Global Britain

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my colleague from the Treasury Committee, the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh).

When politicians break manifesto pledges, they normally pay a price at the ballot box at the subsequent election. Think of George H. W. Bush and his “Read my lips: no new taxes”; he then raised taxes and did not get a second term. Think of Nick Clegg and his pledge on cutting tuition fees to zero; tuition fees were then tripled and the Liberal Democrats lost 85% of their parliamentary seats at the next election. However, the breaking of a manifesto pledge to spend 0.7% of national income on helping the world’s extreme poor will probably be seen as a good thing by quite a few UK voters, yet the victims are unable to speak up in today’s debate. That is why it is so important for those of us who have had the privilege of seeing the good that UK aid does around the world to speak up on behalf of those who will lose out from the decision at the spending review to cut the aid budget to 0.5%.

Obviously it is not a good idea to break any manifesto pledge, but it is deeply shameful for the only manifesto pledge broken to be the commitment we made to the world’s poorest. If Members have seen the way in which nutrition is given to babies in Ethiopia or Somalia, they will realise that more babies will die if we cut the UK aid budget. If Members have witnessed the invention of the cold-chain deployment of the Ebola vaccine to the furthest reaches of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, paid for by UK aid, they will know that it has helped us to develop the cold-chain deployment of the current Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. In fact, deploying vaccines saves lives—including lives here in the UK. Anyone who has seen the enthusiasm with which girls in Sierra Leone study their lessons will know that the best chance that poor countries have to move beyond aid is through universal access to quality education. Fewer children will finish school if we give less in aid.

We have heard today how global Britain will be presiding over the G7 and COP26, and there are going to be excellent uses for UK aid at those events. We will also be giving a generous amount to GAVI, but would it not be wonderful if it were the UK vaccine that was being deployed around the world? This is a year in which we should be increasing our aid budget, not cutting it.