Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

I am honoured to speak in this debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) for securing the debate. I worked in international development for many years, specifically on water sanitation and hygiene, so I also appreciated the remarks of the hon. Member for Melksham and Devizes (Brian Mathew). I echo the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury about our strong support for the BBC. I would like to thank all the FCDO staff currently working very, very hard on behalf of my constituents who are in the middle east. The very quick response we have been able to put up, with flights coming in straight away, is commendable. It just shows the strengths and abilities of our embassies across the world, and how important they are.

I am delighted that after years of weakness, isolation and decline in our international standing under the Tories, Britain is firmly back on the international stage, leading on the international response to Ukraine, making the forgotten war in Sudan a priority, and transforming our relationship with Europe—worth mentioning on the day that the FAC released our report on the UK-EU reset.

[Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady remember who led on the international response on Ukraine?

[Fleur Anderson]

This is not a party political issue. We have led on Ukraine for many years and we still are doing so. I am very proud of the role we have played, under both Governments. The Labour Government are now moving forward far further and far faster. I am also proud that we recently signed the global ocean treaty.

This debate is on the spending in the Department. I am concerned about the continuing cuts in aid, and that they are undermining our strong, and growing, international position and undermining our security. I am concerned about the false division that has been put up between defence and development. It is not defence or development. Defence and development are important for our strategic interests and security. Development spending is not charity; it is strategic investment. Our development budget is one of the most effective tools we have for sustaining British influence. Defence and development should not be seen as competing priorities, but I fear that they are seen as such. Defence responds to crises; development works to prevent them. Development underpins our conflict prevention around the world. A defence posture without sustained development investment risks becoming permanently reactive to events. Good development is good defence.

I am very concerned that the FCDO’s workforce faces reductions of up to 25%. The FAC has repeatedly asked where those cuts will be made. Which staff? Which programmes? Do the cuts match the priorities given by Ministers? I am concerned that they do not. We are not given the answers that we need to scrutinise this very big change in our country’s priorities, and at a crucial time in international relations that are so important for our security. It is important for my constituents to know what our foreign affairs priorities are and whether they are being matched in terms of staffing and budgets.

This is called an estimates debate for a different reason, but estimating is all we can do as a Committee—if MPs cannot see that the priorities given by Ministers are being backed up by spending and action, we cannot properly scrutinise their work. It is also a real concern for development agencies and local organisations on the ground in the countries where we are working, which are not able to plan their work as they do not know what the spending will be.

In the past year, £500 million has been cut from the ODA budget. Aid to Africa, at the time of the Africa strategy being released, has fallen by £184 million. Support to Sudan has been reduced by roughly 18%, at the very moment it faces the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, despite it being a stated priority.

Global health is also a priority for this Government, and rightly so. As I said, I previously worked in water and sanitation. I went to work for WaterAid before I was an MP because, when I had worked with other aid agencies, I had seen the impact that conflict and water have on a community. With action on both those things, a community can have peace—if a community has the water needed for crops and its health, it frees up girls and women from having to go off to get water; instead, they can go to school. It leads to development and resilience against insecurity, which stops conflict. That is what we should be seeing. However, £550 million has been cut from global health programmes. Let us not forget the lessons from covid.

Some £206 million has been cut from education, gender and equality programmes. There is a 25% reduction in women, peace and security funding, despite a feminist foreign policy being a stated priority. I am glad that the proposed cuts to the BBC World Service have been highlighted as well. We have a huge benefit in our BBC World Service. Trust in this service has built up over decades, and any reduction in that gives space to China and Russia. Cuts to development leave room for the Chinese Government to step in, as I have seen in countries across Africa. Cuts in poverty reduction fuel instability and conflict. Cuts in conflict prevention programmes that have been built up for years, which are locally led and are working, are dangerous.

The 0.7% target was not a vague aspiration, but a manifesto commitment that this party stood on. It remains important for our security. I know that these are difficult times for development spending, but we need to keep talking about that as an aspiration. I am concerned that the official policy of His Majesty’s Opposition is now to reduce spending to 0.1% of GDP. I do not know where that will leave our country.

Will the Minister confirm that this Government are committed to the soft power superpower we have in the BBC, to conflict reduction, to the education of girls, to water, sanitation and hygiene, and to global health? Will he confirm that we are committed to working with the poorest countries, not using the move towards investment as a move towards working only with middle-income countries? Lastly, will he confirm that all these commitments will be backed up with funding and our fantastic staff in our embassies on the ground?

