Integrated Review: Development Aid

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Wednesday 28th April 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, I want to ask about two important organisations. The first is VSO. The Foreign Secretary claimed that he would protect VSO but, as we have heard, the one-year extension of its V4D grant amounts to a 45% cut. Short-term funding is not good enough and VSO is having to pull programmes in dozens of countries, including in areas which the Government claim are their top priorities, such as gender-based violence. Will the Minister explain how this is compatible with the integrated review’s statements on soft power, and commit to a further review of VSO’s grant?

The second organisation is Translators without Borders, or TWB, which has received funding through the H2H Network to provide language services in refugee camps, disaster zones and conflict areas. It has helped Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh with accurate information about Covid and played a vital role in tackling the Ebola crisis in Sierra Leone, using local languages rather than the official but relatively useless French and English. H2H funding supported its rapid deployment to support people in Tigray. However, like VSO, TWB faces operational wipe-out if its funding via H2H cannot be restored. It says that the UK Government were the first major funder to recognise the fundamental impact of language on the reach and impact of humanitarian action. Is the Minister not proud to hear this, and will he not be ashamed if this work cannot continue with our help?