Oral Answers to Questions

Anne-Marie Trevelyan Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

What steps her Department is taking to help children in developing countries return to education after the covid-19 pandemic.

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)]

The UK is committed to ensuring a safe return to school for children all around the world. We are taking decisive action through our education programmes and will throw our diplomatic and development weight behind global efforts, including the UNICEF-led campaign to support children’s return to school. On Monday, we announced £5.3 million of new funding to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to enable over 5,000 teachers to provide education in 10 refugee hosting countries.

[Sir David Evennett [V]]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her response and commend the work that she is doing in the Department. How will the new Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office assist the Global Partnership for Education replenishment next year?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

The UK is proud to be the largest bilateral donor to the Global Partnership for Education, with a commitment of up to £225 million over a three-year period. As a major education multilateral, it has a key role in tackling the global learning crisis. That is more crucial than ever given the covid pandemic, which is having a profound effect on education systems across the world. The GPE is flexing about £400 million to support education stability, and the UK is keen to play an active part in the 2021 replenishment. We are presently exploring the possibility of how we could co-host that replenishment

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab) [V]]

IMC Worldwide was commissioned by DFID to build 31,000 classrooms in Pakistan for a fee of £107 million. It renegotiated to only build a fifth but kept 58% of the initial fee. The majority of the classrooms built were substandard and presented a risk to children. By October last year, only a quarter had been retrofitted. Will the Secretary of State put the two DFID reviews into what went wrong in the public domain? Why is the same classroom design being used in other countries? Were any children hurt, and when can they go back to school?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

The safety of children will always be our No. 1 priority, and I agree that it is completely unacceptable that children were being taught in tents because buildings funded by UK aid were not being built to the necessary standards. As soon as DFID knew that there was a problem, we took urgent action to ensure that all schools knew that the buildings should not be used, while we worked with the contractor to agree a plan for retrofitting the affected buildings. Covid has caused some delays to that progress, and schools are closed until 15 September, but I understand that the first of the buildings will be handed over shortly, in a state that is considered acceptable. Global education continues to be an absolutely key priority for the Government and, whether in Pakistan or elsewhere, we are working hard to get children back to school.

[Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)]

What steps her Department is taking to support the Rohingya in (a) Bangladesh and (b) Myanmar.

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[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

Whether poverty reduction will remain the primary focus of Official Development Assistance.

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)]

As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said, the work of the UK to reduce poverty remains central to the objectives of this Government. The way we use ODA will continue to be guided by our responsibilities under the International Development Act 2002, including our commitment to poverty reduction. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office will enhance our ability to be a force for good and partner to countries in need that seek support to help them climb the ladder of the sustainable development goals towards being strong, peaceful, economic states.

[Ian Byrne]

This Government cannot be trusted to tackle poverty here in the UK, and nor can they be trusted to tackle poverty overseas. In the middle of a global pandemic that is pushing millions into poverty, this Government have shut down the Department for International Development and dissolved a dedicated parliamentary Committee so that they can avoid scrutiny of aid spending. Will the Secretary of State please inform the House of how aid will be scrutinised from now on?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

This Government remain absolutely committed to the 0.7% commitment, which is enshrined in law, and that will continue in the framework of the new Department. On scrutiny, clearly it is a question for Parliament how that scrutiny takes place and what the new framework of Committee assessment might be. However, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary are absolutely clear that scrutiny should continue to be an absolute focus. It is incredibly important, and all of us as parliamentarians know just how important it is that we watch over, and can provide insight and broader reflection from all those we talk to, to make sure that Government do their best possible. The Government are continuing to support that, and the Foreign Secretary will set out where he hopes to do that in due course.

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is with great disappointment that this is the last DFID orals, and I want to pay tribute to all those officials in the Department for their work. I want to assure all those who recognise the importance of development and of supporting the world’s poorest that we in the Opposition will not follow the misguided path of the Government.

In recent weeks, we have heard the Secretary of State and hundreds of non-governmental organisations contradict the Prime Minister’s claims that there was

“massive consultation over a long period”—[Official Report, 16 June 2020; Vol. 677, c. 678.]

of time ahead of his announcement that he would scrap the Department. Can the Secretary of State tell us whether the Prime Minister misled Parliament, whether she misled the Select Committee last week and when an apology will be forthcoming?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

I concur absolutely with the hon. Member that all those who serve—now and in years past—have brought a commitment to helping the UK do as much as it can to support poverty reduction. That commitment will continue and those who are making that their life’s work will continue to be part of the FCDO.

The Prime Minister was clear, as I have been, that any announcement is always brought to Parliament first. The ongoing consultation is now working continuously, and Baroness Sugg is leading that. However, consultation with NGOs was going on before that in relation to all sorts of other issues. That relationship with our NGOs and civil society organisations is something we take very seriously, and we will continue to do so.

