Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Douglas Chapman and James Duddridge

Tuesday 30th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[James Duddridge]

We are bound by law to spend 0.7%, so it is not a choice; it is in the law, and we will obey the law. I was one of David Cameron’s Ministers in the Foreign Office in that period, and I found a lack of joined-up thinking. I worked well with DFID, but I think this will work better as one Department and it has already worked better with a Joint Minister.

[Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP) [V]]

A good friend of the all-party group on Yemen is the UN’s Sir Mark Lowcock, who this week described the massive child malnutrition crisis in Yemen as leaving a nation on a precipice. The UK earns 10 times as much from arms sales in the region as we spend on aid to Yemen. Since I was elected in 2015, I have lost count of the number of the Foreign Secretary’s predecessors I have questioned on this issue. Will this British Foreign Secretary be the first to stop the UK being part of the problem? Will he agree with me and ensure that the UK becomes part of the solution? How much will he commit to Yemeni aid today? Foreign Secretary, time is of the essence.