0.7% Official Development Assistance Target

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

I thank the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) for his persistence in bringing this issue to the House today. I am deeply concerned by the UK stepping back from its responsibilities to the world’s poorest and abandoning its commitment by cutting aid, and so are many of my Vauxhall constituents who have contacted me.

Six years ago in 2015, we were the first G7 nation to enshrine in law our commitment to the UN’s target of 0.7% of gross national income on overseas aid. As we prepare to host the G7 summit at the end of this week, the UK is breaking its promise, while other G7 countries such as France and the USA are maintaining or increasing their aid commitments. This is not the global Britain we want the world to see. The aid budget should be used to tackle the global challenges facing us all: the pandemic, the climate crisis and rising poverty and inequality.

A few months ago on 8 March, we celebrated International Women’s Day, and men and women across the UK spoke out against violence against women and girls. We can choose to challenge and call out the inequality we know that so many women continue to face. I am sure that Members across the House would agree that one of the best ways to help address that inequality is to ensure that women and girls have access to vital education —not only at home here in the UK, but right across the world.

The UK’s ambitious targets of getting 40 million more girls into school and 20 million girls reading by the age of 10 by 2026 have been adopted by the G7. Indeed, the Prime Minister said a few weeks ago on 12 May:

“Supporting girls to get 12 years of quality education is one of the smartest investments we can make as the world recovers from Covid-19. Otherwise we risk creating a lost pandemic generation…I’m going to be working throughout the UK’s G7 presidency to ensure leaders invest in those girls and boost children’s life chances around the world.”

Reducing the aid budget is in direct contradiction to the rhetoric from the Prime Minister a few weeks ago and the reality faced by millions of people working across the world to support women or girls and many others across the aid sector. The cuts will have far-reaching consequences for some of the world’s most marginalised and vulnerable people. Projects such as the International Rescue Committee’s Girls’ Education Challenge—the UK’s key programme for supporting girls’ education in Africa and Asia—could now be at risk because of this cut. I am concerned by the UK’s sudden role—[Inaudible.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I think we have just lost Florence. I am terribly sorry. [Interruption.] I think we will have to leave it there. I call Pauline Latham.