Sustainable Development Goals

Fiona O'Donnell Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the Chair of the International Development Committee, of which I am a member, although I think he made the cheapest political jibe of the day. However, I will not pursue that any further; I will speak to him about it another time. I would rather pay tribute to the work he has done in this place. He will be a huge loss —we will lose his experience, his commitment and his generosity in working with new members of the Committee —but I am sure he will continue to make a contribution in some other way, because it will be too much of a loss otherwise.

I am surprised at the sensitivity about looking at the hard politics that exist—and they do—in aid and development. That does not mean that there are not times when we can work together and agree. People may have problems with tone—I am pleased to say that the present Secretary of State has a very different tone from her predecessor—but we should not be put off talking about the substance and the different choices that we make. In the case of the right hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr O'Brien), although it is not a declarable interest, I would like to say that we are both patrons of Malaria No More. I am pleased and honoured to work with him in this area, but that does not mean that we cannot raise questions. Why do we think it is okay to have the Independent Commission for Aid Impact give the Department green, amber or red ratings, but not for us to talk about its performance in this Chamber and have the same open debate? I really do not understand that, so I deeply disagree with the right hon. Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry), who is not in place at the moment. I think the public become more sceptical if we do not debate this issue enough and we do not have the open debate we need. There is nothing to fear from that; otherwise, it looks like we are being terribly precious about this issue, and that we think the public could not cope with knowing that there are risks with international development. My goodness, the gains are so much greater; it is worth taking those risks. It is often a dangerous and difficult environment for a Department to work in.

It is right that the Secretary of State has provided great leadership on the issue of women and girls. I pay tribute to her for that, but I would like to see different choices and other areas in which the Department could take a lead. I hope that the next Government—hopefully a Labour Government—will be able to make those decisions. I hope that dealing with malaria will have priority, because for every minute that each speaker is on their feet in this debate, a child dies of malaria. It is an entirely preventable disease that has killed more people in the history of our planet than any other.

[Pamela Nash (Airdrie and Shotts) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Fiona O'Donnell]

I am not taking any interventions; I do not want to take time away from other contributors—I am practically a saint, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I would like to see both Front-Bench teams—I am treating them fairly and equally sceptically—making a commitment to at least maintain the investment for dealing with malaria. We know that the minute we take our foot off the gas, as the Americans say, we see a resurgence of the disease. We have seen with Ebola the knock-on effects of people not seeking treatment. That would be desperately sad. As Bill Gates said, when we had the honour of him coming to speak in the Palace of Westminster recently, we are now at the point of developing a toolkit that would allow us to eradicate malaria. That is the language I would like us to start using when we talk about malaria. I would like the UK to take the lead and say that the world’s ambition should be to eradicate malaria. We need to look at the progress made as a great story, with both UK Governments taking a lead in investment and contributing to halving the number of children who die of malaria.

That is the leadership I want to see on malaria because, as Bill Gates said, we have eradicated smallpox and are close to eradicating polio. We need to raise our ambition on malaria. This is not just about health; it is about the well-being of children and access to education. The World Health Organisation recently showed that 198 million people are currently missing out on either education or employment because of malaria. We need to think about the futures of these children. Departments should be pursuing economic growth for all these agendas. That is my plea to both Front-Bench teams today. I am grateful for the House’s attention.