Aid and Trade

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

It is certainly true to say that we were a leading force in securing that agreement in Paris and building on it at the recent G20 summit in Hangzhou. We are very committed to that. We are addressing all the humanitarian issues that were talked about. The UK is one of the largest economies—in fact, it is the only major economy—to achieve its 0.7% commitment. We do that in humanitarian aid but, under the rules of the OECD and the DAC, we also allow certain amounts to be introduced and used to build capacity and to build business and economic development within those countries, and that is an example of one of those.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

The Minister talked about economic development as the route out of poverty for people in the developing world, which is absolutely right, but will he accept that it is not only through trade that economic development happens? The investment that DfID has made over the years in health and education is absolutely a prerequisite to that economic development.

[Lord Bates]

The noble Baroness, with her great experience, has put her finger on the point here—that it is placed in context. That is why it is very important that, in order for economic development to happen, we need to stop the conflict, we need to start getting people into school, we need to eliminate discrimination and we need to improve economic development. It is across the range, and that is what DfID’s policy tries to address.