Humanitarian Emergency Response Review

Debate between Gareth Thomas and Andrew Mitchell

Wednesday 15th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend is right about the absolute priority that the Government place on supporting such smaller charities. Many Members on both sides of the House will have seen them doing brilliant work overseas. There are a number of mechanisms through which they are supported. There is, of course, the global poverty action fund, which will have a fresh round for NGOs and charities in a month or two. ShelterBox, which my hon. Friend mentioned, will be known to many Members. It does a brilliant job and we support it strongly.

[Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s words today, in particular his praise for the contribution of British NGOs in responding to humanitarian disasters. I appreciate his continuing support for the central role of the UN, in particular the agency that Valerie Amos leads so well. I gently point out to him that it was disappointing that no British Minister attended the CERF annual meeting in December. Given that America and France, two of our leading allies in the development debate, do not contribute to the CERF, will he set out how his leadership on this issue will lead to the topic being placed on the agendas of the G8, European Development Ministers and perhaps a No. 10 summit, so that there is more investment in the CERF to help the UN give the leadership it so desperately needs to give?

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Gentleman will understand that we consider attendance at such meetings on the basis of need. We consider whether our attendance or our work in advance of a meeting will have the most effect. I and my ministerial colleagues travel ferociously in pursuit of this agenda. We have contributed in a large number of ways to the shape of the international community’s handling of humanitarian emergencies. The multilateral aid review played a significant part in that and the Ashdown review has played an enormous part in it. The Ashdown review is being read avidly by most of those who are engaged in this important work. For the future, we will consider, as we always do, what is the most effective way in which Britain can intervene to ensure the overall effectiveness of this vital work.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gareth Thomas and Andrew Mitchell

Wednesday 7th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, and it is always important to underline that there is strong cross-party commitment to this important budget partly for moral reasons, but also because it is very much in our national self-interest. My hon. Friend will have heard the words of the Foreign Secretary and myself about the importance of wiring more closely together defence, diplomacy and development, and he has my assurance that we will continue to do that with great care.

[Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

In last Thursday’s debate, the Secretary of State was transparent enough to admit that he did not yet know how the extra £200 million for Afghanistan announced by the Prime Minister will be spent. Given the question asked by the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi) and the increasing speculation that DFID money in Afghanistan will be spent on things over which the Secretary of State’s Department has no control, can he tell the House whether the Foreign Secretary—or, indeed, the Defence Secretary—has made any suggestions to him as to how that £200 million should be spent?

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Gentleman will understand that a Government who are properly co-ordinated and working together will discuss all these matters to make sure that, as I have said, we wire together in the best possible interests defence, diplomacy and development. However, as the hon. Gentleman is well aware, as he has been a junior DFID Minister, the OECD Development Assistance Committee rules are what pertain in the spending of money on development, and the coalition Government have confirmed what his Government said: those rules will persist.

Global Poverty

Debate between Gareth Thomas and Andrew Mitchell

Thursday 1st July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Thomas]

I welcome the fact that the right hon. Gentleman has been elected to resume the chairmanship of the Select Committee. The notion that there was no delivery on the Gleneagles commitments in the last five years is simply wrong. I accept that there was not enough delivery, and the hon. Member for Banbury and others are right to say that some countries need to do more. The Secretary of State has yet to prove that his Department is as influential and as central as it was before 6 May.

[Mr Andrew Mitchell]

I am disappointed that the hon. Gentleman, of whom, as he knows, I am a great champion, should descend to this level. What matters about Gleneagles is that those solemn commitments, made, rightly, in front of the whole world community and its press, should be acted on. If, after the debate, he looks at the reports that have come out of the summit, reads the statement made by the Prime Minister and sees what organisations such as ActionAid said about the summit, he will see that our Prime Minister banged the drum for standing by those commitments and made it absolutely clear that Britain’s commitment leads on this point.

[Mr Thomas]

I want to champion the right hon. Gentleman’s career, too, and I suspect that he will need me to, so I say gently to him that the G8 was the international community’s pivotal meeting before the UN’s poverty summit, and not to refer to the Gleneagles commitments in the communiqué sends a powerful signal to the rest of the international community, which, I worry, will be a signal for them not to do what they should do at the UN poverty summit in September. It would be a terrible shame if the Department developed a reputation as the place where the Prime Minister sends not only those he does not want to sack yet, but those he does not want around. I hope that I am wrong, but I fear that the Secretary of State and the Minister are in danger of becoming Parliament’s answer to Jedward: they are both political treasures, and there is plenty of sympathy for them and a strange fascination about what they will do next, but at one performance soon neither will be in their usual place.

