Defence, Diplomacy and Development Policy

Earl of Sandwich Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB)]

It is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness and her positive remarks. Who would not sign up for a debate with positive aspirations such as we would expect not only from the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, but perhaps from Scotland? I have certainly done so with enthusiasm. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, on not only her speech but her African experience and her cross-party approach, which is so important.

Bringing the three Ds together also reflects the current concern about the merger of two or three ministries. I will come to that later, but, first, I want to emphasise the role of international development. Whether you are confronted by starving children in Africa in an emergency appeal or are listening to reporters in the Middle East of the quality of Jeremy Bowen, you can be in no doubt about the extent of poverty and misery around the world. The media have done us a great service in bringing these issues home to us. The problem is that there are so many calls on our time that we have to be highly selective.

The United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, said in his 75th anniversary address last week that the world faces four looming threats to human progress: surging geopolitical tensions, the climate crisis, global mistrust and the downsides of technology. The background to aid and development seems more turbulent than ever and our separation from the European Union does not seem to improve matters, although of course with our development record we shall find our own feet eventually.

The 17 UN SDGs are our principal guidelines in a peaceful world. Although we have only 10 years to reach them, we have to thank the many UN agencies working tirelessly to achieve these goals and encouraging us to meet them. The indicators are still being revised and refined, but I was glad to read that refugees and IDPs, which, ironically, were omitted at first from the SDGs, are at last included.

I would expect poverty reduction to remain the primary focus of our DfID efforts, while we need to acknowledge the urgency of climate change. However, we cannot be too high-minded about leaving no one behind; it is more complicated than that. The state of poverty even in the least developed countries differs from place to place. It is hard to define, and we find that poor health and education as well as low economic growth affect families differently, since people live in different circumstances and come from varying social backgrounds.

To my mind, the key to poverty reduction is to identify the most practical channel of assistance, and here I pay tribute to the non-government sector in which I have worked. I was on the staff and board of Christian Aid for 17 years; I also worked with Save the Children, CARE International and Anti-Slavery International. Through these organisations, I had a lot of opportunities to see NGO work on the ground. I maintain that the quality of aid through NGOs is higher, and that is why DfID has supported them since the time there of the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker. They may not always meet an auditor’s definition of value for money, but they generally represent good value. As the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, said, they often provide access to remote or endangered parts of the world such as those talked about by the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud.

Emergency work falls into a different category, but will the Minister confirm that we are looking seriously at the means of working alongside ECHO in the coming years? It is the EU’s most effective channel of emergency aid and the UK has spearheaded much of its work in the past. Similarly, I hope she can confirm that the UK will continue to participate in the EU’s CSDP missions. I realise that the new Prime Minister would like to have a clean break tomorrow, but only by realigning ourselves urgently alongside our European friends and allies will we both defend ourselves and save lives on all these programmes.

Trade can of course be another form of development, and NGOs have long recognised this through the Trade Justice Movement, the Fairtrade Foundation and initiatives such as Divine Chocolate, which is part- owned by the cocoa farmers themselves. The UK-Africa Investment Summit demonstrated the importance of development and trade working together to ensure that British investments in Africa are accountable, socially responsible and directly benefit the poorest communities.

Turning to climate change, I was a little surprised that in the title of this debate the phrase “cleaner world” is used instead of “healthier world”. It is arguable that the climate change crisis is so urgent that it must dominate even the development agenda. I recognise the urgency of every Government’s response, but personally I cannot raise it above the level of development. It is in the least developed countries, of course, where the urgency is felt most. I welcome the UK’s support for the Ayrton fund, which focuses on new technology to tackle climate change in developing countries—I am sure the Minister is going to mention it—and the doubling of our International Climate Finance funding. This may have been a response, and I hope it was, to the International Development Committee’s report last year, which urged such action. I notice that this funding is substantially to assist small farmers and local communities. Will the Minister confirm that NGOs will qualify for this alongside private sector initiatives and the CDC, since they are often the best way of reaching local communities?

Returning to ODA and the integrated review, in the new era we need to celebrate global Britain and to me that means our role in international development. UK aid has made a huge difference across the African continent by getting more girls into school, tackling food insecurity and reducing child mortality. We must now build on the legacy of our development work. We do not diminish the experience that there is in Germany, France and other countries when some of us boast somewhat about the UK’s particular contribution. I am all in favour of the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund, which has proved a good example of joined-up government.

I know that the FCO does good development work on its own too, as the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, will confirm, and of course we have heard about the MoD in Africa. But merging DfID with the FCO, or even having both departments run by the Foreign Secretary, risks dismantling the UK’s soft power and leadership on international development and suggests that we are turning our backs on the world’s poorest and on the greatest global challenges of our time: extreme poverty, climate change and conflict.