Overseas Aid: Child Health and Education

David Rutley Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2023 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (David Rutley)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Bone, and I am sorry that the shadow Minister was cut off in her prime. I have a huge amount of respect for her, and our friendship extends outside this room as well, so I am sure that our conversation will continue. She makes important points. Indeed, everyone has made important points. This is an important debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) on securing it. It is unusual for me to debate with him on this subject; just a few months ago we had quite a few exchanges on the Floor of the House on matters related to the Department for Work and Pensions. It is good to see him in what I consider an unfamiliar setting, but this is clearly, for him, a subject close to his heart. He made his points incredibly well.

Those who know the subject area well will know that our Minister for Development and Africa, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), would normally respond to this debate. He is in country, travelling on his ministerial duties, not the least of which was a recent visit to Turkey, where he thanked international partners and UK responders for their amazing work in response to the terrible tragedy in Turkey and Syria. We all thank them. Tomorrow there is another debate on that, which I think some of us will look forward to. It will highlight the important work that has gone on.

I am grateful for the contributions to the debate, and I will endeavour to respond to the points that have been made. Given the economic impacts of the pandemic and Russia’s barbaric attack on Ukraine, the UK’s aid budget currently sits at around 0.5% of gross national income. That equated to over £11 billion in 2021, and we are proud to remain one of the world’s biggest aid donors. Over the last 18 months, the UK has provided enormous support to people fleeing Afghanistan and Ukraine and seeking sanctuary in the UK. Across the House, people will recognise that those are huge priorities. However, it has not come across so loudly in the debate—I understand that there will be political differences—that that support has without a doubt placed significant pressure on the aid budget. It has placed significant pressure on some of our communities. I think any right-minded person would recognise that these are incredibly challenging circumstances. Among those challenging points, the good news is that the Treasury has provided an extra £2.5 billion of official development assistance over two years—£1 billion in 2022-23 and £1.5 billion in 2023-24.

[Layla Moran]

Will the Minister give way?

[David Rutley]

Yes, but only once, because we need to crack on.

[Layla Moran]

Does the Minister accept that the point about a percentage is that as the economy shrank, the amount of money was always going to shrink?  The issue with taking it down to 0.5% is that it was an even greater cut, but it is wrong to say that the money was not always going to decrease to recognise the pressures on our communities as well.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Rutley]

We have been through the pandemic, which has conveniently not been talked about in this debate. That has had a huge impact on public finances. Some really difficult choices had to be made; it would have been the same for whoever was in government at the time. I think we can all recognise that. Even with this extra money, we are having to make difficult decisions. That was the point I was making in response to the contributions today.

Our decisions and approach to spending are guided by the international development strategy. That means focusing our work on the priorities set out in the strategy, including, as many hon. Members have highlighted, women and girls and global health. We will do that in a way that maximises the positive impact of the available resources and our ability to respond to emerging issues, which is important. As the hon. Member for West Ham (Ms Brown) highlighted, it has meant that we have been able to respond to the cholera outbreak in Malawi with £500,000 of funding and an emergency medical team. We want to be agile; we have that support available in Turkey and Syria as well.

We continue to support work through multilateral organisations, such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. That point was raised by my colleague—my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) —and the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi). We want to make sure that we can empower UK development experts across the world to recommend which bilateral programmes to prioritise.

There has been a lot of talk in this debate about 0.7%. That was an important contribution from the Conservative-led coalition with the Liberal Democrats. We remain absolutely committed to protecting the most vulnerable and to returning to spending 0.7% of GNI on ODA as soon as the fiscal situation allows. Those conditions have been set out by the Government. In terms of the reductions of the ODA budget, we will ensure that we focus on the poorest and most vulnerable, the humanitarian programmes and supporting women and girls, which fits neatly with many of the priorities that have been raised today.

Our work around the world is helping to improve children’s health and delivering on our commitment to end preventable deaths of mothers, babies and children by 2030. Health remains a key priority for our development assistance. Through our £340 million core voluntary commitment to the World Health Organisation, we are strengthening primary healthcare services, which are the first port of call when a child becomes sick.

As part of the Nutrition for Growth summit in December 2021, we pledged to spend at least £1.5 billion between 2022 and 2030 to improve the nutrition of mothers, babies and children. In recognising that immunisation is one of the most effective ways to protect a child’s health, we have committed £1.65 billion to support Gavi’s core mission between 2021 and 2025—the biggest contribution by any donor. We have heard about the important Global Fund. We pledged a further £1usb billion to that fund, which will protect children and families from HIV, tuberculosis and malaria and prevent over 28 million new infections. We remain the third largest ever public donor to the Global Fund—a point made by my right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale.

We use our position on the global stage and work with our partners to support innovative approaches to ending preventable child deaths and ensuring that children can thrive. We co-led a landmark joint statement with 71 signatories at the UN General Assembly, committing to protect and promote sexual and reproductive health and rights and bodily autonomy.

A key priority is our work on global education, and we continue to stand up for the right of every girl everywhere to access 12 years of quality learning. Although we have had to make difficult decisions, we have prioritised programmes giving direct support to children’s learning. We have mitigated the impacts of budget reductions by reprofiling or delaying spend where possible, rather than cancelling education programmes, with a view to scaling them up in future years if further funds become available.

We are committed to improving health and education for the poorest children in the world. We remain a world leader not only through our financial support, but through our partnerships, expertise and, of course, civil society, such as Churches, faith groups and others that have been highlighted today. It is a comprehensive approach that helps to improve the lives of millions of people around the world.