Development: Post-2015 Agenda

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, for securing this debate. It is extremely important that we keep proposals for the post-2015 development settlement high on the agenda. I also thank noble Lords for their tributes to DfID. I am very proud of the fact that, after years of promises and aspiration but of never achieving this, we have finally reached 0.7% of GNI on overseas development. It was announced today that that has been achieved for 2013, and we have done that in a period of austerity. This reflects the fact that we recognise that we are all interconnected, as noble Lords have conveyed so very well.

It was almost 15 years ago that the international community came together to agree some simple, powerful objectives: that no one should live on under $1.25 a day; that denying girls an education was not acceptable; and that the terrible scale of deaths from malaria and HIV/AIDS had to be addressed. These things, among others, were targets which, it was agreed, could be tackled together—and the eight millennium development goals were born. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Malloch-Brown, for his key role in devising the MDGs. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, so clearly showed, these goals were historic: an unprecedented set of promises to the developing world, which have served to mobilise and galvanise us into action over the past 13 years. Like other noble Lords, I, too, pay tribute to the many organisations and NGOs which have been working in this area and made such a difference.

As the deadline for the MDGs approaches, we can cite many achievements: visible improvements in all health areas, getting children into primary education and halving the number of people living in extreme poverty. However, as other noble Lords have said, we know that there is no room for complacency. While some countries have made incredible progress in the past 20 years, others are lagging behind, as the noble Lord, Lord Collins, has just made clear. Within countries, progress also often failed to reach the most vulnerable, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, pointed out: those disadvantaged because of their sex, age, ethnicity, disability, caste and where they live.

The point of the MDGs was to tackle huge inequalities and need. Some of that has been addressed but we still have much to do. As the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, pointed out, inequalities persist through generations, waste lives and, as he argued, lead to instability. Across the globe, approximately 1.2 billion people are still living in absolute poverty. These people are the most vulnerable, the most marginalised and the most difficult to reach. There is a clear danger that they will be left further behind. The United Kingdom is committed to an ambitious agenda post-2015 to eradicate extreme poverty and build shared prosperity for all. Addressing inequalities is critical to meeting this ambition. The high-level panel, co-chaired by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, called for no one to be left behind. The noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, referred to this. This premise must be included as a central shift in the new agenda and has resonated internationally.

This is about learning from the MDGs: there is broad agreement that the focus on average progress in the current MDGs masked the very uneven progress across different countries and population groups. The existing MDGs did not provide sufficient incentives to tackle the root causes of poverty and inequality, or to search out those who are hard to reach. As my noble friend Lord Chidgey made clear, inequalities meant that the MDGs were not achieved universally.

The UK supports the high-level panel’s focus on leaving no one behind as a central shift in the post-2015 agenda. We support a stand-alone goal on girls’ and women’s empowerment, and on mainstreaming gender and other dominant inequalities being addressed across the framework. Many noble Lords have mentioned this area, but of course there is no country in the world —no country—that has full gender equality. My noble friend Lady Jenkin made such a cogent argument for that stand-alone goal on gender. Gender must be mainstreamed and have a stand-alone goal, for all the reasons that she gave. She is absolutely right that we will not be able to eradicate extreme poverty if we do not advance the economic, social and political rights of girls and women. My noble friend Lord Chidgey and the noble Lord, Lord Collins, also made that extremely plain.

The noble Baroness, Lady Flather, was right about the situation of women in so many parts of the world. I, too, have seen the effect of women being able to earn just a little money, as she says, and how transformative even that can be and how much independence it can give. We also need to continue the battle to ensure that women’s reproductive rights are respected. She emphasised that, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge.

We recognise, as many noble Lords will know, that the longer girls spend on education, the later they have children and the fewer of them they have, and those children are more likely to thrive and prosper. I thank my noble friend Lady Tonge for her tribute to what DfID has done in this area.

The noble Lord, Lord Collins, spoke about the CSW. I was pleased that there was agreement here and that the proposition of a stand-alone goal was accepted. However, what seemed to me to serve as a warning was how hard it was to prevent things going backwards. We need to work across parties and indeed across countries to ensure that that does not happen.

It is of course very important to track success across all the goals and indicators using disaggregated data. I understand that that word was rather difficult to pronounce, but my noble friend Lady Tonge will know from her scientific training that conclusions need to be based on evidence, which must be studied, analysed and taken apart—disaggregated. Women have often been aggregated with men, so disaggregation we must have, as the noble Lord, Lord Collins, also emphasised.

I agreed very strongly with the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, that good data and evidence will be critical if we are to move this forward. Targets should be considered achieved only if they are met for all relevant income and social groups, so addressing inequality must be incorporated, as she and others have said, across the goals. We are also calling for the inclusion of zero goals in some areas of the new framework—minimum standards that must be met for 100% of the population.

My noble friend Lord Chidgey highlighted the situation of older people. That is why we need to take this approach: we need to look right across at the causes of inequality and improve opportunities for all. That is why we have to disaggregate the materials.

The UK supports goals on transforming economies, governance and peace that tackle the root causes of poverty and inequality. My noble friend Lady Tonge emphasised tackling corruption, and that is included. As the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, pointed out, for all the MDGs’ strengths, there was not enough focus on the devastating effects of conflict and violence and the importance of strong institutions and accountable government. The noble Lord made a powerful point about the importance of addressing factors such as climate change, which is the context in which people will increasingly be living. He will know that the high-level panel recognises the importance of tackling climate change, and we wish to see climate integrated across the framework, complementing the UN framework for the convention on climate change.

The noble Lord, Lord Parekh, made some very interesting points about the problems with inequality stifling aspiration, undermining peace and good governance and being basically unjust, and why we are doing this in the first place. With regard to his questions about tax havens and so on, I point out that we support better global and domestic tax regulations. It is very difficult but it is something that we have put on the international agenda and are trying to move forward. We are also pushing for better land and property regulations and for improved access to markets. That is right across the board, not only for those who are already well off. The noble Lord is right: we need to have sustainable growth which benefits all across society.

Tackling inequality must be at the heart of the new agenda but, as discussions on post-2015 continue in New York and beyond, and as we advocate for a concise and compelling new goals framework, it is not clear—as the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, and others pointed out—that a separate stand-alone inequality goal would achieve as much as a cross-cutting push. I think a consensus is emerging on that.

Whatever goals and targets are agreed, be they on health, education, sustainable development, peace or water and sanitation, they need to have “leave no one behind” embedded within and throughout them. Equality must be at the heart of the new framework, as we learn from the MDGs. That remains the highest priority for the Government as we work for that single framework.

There seems to be a consensus that addressing inequality must run through everything about the replacement for the MDGs. The MDGs were developed because there were huge inequalities between life chances and length of life in developed countries and developing countries. The MDGs need to be replaced with measures to bring with us those who have proved the hardest to reach because they are in fragile countries or because of their gender, social origins, disability or other factors. We need to work together to ensure that we deliver meaningful and effective goals to replace the MDGs. There has to be a real risk of not achieving that. As my noble friend Lady Tonge warned us, we have to face up to that risk. That is why I welcome the support of all noble Lords on this agenda.

House adjourned at 7.31 pm.