0.7% Official Development Assistance Target

Debate between Hilary Benn and Nigel Evans

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

With respect to the hon. Gentleman, that is not the point. We made a promise. I presume he is as committed to keeping promises he makes as the rest of us here in this Chamber.

What of the human cost? We heard from the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) in her powerful speech about lives blighted, lives shortened and lives lost. Let me just take one example. How can it be right to cut aid for clean water by 80%? The arguments against doing that are so strong, such as the importance of clean water for hand-washing in a pandemic. There is the fact that the single most important thing we can do if we want to reduce infant mortality, apart from improving immediate postnatal care, is provide clean water, because every day babies and small children die because they drink dirty water. Clean water helps girls to go to school, the very thing that the Government say is a priority.

As International Development Secretary—the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield talked about his experience—I learned that there are moments when those of who have the privilege to do the job have our minds changed. We learn and we understand, and we realise why something is so important. In this example, I came across a well one day with a lot of people standing around it. I was told that the well was closed. I had never come across a closed well before, but it was explained that because demand for water in that part of the city was so high, after the first rush of buckets was drawn from it in the morning, the well had to be closed so that the water table had time to replenish to allow the well to be reopened.

One of the people waiting was a girl of about 13 or 14. The well was here and she was standing there—I can remember it to this day. She told me in a very quiet voice that it was her responsibility in her family to get the water every day, because until she did so, she could not go to school. Because the well was closed not just that day, but many days, she was often late for class. That is what this is about: a lack of plentiful, clean water, which all of us here take for granted, meant a lack of education for her and millions of other girls like her.

Are we really going to say that it is acceptable to cut our support for clean water? Is anyone actually going to argue that these cuts are popular with the British people? I fundamentally disagree; the British people are much more compassionate than that. It is not a competition between charity at home and aid abroad. We can, we should, we must do both.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

With immediate effect, there is a time limit of four minutes.

Fire Safety Bill

Debate between Hilary Benn and Nigel Evans

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 22nd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab) [V]]

I will be supporting the amendment moved by the Bishop of St Albans, because in circumstances where leaseholders are beset by worry, fear and uncertainty, it will provide them with the reassurance that they will not have to pay to fix a problem for which they are not responsible. It will also make the Government realise that they have to come forward with a different solution.

There are two problems here: the first is dangerous cladding and the second is other fire safety defects, which have been discovered in building after building. The Government appear to be in the position where the funding they have announced will pay for the remediation of missing fire cavity barriers where they are integral to the replacement of dangerous cladding, but not where they are not—in other words, where they are elsewhere in the building. I do not really understand that. Can the Minister say whether, if the works the Government are prepared to fund through the scheme are completed, the buildings in question will be declared safe so that the waking watch and insurance costs disappear even if the other fire safety defects have not been fixed?

Time, however, is not on our side, because we know how long making all of these homes safe is going to take, even if all the necessary funding had already been identified.

There are detailed inspections to be done, tenders have to be put together, firms found who are willing to do the work, and scaffolding and building materials have to be ordered before the work can even begin. So, given the scale of this, it is going to take a long time. But that is the one thing that leaseholders do not have, because, as we have heard, they are paying bills that they cannot afford.

Even worse, the bills are now starting to arrive on their doormats demanding payment to fix the cladding. One recent example was a demand for £71,000. It might as well be for £1 million, because there is no prospect of leaseholders being able to find that kind of money.

So the longer this goes on, the more likely we are to see leaseholders becoming bankrupt. What are the local authorities going to do when they turn up at their door and say, “I’m homeless; I need somewhere to stay”? And make no mistake: the anger that leaseholders are feeling at the moment will be something else again when they find themselves being made homeless through no fault of their own.

So, let us do the right thing today to protect leaseholders, and then the Government can turn their attention to finding an answer that will actually work. At a time when people are getting bills to the tune, as I have just said, of £71,000 through the letterbox, to stand up and say, “I’m really sorry, but this isn’t the right legislation” demonstrates a failure to understand the nightmare that so many of the people we represent are living through.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I will call the Minister to wind-up the debate at five to 9.