International Engagement

Brian Mathew Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Anneliese Dodds]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this issue, in which she has considerable experience. Globally, by 2030, 60% of people in extreme poverty will live in fragile and conflict-affected states. We need to see much more action: less than 5% of climate finance, for example, goes into adaptation, with only a tiny fragment going into fragile and conflict-affected states. The UK is determined to exercise leadership, and the new Government have been pressing multilateral institutions to do more. Last week, at the World Bank, we saw some important moves, which I am pleased to say were pushed by the new Government.

[Brian Mathew (Melksham and Devizes) (LD)]

Can the Minister assure us that the Government’s commitment to ODA will not be further reduced to 0.3% of GNI? Is there a timeline to restore it to 0.7%?

[Anneliese Dodds]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his important question. I have stated this before, but I will state it again. He may not wish to spend a huge amount of time reading the Labour manifesto from the last general election, but if he did so, he would see that the new Government are committed to returning to 0.7% of GNI being spent on overseas development assistance, as fiscal circumstances allow. That is something we are focused on doing. Under the previous Government, we saw many years of huge turbulence around these issues, but we are determined to have a strategic, planned approach without that turbulence in future.