Official Development Assistance

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) for securing this debate. I want to speak from the perspective of someone who had the privilege of being a joint Minister: Minister for Africa in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and a Minister within DFID. I could not have done either job as well without the other. It was incredibly valuable to have the overall perspective.

I am old enough to know that it is not organisational structures here in Whitehall that matter, but the purpose of what we are doing on the ground. We have a very good framework, with the sustainable development goals, which we are working towards in this decade of action up to 2030, and we should focus, as many posts do across the world, on what they are seeking to achieve. When I held those joint roles, I was able to achieve a lot of the things that we will want to be doing, such as stepping up the money being spent on anti-corruption and governance, including good governance in Ukraine and the western Balkans. These things we all feasible because I had that joint role, and I am willing to believe that, provided we continue to focus on the true purpose, this can work well.

On the issue at hand, I want the Minister to give three reassurances when he responds to the debate. First, will he reassure the House that there will still be a strong voice at Cabinet for the very poorest in the world? We will leave a better world to our children if we can have a healthier, more educated, a more peaceful, freer, more democratic and more climate-resilient world.

Secondly, as the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) just said, we need to make sure that the vast majority of the 0.7% continues to be spent in the very poorest and most conflict-affected parts of the world.

Thirdly, as colleagues will know, I am passionate about the importance of girls’ education and the 12 years of quality education. It is wonderful that the Prime Minister has been such an effective advocate for that cause. It will increase the size of the economy, increase health, reduce poverty, make the world more secure and help our climate, as it reduces population pressures. As the Prime Minister himself has put it, it is the Swiss army knife of development; will the Minister assure me that the Government will continue to emphasise it in their funding as much as they have previously?

In conclusion, I can be open-minded on the structures, as long as the purpose is there. However, in respect of scrutiny in this place, it would be right to have a separate Committee to look at international development.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

I rise to speak on the merger of DFID with the Foreign Office. It is an estimates debate, but the decision as to whether International Development and the Foreign Office should be one Department or two is not about money. Even if it were, to expect it to happen now, at the height of the pandemic when civil servants should be focusing on the UK and world recovery, is an appalling waste of already overstretched resources. No, it is not about money: it is fundamentally about how the UK views its role in the world. It is about values and whether we pursue our obligations as a relatively wealthy country to do right by the poor and most marginalised of the world, while also pursuing our foreign policy, but as distinct objectives. I fear we will subsume those obligations to the poor of the world into the Foreign Office, whose priorities are not about development.

The Prime Minister indicated recently that there is now likely to be a reprioritisation of aid spending. He said

“We give as much aid to Zambia as we do to Ukraine, although the latter is vital for European security”.

He added that the UK must use its

“aid budget and expertise, to safeguard British interests and values overseas.”—[Official Report, 16 June 2020; Vol. 677, c. 667-8.]

What are those values? To me, development is not about national security interests. I believe it is about how we demonstrate our moral compass in the world—

[Harriett Baldwin]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Ruth Cadbury]

I am not going to give way, because many others want to speak.

The Labour Government of 1997 to 2010 created DFID, following the Pergau dam scandal. It demonstrated our Labour values in its record subsequently on international development and poverty reduction, improving sanitation for over 1.5 million and lifting 40 million children out of poverty. But in the past 10 years DFID’s role in overseas development aid has gradually been reduced. Now DFID spends only 73% of ODA, the rest being spent by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, BEIS and so on. To be fair, DFID has been a shining light and demonstration of the UK’s moral values around the world. DFID has also been rated as the most effective and transparent of Government Departments, delivering real value for money and spending only 2%, of its spend on administration. Meanwhile almost half of the FCO’s spend on ODA goes on administration.

So many key people have criticised this move, including three former Prime Ministers and all the NGOs, bar one, in the field. DFID was created by the incoming Labour Government in 1997 to create a distinct policy line. I am proud of our experience, which has provided life-changing and life-saving support.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) on calling this debate. It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess). I will try to make three or four points as briefly as possible.

The idea that foreign policy is separate from aid has been well and truly kicked into touch by my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts). Whether we like it or not, there is a link between them, and it is better to recognise that, to understand that foreign policy should be moral as well as aid and to understand their combination.

I would ask the Minister three things. First, can we look at strategy as part of global Britain? We have the National Security Council. However, I feel that since the end of the cold war we have been a little complacent in preparing for future problems.

We need a national strategy council to permanently look five and 10 years ahead, whether that is into pandemics, the behaviour of nation states such as China and Russia, or climate change. We are not forward-thinking enough, and that is one of the contributions I would like us to make to understand how we can bring strategy more into our forward-looking policy.

Secondly, when it comes to overseas spending, when I was writing the “Global Britain” document last year that the Prime Minister very kindly wrote the foreword for, we tried to understand where our overseas money was going. Some of it was being spent by the Department for International Development, some by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, some by the Home Office and some by the Foreign Office—quite badly, often. I can congratulate DFID on the quality of its spending, no doubt about it. We do not have an audit of our overseas spending, and I believe that we badly need one. There is no doubt in this House that poverty alleviation is critical—it is moral; it is right; it is good. Grassroots development is critical—it is moral, right and good.

My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) talked about gender-based violence. I was involved in the campaign against ISIS when we were trying to liberate Mosul and it haunts me still, and makes me deeply upset still, that we knew that we were trying to liberate a city where not only were people being tortured, but women were being raped until their internal organs were collapsing and dying. These things are deeply worrying, and we need strategy. We need DFID and the Foreign Office to be working together on this, but there is a lot of DFID spending that is not on priority areas and spending that is justifiably questionable, so can we please have an audit of overseas spending?

In the 30 seconds I have left, I say that we do need to look again at ODA. We are permanently trying to revise the rules on ODA and we should not be ashamed to do so. For example, we can fund a coal-fired power station but we cannot fund the BBC to develop civil society. I believe that the BBC World Service should be funded from ODA.

[Harriett Baldwin]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Bob Seely]

I would love to, but Madam Deputy Speaker, you are indicating that I should not—I have 10 seconds left. Peacekeeping—MOD peacekeeping—and the BBC should also be funded more than they are from ODA.