Poverty Eradication and sustainable development
Debate between Grant Shapps and Diane Abbott(9 years, 1 month ago)
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The Chair
We now have 47 minutes for questions to the Minister. I remind Members that their questions should be brief. It is open to a Member, subject to my discretion, to ask related, supplementary questions. I will usually allow one question and one supplementary, and then move on to somebody else.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
I welcome the opportunity to scrutinise these important documents on the global partnership for poverty eradication and sustainable development. We broadly share the Government’s approach. I simply want to ask two questions.
These new development goals build on the original millennium development goals. We cannot go forward until we properly understand what happened previously. Will the Minister provide a full report on our delivery of the millennium goals, because I think that will provide the only sound basis for going forward to a new set of goals?
The global goals will be goals that we have to implement nationally. Some of them, in relation to broad development issues, are relatively achievable. However, do the Government have a plan specifically to take action on reducing inequalities in the UK, which is one of the new global goals?
Grant Shapps
The big difference with the original millennium goals was that they referred to developing countries. The global goals apply to us all, as the hon. Lady’s question implies.
We are absolutely determined to learn lessons from the original millennium goals. A huge amount of work has gone into this. When I was in New York for the UNGA and the launch of the new global goals, I attended many sessions that dealt with the extent to which the millennium goals have been implemented. I spent a lot of time looking at the relative success of DFID in the countries that we work with, particularly in Africa, and at their achievements against those goals. A large body of work was involved in that and I am very happy to write to the hon. Lady with further details on the extent to which we judged the millennium goals had been met.
The hon. Lady is right to say that the new global goals affect us all. We have signed up just as much as any of the African countries I was talking about. All the goals apply to us. It is early days, as I mentioned in my speech. The UK will be developing a framework for the way in which the goals will be judged. The Office for National Statistics will play a key role in that process and is currently working on it.
The hon. Lady specifically mentioned the issue of inequality. The Government are passionate about dealing with inequality. We believe that the best way to deal with it is to make sure that, for example, in this country, unemployment levels are kept low. We have half the unemployment level of our nearest similar economy, France—exactly half its unemployment level. Inequality is best tackled by making sure that people have work.
Inequality is certainly one of the areas that will be judged by the new global goals. Members will have more detail shortly on how that will be put into statistics.
Grant Shapps
I thank again my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford for bringing this matter to the Committee for debate. It is an important issue with many wide-ranging consequences, as we heard from the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, stretching to many areas that are not immediately obvious from the 17 goals and 169 targets in the agenda. Our debate could range widely, but I will restrict my closing remarks to the points that have been raised.
As I have said, the agenda is one not just for Department for International Development, but for all parts of Government. We will play our important supporting role in trying to ensure that the global goals are delivered. Climate change was mentioned, along with the extent of the United Kingdom’s commitment on that. If my memory serves me correctly, £3.89 billion was dedicated to the International Climate Fund in the previous spending round. That figure has recently been increased by 50% to £5.9 billion. Although not doubling down, 50% is a pretty big addition to a budget designed to do exactly what the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington talked about, namely to continue to work on climate change.
On the more intricate details, the hon. Lady questioned whether we were still committed to zero-carbon homes. As she will know, I was Housing Minister at one point, so can tell her that back in the 1990s homes built in the UK were emitting enormous amounts of carbon and were very energy inefficient, whereas the level of efficiency is now so close to zero-carbon that off-site allowances finish that off. I would not want Members to think that we were in any way watering down the targets; in fact, the United Kingdom will meet its national obligations, and is also putting enormous amounts of money into trying to meet international obligations.
Our wide-ranging debate strayed on to the migrant crisis and burden sharing. No country in Europe has done as much as the United Kingdom, not just during the crisis that hit everyone’s TVs this summer, but in the longer-running crisis, over three or four years, of the Syrian war. Over £1.1 billion has been invested in Syria to help people to stay in or close to home. I am not sure that the wisest approach is to encourage people to make life-endangering journeys. Britain has a proud record on this matter. It is absolutely right that we have been in there helping a lot earlier than other Governments.
Ms Abbott
No one is talking about encouraging people to make life-threatening journeys. The fact is that tens of thousands people have already made those journeys and are attempting to live in terrible conditions in Greece and Italy. It is not about encouraging anyone; with winter coming and people fleeing Russian bombing, the question is, what are we going to do to support the people who have already made those journeys?
Grant Shapps
Although this goes beyond the subject of the global goals, it is none the less important to consider whether Germany’s opening of the doors to a million people will then encourage a further million people to make that journey, thereby putting people’s lives at risk, and whether it is therefore better to tackle the problems people are experiencing at their root, in and around Syria. That is why I make the point that Britain has not suddenly joined the relief effort this summer; we have been involved for many years and have spent well over £1 billion. That is a proud record. As the hon. Lady knows and recognises, we have also launched a scheme to help 20,000 people come to this country. Of course we can debate the numbers and the rest of it, but I believe Britain stands tall in the world for having done more than any other country in Europe to prevent people from making that dangerous journey—and, by the way, in doing so, we have prevented a brain drain of the most fit, able and bright people from crisis-hit areas.
The hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Glasgow North mentioned the 0.7% target and how the money is spent. We will rigorously ensure that the 0.7% is spent properly and appropriately, and I welcome their keen eye on this. The House is absolutely right to want to see in great detail how that money is spent. In fact, this is an area in which transparency improves every aspect of international development. I genuinely believe that when we can see how money is spent and when people can challenge the process, we spend the money more wisely and get better outcomes. Within the Department for International Development, we will do everything possible to ensure that the books are as open as possible. We are one of the most scrutinised Departments, and I welcome that.
Ms Abbott
Does the Minister agree that transparency is not only important to the British taxpayer? It is also important, in our relationship with the countries to which we are giving aid quite generously, that the populations of those countries have transparency about how British aid money is being spent and whether it is really being spent to their benefit, rather than only to the benefit of local elites and the aid industry.
Grant Shapps
I absolutely agree. What the hon. Lady describes is, of course, the golden thread, which is about ensuring money is spent wisely and for the broadest possible spread of the population. Transparency enables people to see that their institutions are serving the broad mass of people rather than the elites, as she suggests.
The hon. Lady reminds me of a point she raised in her initial intervention about direct budget support. There is now almost no direct budget support through the DFID programme. In fact, I spend much of my time meeting Governments who are pleading for direct budget support. In many cases, we do not think that is a suitable way to spend money, not least because it tends to lack the transparency that she and others have called for, as we cannot see how those systems are spending the money. I agree that it is important to ensure that money is spent transparently. That takes many different forms, and she and I are on exactly the same page in terms of the golden thread and ensuring money is spent to the benefit of the masses, not the elites.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Grant Shapps and Diane Abbott(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend will be pleased to hear that we work in various countries, through the returns and reintegration fund. I mentioned Jamaica. There are also examples in Ghana, which I will shortly visit, and Nigeria, where I have just been.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
Where does building prisons fit into the UK’s stated spending priorities for foreign aid? Does the Minister understand concerns about aid money perhaps increasingly being siphoned off for other purposes?
Grant Shapps
As the hon. Lady knows, we have a strict regime for where money is spent and how it fits into official development assistance expenditure. In the end, this is about security both in those countries and at home.