Foreign Affairs and International Development

Debate between Ivan Lewis and Michael McCann

Tuesday 15th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lewis]

I meant to say retire—although, knowing Dave Fish, now that we have a Tory Government, he might be about to resign. I am sorry, Mr Speaker, that was not a serious suggestion. He has served both Governments with great distinction, as I think the Secretary of State would acknowledge. He has been one of the wisest voices and has a great understanding of the many political dilemmas in Africa. So, seriously, I think that Members on both sides of the House would like to pay tribute to him.

[Mr McCann]

I should like to ask the whole House to pay tribute to Dave Fish. He was my first boss in the Overseas Development Administration, now DFID, in East Kilbride. He has done marvellous work in every single job he has been given by the Government, irrespective of which political party has been in power, and it is important that we recognise his contribution to international development across the globe.

[Mr Lewis]

I agree entirely. Dave Fish embodies the best of the British civil service, and it is important to place that on the record here this evening.

My hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) was absolutely right to point out the dangers of the austerity programme being pursued by this Government and others. It is clear that, economically, it has been a failure, and what we desperately need in this country and across Europe is a set of serious policies for jobs and growth.

My hon. Friends the Members for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) and for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) raised the question of Israel/Palestine. There is absolutely no doubt that in that part of the middle east we urgently need security and normalisation for the state of Israel, and dignity and statehood for the Palestinians. A lack of progress on the two-state solution is creating instability in the middle east as a whole, and we need rapid political progress.

I shall turn now specifically to development. Rooted in my party’s DNA is a commitment to social justice, not only in our country but across the world. For Labour, ensuring that the United Kingdom plays a leading role in aid and development is not political positioning or the detoxification of our brand; it is the application of our core values. I am immensely proud of our legacy. Through the political leadership of Tony Blair and my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), we led and changed the world. Labour’s international leadership achieved great results by cancelling debt, increasing aid, improving trading opportunities, leading on climate change, creating DFID as a Cabinet-level Department and championing the millennium development goals.

In these difficult, austere times, we—and enlightened right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House—recognise our duty to make the case to the British people that we should continue to honour our commitments to the world’s poorest. We should do so because levels of poverty and inequality remain an affront to humanity, but also because it is in our national interest. Poverty is frequently the breeding ground for the terrorists who threaten our national security, and yesterday’s poor nations are our trading partners of today and tomorrow.

The idea that spending 0.7% of our gross national income on aid is excessive simply does not stand up to scrutiny, even in the context of difficult times and difficult choices. There are those who argue that aid does not reach the people who really need it and that it is invariably misused by corrupt agencies or Governments. That is a sweeping generalisation and it is not supported by the facts. There is of course a need to focus on global aid effectiveness and transparency. That formed a central part of the agreement at the 2008 Accra conference, which was brokered by my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary. He asked me to include that point in my speech.

Aid has made, and does make, a tremendous difference. The UK’s support to developing counties under the Labour Government was life changing. Over 10 years, we enabled the distribution of 70 million bed nets, provided more than 1.4 million people with antiretroviral therapy in Africa through bilateral aid, assisted more than 12 million people through food security programmes, trained 165,000 teachers and provided loans for 450,000 entrepreneurs in Helmand and ensured that 19,000 women could get a proper education in Pakistan.

I have made it clear that we will support the Government when they do the right thing. If they honour Labour’s commitment to achieve 0.7% by 2013, we will support them. I do not doubt the Secretary of State’s personal commitment to development. However, when the Government are wrong or break their promises, we will not hesitate to hold them to account.

The Government’s failure to include the 0.7% aid commitment in legislation in the first Queen’s Speech breached a clear Tory manifesto commitment and a key element of the coalition agreement. Their failure to include it in this second Queen’s Speech is not only a broken promise, but represents something far more significant—a Prime Minister weakened by the omnishambles of recent months with no authority to change his party and a Chancellor pandering to the right, always with an eye to the succession. Development policy should not be used as a dividing line for internal ideological battles in the Tory party; it is too important for that. Will the Secretary of State now confirm when the Government will bring forward the legislation and whether there will be full Government support and co-operation for any private Member’s Bill that seeks to enshrine the 0.7% commitment in law?