As my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State said, what is striking about the Secretary of State’s speech today and, indeed, his speeches so far outside the House is the lack of any clear strategy for the Department. Under the previous Government, DFID sat at the heart of development thinking. It was sought out by Governments internationally, valued in Europe and respected by development bodies throughout the globe, from UNICEF, which the hon. Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) mentioned, to the Grameen bank, which the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) rightly praised.

Under this Government, the Department should be at the centre of development thinking, but it simply is not yet. It could champion reform of the World Bank, which, despite doing a lot of good, needs to evolve quickly, get its staff out of Washington and into the African countries that it is supposed to help, and continue the reform of its governance. However, there has been nothing from the right hon. Gentleman on that issue yet. Under him, DFID could champion reform of the UN development system in order to help all developing countries, including those with whom we do not have bilateral aid programmes. It could continue to demand a change to how the UN humanitarian system works—or, in the case of Haiti, did not work anything like well enough. The Department could demand that UN agencies work together better in developing countries, but we have heard nothing from the right hon. Gentleman on that topic, either. He could certainly lead the development community on highlighting the finance that is necessary to help developing countries deal with the impact of climate change, but there has been radio silence on that issue, too.

What signal does the right hon. Gentleman think the £10 million loan that he announced today to the Turks and Caicos Islands sends to his Back Benchers, who are desperate to see more impact made in developing countries to help the needs of the world’s poorest? The lack of clarity about the Government’s strategy for the UN’s millennium summit was particularly striking in his speech, because he spoke more about what he will not fund and will not do than about what he will fund. In particular, he said very little about what he plans to do about the principal development event of the year. He wants an action plan to emerge from the summit, but what does he want to see in it, and how will he get it? What conversations has he had with the Deputy Prime Minister, who is due to represent us there, and what are the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister going to do to help secure the outcomes that the Secretary of State desires?

The Department is a great place in which to serve, and I join the right hon. Gentleman in praising the officials who serve there. The Ministers who serve there have a heavy responsibility to champion, challenge and mobilise for the world’s poorest, but the striking thing about what the Government have said and done so far is, first, the lack of any clear strategy on what they will do next in order to help those poorest people, and, secondly, the failure in international meetings to do the heavy lifting that is required in order to keep development at the centre of global political attention. I hope that things will change, but I fear that they will not.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gareth Thomas and Andrew Mitchell

Wednesday 2nd June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the critical importance of the referendum on the border between southern and northern Sudan, and we are watching the position extremely carefully. He will be aware that the situation in Darfur that I have described is in many ways mirrored by what is going on in the south, where he will know that there has been an acute rise in food shortage and where more than £70 million of British humanitarian relief is going in this year. I can give him the undertaking that we will continue to work hard to ensure that the referendum is conducted freely, fairly and successfully, and that we are prepared for the results.

[Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I add my own congratulations to the right hon. Gentleman, and send best wishes to him and his team—for now. Given that we are still a long way from meeting the millennium development goals, particularly in Sudan, how will he and his colleagues use the remaining four months before the UN’s poverty summit to help rebuild the international momentum needed to achieve the goals? Will not one telling signal of the new Government’s willingness to show leadership on this issue be whether they bring forward legislation to put the UN’s aid target of 0.7% on the statute book before that September summit?

[Mr Mitchell]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his warm wishes for now. On the second part of his question, he will have seen in the coalition document that we are committed to enshrining in legislation our commitment to an aid target of 0.7 % of gross national income by 2013. If he will bide his time in patience, he will see that that is precisely what we will do. On his first point about the critical importance of taking forward the agenda on the MDGs, which is so off-track at present, he will be interested to hear that the Prime Minister will meet the Prime Minister of Canada tomorrow to discuss the approach of the G8 to the MDGs. In particular, in respect of MDG 5 concerning maternal mortality, which is so off-track, we have specific plans to try and give that a boost.