International Development Aid

Baroness Kennedy of Cradley Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Kennedy of Cradley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what are their priorities for the United Kingdom’s international development aid budget.

[Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Lab)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare an interest as a patron of Action on Poverty.

[Baroness Mobarik (Con)]

The UK’s aid budget will be delivered according to the objectives in the UK aid strategy—namely, strengthening global peace, security and governance; strengthening resilience and response to crises; promoting global prosperity; and tackling extreme poverty and helping the world’s most vulnerable. This approach builds on the strong successes of the last five years and recognises the need to ensure that everything we do contributes to the national interest.

[Baroness Kennedy of Cradley]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. I think that Members on all sides of the House are increasingly concerned about the Government’s dogmatic approach to using the aid budget to promote private healthcare services in developing countries. How much has DfID contributed to private health initiatives such as private fee-paying hospitals, and how does this meet the objective of building sustainable, universal healthcare systems that can deal with humanitarian emergencies such as Ebola?

[Baroness Mobarik]

My Lords, the UK provides technical assistance and financial support focused on helping countries to strengthen their whole health system. This Government remain committed to delivering on our international commitments, including the global goals, and therefore strongly support progress towards global goal 3, which is about good health and well-being. For example, we have supported Sierra Leone over the course of the crisis to establish systems that can rapidly detect and contain outbreaks of Ebola, and so on, before they grow into epidemics. We are working with the Government and the World Health Organization as well as other partners to make those systems resilient and enduring.