Developing Countries: Jobs and Livelihoods

Debate between Desmond Swayne and Helen Grant

Wednesday 15th June 2016 Westminster Hall

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

The quality of our investment and the fact that we do not tie our aid certainly make our aid of a higher standard. I accept the hon. Lady’s challenge: we need to raise our game, and that is why we use the Private Investment Development Group to leverage more investment. Through an investment of $1.2 billion, we have secured $20 billion from the private sector and $9 billion from international financial organisations to provide early equity, long-term debt and guarantees to meet vital infrastructure needs. Equally, we use CDC, our development capital arm, to blaze a trail and show other investors that there are profitable opportunities even in the most difficult markets. We recapitalised that with some £730 million last year, and we are driving that into the infrastructure sector. CDC has backed some 40,000 GWh of production as a consequence of the move into the power market.

[Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)]

On the point about opportunities, does the Minister agree that we need policy coherence between the climate change goals and economic development policies?

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

My hon. Friend is right. Climate-smart development must be integral to everything we do. It has to be a part of it. It is not a box to be ticked; it must be designed into the programme from the start.

My hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) mentioned the prosperity fund in his intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford. I take a slightly different view of the prosperity fund. We are spending all this taxpayers’ money creating opportunities and opening markets, and my breath is taken away when other countries simply move in and take the opportunities that have been created by that investment. The prosperity fund’s primary objective must be to reduce poverty. However, it is right that that fund should make British companies alive to the opportunities available to them. We will not tie our aid.

As an aside, I point out that 80% of our procurement is with British companies simply because they are the most competitive we can find, but my hon. Friend the Member for Henley drew attention to an important point in the piece. This is, of course, an enormous agenda. It is a whole trade facilitation agenda, and my hon. Friend mentioned the importance of trade envoys. We spend about £1 billion a year on trade facilitation and improving the ability of the least developed countries to enter our markets and to trade effectively. Trade dwarfs aid. It is a vital part of the agenda. The hon. Member for Bradford East raised the vital issue of urban planning. It is precisely for the reasons that he gave that we launched the new programme for economic development in cities, and that will be driven forward with a will.

The whole piece, including TradeMark East Africa and the trade facilitation agenda, is part of the drive for economic development that is at the centre of everything that we do regarding the provision of jobs. I come back to a point that has been made several times this morning: it is all about jobs. We need 600 million high-quality new jobs that will not impoverish and enslave people. That is what we have to deliver. I defer to my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford to sum up the debate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Desmond Swayne and Helen Grant

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Swayne]

We have supported the UN Human Rights Council resolution that requires the Government of Yemen to investigate those matters, with the support of the UN.

[Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)]

Is DFID’s good work in Yemen being undermined by UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia?

[Mr Swayne]

What undermines UK aid, and what makes that aid ever more necessary yet harder to deliver, is the violent and unlawful removal of the Government of Yemen. Only a peace process to restore that will end the suffering.