Global Poverty

Debate between Andrew Mitchell and David Lammy

Thursday 1st July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. The Gates Foundation has had a profound effect on the way we see and act in international development. Our contacts with the foundation, already significant, are certainly set to intensify.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his post. He has said a lot about aid, and clearly the role of his Department is hugely important in these matters. Does he accept, however, that in relation to developing countries, what goes on across Whitehall is hugely important? I hope he will also talk about his relationships with the Ministry of Defence, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and those Departments responsible for matters that have an impact on poor people.

[Mr Mitchell]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an extremely good point, and I hope to come to all those matters during my remarks.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Mitchell]

I have had a letter from the hon. Gentleman on that point, and I wrote to him late last night. I apologise for the fact that he did not receive it in time for this debate. I should make it clear to him that several projects to which I put a stop will now proceed, and officials are in touch with those responsible for them, making clear our value-for-money requirements. However, I have cancelled five, including the one to which he refers, after looking very carefully at them and following advice from officials.

Let me list those five projects. I hope that the House will consider whether they should be funded from Britain’s development project. First, there was £146,000 for a Brazilian-style dance troupe with percussion expertise in Hackney. Secondly, there was £55,000 to run stalls at summer music festivals. Thirdly, there was £120,000 to train nursery school teachers in global issues. Fourthly, there was £130,000 for a global gardens schools’ network. And finally, there was £140,000 to train outdoor education tutors in Britain in development.

Spending money on international development in the UK rather than on poor people overseas seems highly questionable. We need to ensure that any expenditure has demonstrable outcomes in developing countries, and that is why I took the action that I did. However, I have written to the hon. Gentleman, and he will have a chance to see in some detail why we took those decisions.

[Mr Lammy]

Will the right hon. Gentleman comment on the Greenbelt festival, from which it was proposed that money be withdrawn? I make that point in the hope that he will appreciate that faith communities—particularly, the Christian community, as represented in that festival—have done a considerable amount over a considerable time to raise the prominence of development issues. We would not have had Jubilee 2000 and, then, Make Poverty History without that movement.

May I also say gently to the right hon. Gentleman that the projects that he outlined largely touch on young people—it is hugely important that they continue to lobby Governments to make more progress—and on ethnic minorities, in which regard we should recognise that when we talk about development, it includes those who have come to this country and look overseas to see what we are doing?

[Mr Mitchell]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an interesting and not unreasonable point. However, the balance of judgment that has to be made is whether this money should come out of the ring-fenced development budget. As I said, we intend, in very difficult economic circumstances, to seek to carry the country with us as regards the validity of this budget. I have explained in some detail why that is so important on moral grounds, as well as on national self-interest grounds. I feared that the budget was in danger of being discredited by some of the existing schemes that I have decided to stop, and that is why I made that decision.