Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Miliband Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

The Government are committed to getting the transition to net zero right for all consumers. We are committed to driving savings and making our homes better insulated with more energy-efficient measures. My right hon. Friend will know that through the energy company obligation and the expanded warm home discount, we will provide at least £4.7 billion of extra support to low-income and vulnerable households between 2022 and 2026.

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

For a successful COP26, we have a particular responsibility as hosts to build trust with developing countries. The Government’s decision to cut aid spending—the only G7 country to do so—is therefore an appalling one, not just because it is wrong in principle, but because it is staggeringly self-defeating. The COP26 President knows that that decision makes a successful outcome at the conference of the parties harder, not easier, so may I invite him to add his voice to the powerful calls we heard yesterday, including from the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), to immediately restore Government aid spending to 0.7% of GDP?

[Alok Sharma]

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the UK is doubling its international climate finance commitment to support developing countries; I can tell him that that has been very much welcomed around the world. With regard to the overall official development assistance spend, this is a temporary measure, as he knows. As the economic situation improves, I hope that it will be possible to restore the 0.7% target at the earliest opportunity.

[Edward Miliband]

The problem is that cutting aid spending severely undermines the ability of developing countries to tackle the challenges of climate poverty and public health. The COP26 President knows that: it is what developing countries are telling him in the negotiations. We need vulnerable countries to be calling for more ambition from big emitters such as China, but they will be much more reticent in doing so when they do not feel that we can be trusted.

Totemic on the issue of trust is the promise made at Copenhagen for $100 billion of public and private finance for developing countries. More than a decade on, it still has not been delivered. It is our job as hosts to deliver on that promise. Can the COP26 President therefore tell us whether the $100 billion will finally be delivered this weekend at the G7 meeting?