Department for International Development

Debate between Andrew Mitchell and Lisa Cameron

Monday 1st July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. I would argue that all taxpayers’ money spent by DFID—all the overseas development aid budget—is in Britain’s national interest. It helps to make other countries safer and more prosperous, which has a direct effect on making us safer and more prosperous.

What should our priorities be now? I want briefly to mention four. First, we should recognise the importance of tackling conflict. It is conflict above all that mires people in poverty. Britain has been a huge provider of humanitarian relief in Syria—it has provided more humanitarian relief to the poor suffering people of Syria, within its borders and without, than the whole of the rest of the European Union put together, as we try to absorb the humanitarian shock of the massive failure of policy that is the Syria conflict. I am a tremendous critic of the Government’s shameful policy on Yemen. Nevertheless, humanitarian aid to Yemen is helping many tens of thousands of people who, without it, would starve. If we look across sub-Saharan Africa, stretching from northern Nigeria through the Central African Republic to Sudan, where the number of displaced people is so immense, and through to the horn of Africa and up into Yemen, we see a belt of misery that is destabilising for the world. This is where international development and Britain’s commitment can make a real difference.

If the first key task is tackling conflict, the second is building prosperity. That is about building good governance and having a free media. I am very pleased that the Foreign Secretary is holding an international conference to espouse the importance of a free media. We keep politicians and powerful people on the straight and narrow through having a free media and the rule of law. The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby, the Chairman of the International Development Committee, made the point that the CDC has a huge impact on building prosperity. Its annual report, published today, makes clear two extraordinary statistics. First, in 2018 alone, CDC investments—CDC is the 100% British taxpayer-owned investor of pioneer and patient capital—led directly to the employment of 852,130 people. That is an enormous number of families who have a breadwinner and who are being fed. The investments made by CDC in the poor world have led to tax of $3.2 billion being paid into the Exchequers of those countries over the past year. That is an extraordinary impact. That money may not always be well spent once it arrives in the Exchequers of those countries, but it shows that investment in enterprises in poor countries is not only employing people but yielding tax revenue.

The third priority is the absolutely prime importance of demonstrating to our hard-pressed taxpayers that their money is really well used. We should always strive to get more out of each taxpayer pound that is spent. We owe it to our constituents, who are stumping up the money, to show them that they really are getting in 100 pence of value for every pound we spend. We cannot do too much as politicians and Ministers—the Minister, I know, will agree—to make the case and explain why the money is so well spent.

[Dr Cameron]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a fantastic speech, and he has great knowledge and experience in the field of international development. Does he agree that in terms of value for money, one extremely good project is the Small Charities Challenge Fund? Local churches and organisations in our constituencies can raise money and apply for match funding to make a difference across the world both through aid and by connecting our local people with people in developing countries—schoolchildren, churchgoers and so on—which facilitates positivity around the international development budget.

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Lady makes an extremely good point. When I had responsibility for these matters, I set up the impact fund, which was effectively designed to match-fund the donations and support that individual organisations could secure. It was a way for the taxpayer to get two for one as a result. The fund probably starts at too high a level to impact on some of the projects that she talks about, but she is right that this is a very important area of development, and we should do more about it.

I was making the point about demonstrating the effectiveness of spending. I have always thought that one of the most effective ways of doing this—I said it in the last Parliament, and I think it is true in this Parliament—is to look at the way in which Britain supports vaccinations, particularly of those under five years old around the world. The critical importance of that will be clear to all Members. We were able to say in the last Parliament that the British taxpayer was vaccinating a child in the poor world every two seconds and saving the life of a child in the poor world every two minutes. Those children were suffering from diseases that, thank goodness, none of our children in Britain and Europe die from today. That is a very visual, good example of just how important and effective this taxpayer spending is.

Let me turn to my final point. There was a report about money being spent by other Departments, there was the National Audit Office report, and we have the report from the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, which I set up in 2010 and which is the taxpayer’s friend. It is there to act in the interests of the taxpayer to ensure that this money is really well spent. When we set it up, many people in the development world said, “You are handing over the assessment of development to accountants, who may not always understand how long a tail there is and what makes development effective.” The truth is that those of us who are tied up in the development community have to hold ourselves to the highest possible standards and always be self-critical. We often take the plaudits when we are successful, but we must also be very self-critical when things go wrong, put up our hands and try to put it right. That is what the ICAI is designed to do.

It is of great importance that the ICAI reports to the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby and not to Ministers, who can sweep inconvenient truths under the carpet. It reports to the International Development Committee, which tasks it to look at issues. That gives it independence—it reports to Parliament and the legislature, not the Executive and Ministers—and that is why it is so important and why its reports are, I believe, treated with such credibility by the Committee. The recent report showed that not all Departments spend money to the same very high standards as in DFID. Indeed, we have seen examples of some Foreign Office projects in far-off places—I am thinking of a particular one in Madagascar—on which, when the press found out about it and went to the Foreign Office to ask it to justify the spending, it said, “It’s no good talking to us. It is DFID money; go and speak to DFID.” That is completely unacceptable. Other Departments that spend hard-pressed taxpayers’ hard-earned development money must expose themselves to the same level of scrutiny that DFID does and stand up for the money that they are spending. All Departments must take that extremely seriously.

I will draw my remarks to a close, because others want to speak. Our generation has the opportunity to make such a difference to the extraordinary discrepancies in opportunity and wealth that I described earlier, and we are doing it. It is happening under British leadership, and it is currently one of the few examples of global Britain. I think that everyone, whatever their political view and whatever their standing, should take great pride in what Britain is doing. We are driving this agenda forward, admired and respected around the world for Britain’s commitment. It is cross-party; it is a British policy—not Labour, Liberal or Conservative—and we should take pride in doing that and supporting it.