Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy

Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top Excerpts

Thursday 22nd April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I will start by paying tribute to someone who I know would have been speaking in this debate if he had been able to. Lord Judd, who died last weekend, spent his life devoted to peace and justice internationally. He would tell me of being with his father, who was the first ever director of the United Nations Association in this country, where he met my father, who had set up a branch in the north-east. Frank and my father later became colleagues in the Commons, and both had a driving commitment never to return to the horrors of the war that they had seen.

I went to Kenya at about that time with VSO for two years, and Frank later became its director. We both remained strong advocates of that organisation, and it is that which inspires me today. Frank was horrified at the way in which the Government changed the legally binding commitment of 0.7% of our GDP going to development aid and the manner in which VSO was being treated: the lack of clear decision-making, and arbitrary cuts leading to massive uncertainty and insecurity for all the people involved. However, it is clearly about more than this. It injures our reputation abroad, certainly in those developing countries where promises have been broken and programmes abandoned, and with those countries and organisations where partnerships have been forged but where the UK is no longer able to fulfil its commitments. It is not clear to me that the Government really understand the full extent of that.

It is of course the Government’s right to reset the UK’s position in the world, and the report we are discussing today has many ambitions within it. However, these ambitions depend on the countries that we seek to work with, and the international agencies we want to be a partner in, trusting us and believing that we will stick by our word. That is what is in danger of being lost.

I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement that he is looking to protect VSO, but what does this mean? Will the budget for volunteers for development be renewed at the original level of £16 million, or will the cuts of, in effect, 45% imposed so far on the short-term extensions be the extent of protection? Will the Government ensure that the programme, which they recognise as one of the most effective delivered by UKAID, is able to continue without the closure of work in countries where, even during the pandemic, real change around local communities’ response to Covid-19, protection for women and girls and working with local communities to build resilience against climate change in the most vulnerable countries have all been going on despite the cuts?

Soft power, as the Government have acknowledged, is an essential tool in modern international relations. Organisations such as VSO are the best soft power that the Government have. Will they therefore meet a very small, cross-party delegation to discuss this issue urgently?