Poverty Eradication and sustainable development

Damian Green Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2015 General Committees

[The Chair]

Before we begin, I will briefly outline the procedure. First, a member of the European Scrutiny Committee may make a five-minute statement about the decision to refer the documents. The Minister will then make a statement of no more than 10 minutes, and questions to the Minister will follow. Once questions have ended, the Minister will move the motion. Debate takes place upon that motion. We must conclude our proceedings by 11.25 am. Does a member of the European Scrutiny Committee wish to make a brief explanatory statement?

[Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Turner. Let me, as is customary, explain some of the background and why the European Scrutiny Committee recommended this Commission communication for debate.

Members will no doubt recall that, in 2000, the United Nations agreed eight millennium development goals: to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; to achieve universal primary education; to promote gender equality; to reduce child mortality; to improve maternal health; to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; to ensure environmental sustainability; and to develop a partnership for development. Each goal had associated targets and benchmarks to measure progress, with a deadline of the end of 2015. Those eight MDGs and their 21 targets are now to be replaced by 17 new sustainable development goals and 169 targets, which incorporate and follow on from the MDGs, the Rio+20 UN conference on sustainable development and the financing for development conferences.

The communication, which was published on 5 February 2015, sets out the Commission’s views on a new global partnership to deliver the sustainable development goals. It was designed to inform EU positions in preparation for the financing for development conference in Addis Ababa in July 2015 and the UN summit in New York in September 2015. The coalition Government said, when the communication was first published, that the principles and key components were broadly in line with the established positions, although it was not formally agreed with member states. The Government described it as a good overview of what was needed for effective implementation of the post-2015 development agenda and for laying the groundwork for more specific policy development. The communication is not controversial in itself, though it is of undoubted political importance.

The new 2030 agenda for sustainable development—a global framework to eradicate poverty and achieve sustainable development by 2030, based on the 17 SDGs— was formally adopted by the international community at a dedicated UN summit between 25 and 27 September. The Addis Ababa action agenda agreed in July also forms an integral part of the 2030 agenda by setting out tools, policies and resources that need to be put in place to ensure that it can be implemented.

All three earlier, ground-laying Commission communications were debated in European Committees. It has always been the European Scrutiny Committee’s intention that, once this point was reached, this Commission communication should likewise be debated. The intention is to enable the House to be provided with and to discuss the Government’s analysis of the outcome of both the Addis Ababa financing for development conference and the September UN summit. That is particularly apposite now that there has been an opportunity for informed comment on those outcomes—for example, whether replacing the eight MDGs and 21 targets with 17 SDGs and 169 targets will stretch development budgets too far and not provide value for money. The Committee’s hope is that there can now be a wide-ranging debate on the most effective ways for the EU, in its own right and in conjunction with member states, to contribute to the achievement of the sustainable development goals.

[The Chair]

I congratulate the Member on his introduction. I now call the Minister to make an opening statement. I remind the Committee that interventions are not allowed during a statement.