging assessment, not least for the prospects of our returning to the 0.7%.

I studied very carefully the Hansard transcripts of the debate, and some of the criticism was that the criteria might be insufficiently precise, so the innovation of establishing in advance and giving to the Office for Budget Responsibility the trigger for the return is a sensible course. Indeed, this mirrors, more or less, the fiscal rules that were once called the fiscal mandate that were in place at the time that the Act was originally adopted. I want the target back, and I hope, as the Governor does, that that will be sooner rather than later, and that the Chancellor will be able to confirm that it is his firm intention, as I think is clear from what he said in the written statement.

My questions on science are twofold. First, the science budget is, very importantly, increasing from about £9 billion a year in 2017 to £22 billion a year from 2024-25. That includes, as it always has done, official development assistance. Will the Chancellor specifically reiterate the commitment to achieving that £22 billion by 2024-25? Secondly, will he reassure me on a report I read that the 0.5% limit on ODA could somehow prevent us from engaging in international scientific research projects that we were perfectly willing to fund because they are excellent and are justified as part of the budget that is rising to £22 billion? We all know that science is inherently international. The best science is global and the best teams are often international teams, so it would be a great concern if the 0.5% target would in any way be a cap on international collaboration. Knowing my right hon. Friend the Chancellor’s commitment to science and technology, I cannot believe that that is his intention. His commitment to the £22 billion budget and his reassurance that the target will not be a cap will be very important in establishing that the science aspect can continue, and that this is, in effect, the removal of a ring-fence rather than a limitation on international scientific research.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

I am grateful to be called to speak in this debate. I recognise that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has probably the most difficult job in the Government, bar none, and perhaps in the whole country. He is the only person employed to say no and make difficult choices about the spending demands that we all present at the door of the Treasury. Nevertheless, I share the concerns, fears and doubts expressed by colleagues this afternoon about whether the cuts that we are debating will become permanent. I share their fear that 0.5% will become the default setting for our overseas aid spending and that the cuts will become locked in—a permanent withdrawal and a permanent stepping back from the level of commitment that Britain has given overseas among the poorest countries on earth. I share those fears not only for reasons that hon. Members have already outlined, but because I think we are in danger of overlooking just how enormous the effort was that got us to the point where the House of Commons was united on making the commitment to 0.7%, as the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) has just reminded us.

I am perhaps one of the few Members present who was in the House in 2005. I recall the enormous lobbying efforts made not just by churches, but by trade unions, women’s institutes and groups in all our constituencies. There was demand for that commitment. It required Opposition Front Benchers to work with Government Front Benchers; it required Opposition Back Benchers to work with Government Back Benchers. For me, it represented a high water mark of what can be achieved in this House of Commons when people choose to bury some of their political differences and work together for a cause much bigger than our most immediate political needs.

[Mr Mitchell]

My right hon. Friend is making a wonderful speech. He refers to his longevity in the House. Does he remember how Make Poverty History galvanised national opinion? Crack the Crises is the current successor to that generation, and it is reinforced by younger people. Does he accept that once covid is over and they are able to show what they feel, they will make very clear their opposition to this foolish decision that the Government have made?

Afghanistan

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. Afghanistan was never occupied, and nor is this an evacuation. What we will certainly look at—I think this is the point he was getting at—in addition to working with our friends and partners in the region is to what extent counter-terrorist activity can be conducted from outside Afghanistan on an outside-in basis.

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

I thank the Prime Minister very much for coming and making this difficult and important statement to the House today. I thank him also for what he said about the contribution that has been made by the girls’ education challenge fund, which we set up in 2010 and which has been responsible for the education of millions of girls in Afghanistan. It seems to me that his statement eloquently makes clear the limits of hard power and the importance of soft power. I take it that that was one of the things he was referring to at the end of his statement when he spoke about the different tools for the future. It is soft power that will now help the Afghan state to survive and hopefully deliver for its people, so I hope he will not think it unreasonable of me to ask him to look again at the recent extraordinary decision to cut our development spending in Afghanistan by £200 million.

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend. I know that this is a subject that he has returned to many times in this House, and I understand how deeply he feels about it and how much he understands it. It is still the case that we were the third biggest bilateral donor to Afghanistan last year. We are committing a further £100 million per year to the people of Afghanistan, plus the military and logistical support for the Afghan national security and defence forces. I think most people in this country understand that, after giving £3.2 billion in development assistance to Afghanistan over the past 10 years, we are in tough financial times here in the UK, and that it remains a remarkable thing and a matter of pride that the UK is able to continue to support the people of Afghanistan in the way that we are.

G7 and NATO Summits

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

On the Uyghurs in China, no concrete measures were discussed at NATO, but as I said in my answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), we in this country remain implacably committed to opposing the forced labour there and to sanctioning those who profit from the forced labour in Xinjiang.

The right hon. Gentleman’s characterisation of the summit is as erroneous as that of the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer). It was a fantastically successful summit in bringing the world together on vaccination and on tackling climate change. The UK’s own contribution, which the right hon. Gentleman deprecates, is massive. I think the people of this country will think it astonishing that at a time when we have been through a pandemic, and have spent £407 billion looking after jobs and livelihoods in this country, we are still able—[Interruption.] I will give him the figure: we are still able to supply £11.6 billion to help the developing world to tackle the consequences of climate change. The right hon. Gentleman should be proud of that and not run his country down.

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

My right hon. Friend’s significant success at the G7 last weekend has sadly been dented by the fact that Britain is the only G7 country cutting vital aid and is doing so in the middle of a global pandemic. That decision is not only doing grave damage to the reputation of global Britain; it will also lead to more than 100,000 avoidable deaths, principally among women and children. Will he reflect on the fact that many of us, in all parts of the parliamentary party, are urging him to reverse these terrible humanitarian cuts, and that we are not, as he suggested in Prime Minister’s questions last week, lefty propagandists, but his political friends, allies and supporters, who want him to think again?

[The Prime Minister]

I have the utmost respect for my right hon. Friend’s record in overseas aid, but I have to say that the changes that we have made to official development assistance have not been raised with me by anybody at the G7; nor have they by any recipient country —and I have talked to many of them. That is because they know that the United Kingdom remains one of the biggest donors in the world—second in the G7—and, in spite of all the difficulties that we have been going through, we are contributing £10 billion this year to supporting countries around the world. We have also just increased our spending on female education. That was one thing that people did raise with me, and they did so to congratulate the UK Government on what we were doing. People in this country should be very proud of the contributions that they are making.