Baroness Deech
Main Page: Baroness Deech (Crossbench - Life peer)
Baroness Deech (CB) [V]
As one of the biggest donors in the world, it is right for us to make a fresh start in assessing how we spend. We hear that funds are hastily disbursed at the end of the accounting year and that some countries, Pakistan in particular, doubt the effect of the aid; or it has been spent on wrong and unnecessary aims. This is a time to make aid more accountable and impactful and ensure that it meets the standards and foreign policy objectives of the UK.
Support for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, at £67 million, achieves none of those aims at present. UNRWA’s resourcing of educational materials, which have been found to incite violence and are replete with anti-Semitic references, is contrary to the UK Government’s activities in support of a two-state solution, violate the basic values of the UN itself and are contrary to international covenants to which the UK and Palestine are both signatories. Additionally, UNRWA is not held accountable to the same standards or through the same mechanisms as other UK and international aid bodies, such as Publish What You Fund. Although they have re-established funding to UNRWA, the Biden Administration have nevertheless conditioned that aid on reform, including of educational materials and of transparency. At this time of renewed focus on the UK’s aid programme, will the Government assure us that they will do the same?
What we should do instead of that money is to select some worthy, appropriate and feasible targets every year, fund them and monitor them, put in the infrastructure and measure the impacts at the finish. Right now it is Covid vaccines, and Oxford researchers are developing a vaccine that is much easier to transport and store. Will the Government ensure that our aid, whatever the amount, is spent on the right objects?
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, has withdrawn so I call the noble Lord, Lord Lansley.