--- Later in debate ---

[Sam Rushworth (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) for securing this debate. I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, because, like many here, I have extensive experience in this field.

I feel somewhat in an invidious position, if I am honest, because I completely support the defence spending on which these aid cuts will be used. I also completely support and constantly ask the Government for more investment in my constituency of Bishop Auckland. I also accept some of the arguments that we have heard in this debate about doing more with less. I am talking about the importance of trade, British international investments, diplomacy, debt relief and encouraging other states that do not do enough to step up.

I am also aware that DFID started in 1997 with a budget of just £2.1 billion, which represented only 0.26% of our GDP at the time. That rose to 0.36% after 10 years of a Labour Government. That was a decade of unprecedented progress in which Britain led the world on aid. I also accept that the Government have popular support for diverting aid money towards defence at this time. I acknowledge as well that two of the Opposition parties would implement even deeper cuts to aid and that the others have not presented a credible plan for how to fund an increase. All of that said, like many who have spoken in this debate, I feel deeply uncomfortable. We have heard some fantastic contributions, including from the hon. Member for Melksham and Devizes (Brian Mathew), who predictably spoke about the importance of water, sanitation and hygiene and why it should get special treatment.

[Fleur Anderson]

Hear, hear!

[Sam Rushworth]

I knew that my hon. Friend could be relied on to talk about WASH. I also knew that I could rely on her to speak passionately about women and girls. Before my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) even spoke, I knew that she, too, would speak passionately about that topic. I knew that I could rely on both the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) to speak about global health, and my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Noah Law) to talk about British International Investment.

My background is in children and youth in conflict zones, so I shall address my remarks to that. We all think that these areas are important. Everyone is bringing things to the table and saying, “But what about this? Surely this is too important to lose.” My ask of Government is for them to draw up a proper, evidence-based impact assessment of what the cuts will mean and to publish it widely, so that the British public can understand what political choices are being made and what those choices will mean. There is far too much myth in a lot of the debate around international aid. What will the impact be, for example, of the laying off in large numbers of people involved in de-mining operations? What is the impact on communities that cannot return to their homes? What is the impact of leaving unexploded ordnance lying around? When conflict prevention education is being cut, what will be the impact in civil war and civil conflict? How will that impact refugee flows into our country? What will be the impact on the prevention of killer diseases of investing less in public health? My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East has talked passionately about the 90% cuts in South Sudan to programmes that have seen an unprecedented increase in girls going to school. What will be the impact of that?

The International Development Committee recently visited Nigeria and we saw a UK aid-funded maternal health centre. I was shocked at how poor that was, and that was the upgrade. I just could not imagine the scene of six or seven women all in labour at once, occupying a very small space in a hot environment without any air conditioning. What is the impact on all the things that we are doing? Has the FCDO made any analysis of this? If not, why not? If it has, will it publish it and make it more widely known?

I raise this matter for two reasons. First, as a social democrat and a Christian, I am unashamed of saying that I do believe in a global brotherhood of man. I care about a child in Ethiopia as much as I care about a child in my own community. As others have alluded to, this is super important for our national interest. People have spoken really well in this debate about the British Council and the BBC World Service. I wish to talk about staffing. We are led to understand that the quite severe cuts in staffing at the FCDO is because it is considered to be top heavy—it is considered to have too many people in head office. But does that mean that we can expect to see an increase in field staff? In many countries in Africa, I have found that whenever we visit a Ministry, we come across British people who are embedded there, sharing their expertise. That is really important for our soft power, as well as for leveraging our aid spending to do more.

That expertise at DFID and the FCDO is known around the world. It includes expertise in value for money, sustainability, anti-corruption, and gender mainstreaming. What will we lose in those areas, and what will be the impact of that?

I have one final and crucial point that I want to make about the UK national interest. We must not be blind to what is happening right now across the global south with regards to China and Russia. We seem to make different decisions about China from one election cycle to the other. China, on the other hand, has a 100-year plan for global dominance. It is enslaving the developing world in debt. It is using Chinese companies to build the infrastructure, and it is also building a polity of loyal people. That is why the BBC World Service, our education work and technical assistance are all so important—[Interruption.] I can see that Madam Deputy Speaker wants me to come to an end.