[Preet Kaur Gill]

The decision to axe the Department was done on a whim by the Prime Minister to try to distract from his handling of the pandemic. That is why there are still no details of what the new Department will look like, how it will operate or how it will be scrutinised to guarantee value for money for UK taxpayers who are rightly proud of the work DFID has done in tackling poverty around the world. Will the Secretary of State guarantee that funds will be focused on the world’s poorest and that any cuts to the aid budget come from funds that currently go to middle and upper-income countries or have been found to have limited development impact, such as those outlined in the ONE campaign’s real aid index?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

DFID it is world renowned for its focus and programme expertise, and that will continue to be the case. Poverty reduction will continue to be a critical focus on how we spend the 0.7% that the Government continue to be committed to. We enshrined it in law and it will stay: the Prime Minister is absolutely committed to that. Interestingly, I think there is a real challenge with the sustainable development goals—there are 17 of them—and the ability to help a country become self-sufficient and climb up that ladder will absolutely continue. We will continue to commit to the 0.7% target, based on GNI.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

What steps her Department is taking to support democracies during the covid-19 pandemic.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

What assessment the Government made of the potential merits of merging her Department with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office prior to the announcement of the integrated review of security, defence, development and foreign policy on 26 February 2020.

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)]

Both the merger and the integrated review are evidence of this Government’s commitment to a unified British foreign and development policy that will maximise our impact around the world, project our values and be a stronger force for good—they go hand in hand.

[Daisy Cooper]

The Bond network says that it has not been consulted on this merger and the integrated review has been restarted behind closed doors. Will the Government commit to meeting Bond and other civil society organisations so that those on the frontline can inform the new Department’s aid priorities?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

Baroness Sugg leads in the Department in meeting the CSOs, and there are regular meetings ongoing. The integrated review is working over the summer to pull together the key issues, and development is an absolutely critical strand within that.

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP) [V]]

Last week I asked the Secretary of State what partner organisations and non-governmental organisations were consulted prior to the announcement of the merger of the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. She said that the statement on the merger was first made to Parliament and that there has been ongoing consultation since then. This stands in stark contradiction to what the Prime Minister said previously when he told this House that there had been

“massive consultation over a long period.”—[Official Report, 16 June 2020; Vol. 677, c. 678.]

Therefore, was the Prime Minister aware he had taken a decision without any evidence to support it, or did he mislead Parliament to create an illusion of legitimacy for this ideologically driven, disastrous merger?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

As set out in previous answers, the Prime Minister made the announcement of the new departmental framework to Parliament first, and there are ongoing discussions led by Baroness Sugg and the permanent secretary with the CSOs and the NGOs.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)]

This Government are committed to standing up for the right of every girl to 12 years of quality education, building on a strong basis of global leadership, including DFID’s education support for at least 5.8 million girls between 2015 and 2019. The new FCDO will deploy our world-class development expertise alongside the UK’s diplomatic skills, respected around the world, to get every girl into school.

As this is the last oral questions for the Department for International Development, I would like to place on record my thanks, and I know that of the whole House, to all those who serve now and who have served in the Department over the past 23 years. I know that their talent, passion and commitment to help to deliver world-class development programming, policy thinking and humanitarian support to the most vulnerable will be at the heart of the new FCDO and will be critical to its future.

[Mr Ellwood]

May I place on record my gratitude to the Secretary of State and her team for what she has done in this important Department? I hope that the spirit of what DFID does will continue. She is aware that in Afghanistan and Iraq it is so easy to win the war but lose the peace. Will she agree to meet me, before she loses her job title, to see whether the military can be given funds to create a stabilisation force that can operate in those difficult environments where it is too dangerous for NGOs to function?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

I would be very happy to meet my right hon. Friend to discuss that. The Conflict, Stability and Security Fund exists to do just that and we need to think about how we maximise the use of all our UK efforts to help the most vulnerable, so I look forward to debating with him.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

Going into this pandemic, many of the world’s poorest countries were spending more on debt payments than their own healthcare. The current suspension of payments is welcome, but will the Government go further and support the cross-party multi-faith call, co-ordinated by the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, to cancel those debts and enable those poorest countries to focus on tackling the virus and climate change?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

As the hon. Lady is aware, we put £150 million into the IMF emergency fund, and the Treasury continues to lead in the Paris Club discussions and with the G20 to ensure that the right solutions are found for the long-term sustainability that those most vulnerable countries will need.

[Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her fantastic work as Secretary of State. What steps are her Department and the new FCDO taking to ensure that UK taxpayers receive value for money for our international aid contributions?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

Ensuring taxpayers’ money is well spent is central to DFID’s work and it is embedded in all our activity and will be at the heart of the new FCDO. Programmes are regularly appraised and monitored to ensure that they are value for money, performing effectively and delivering on manifesto commitments.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

Nestlé has withdrawn Fairtrade cocoa from its Kit-Kat products, costing some of the poorest farmers £20 million a year during the global crisis due to the pandemic. Will the Minister join me and the Co-operative party in urging Nestlé to restore cocoa from Fairtrade farmers in their Kit-Kats to give the poorest farmers a break and to create a Fairtrade chocolate Kit-Kat?