Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

Last week, I was in Jerusalem and in Ramallah on the west bank. I raised this issue of textbooks with the Prime Minister—Prime Minister Shtayyeh, whom I worked for 22 years ago—and there is an EU-related review ongoing. We have made it very clear that we want to see full co-operation and engagement with that. We are looking very carefully at the outcome of it, and of course we will then be able to assess what we do on aid. He is absolutely right to raise the point, and I am hopefully in a position to give him the reassurance he needs.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

Water, sanitation and hygiene funding is essential for achieving disease control and prevention, poverty reduction and gender equality. I am dismayed that the first act of this new Department—this takeover of DFID by the FCO—has been to cut the UK’s foreign aid budget by £2.9 billion. Will the Secretary of State demonstrate his commitment and prove his commitment to poverty reduction by committing to increase spending on water, sanitation and hygiene projects?

[Dominic Raab]

What I would say first is that of course we would have a review of our aid budget as a result of the impact of the 0.7%; that comes with the target. I think the hon. Member’s own Front-Bench team have accepted that. What I can tell her, though, is that we were very clear not just to salami slice budgets. So when I took the chairmanship of the review that we conducted with Departments across Whitehall, we preserved focus and the funding for the bottom billion—the poverty reduction for the poorest around the world. We preserved and we made sure that we safeguarded the money prioritised for climate change, for girls’ education, for covid-19 and also for a range of the “force for good” campaigns for media freedom and girls’ education, as I have already mentioned, that I discuss, and in that way we have had a strategic approach. So, yes, we have had to review it in line with our commitment to adhere to a 0.7% pledge, but we have done it in a strategic way, and I think when she looks at the detail, she can be reassured.