International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Friday 12th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Doughty]

If the economy grows, it will do, of course. The crucial thing is that we are tying this to the state of our overall economy, but it is also setting a worldwide standard, and it is meeting a promise we made in the 1970s, and which, indeed, all parties in this House committed to.

We could give many examples. The right hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman) mentioned one from Malawi, and I have seen for myself the impact of effective aid led by the expertise in DFID, whether in Sierra Leone in tackling maternal mortality and the deaths of young children, and the impact we were able to make with a very small contribution and removing user fees for basic health care services; in our action to tackle malaria, on which the right hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr O'Brien) did excellent work in his time as Minister in the Department; or through the education programmes we have funded, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, the former Prime Minister, spoke about. There is also our work on HIV and AIDS, which I know many Members are very passionate about, and, indeed, our humanitarian work.

It was also a privilege to be able to serve alongside people from DFID, the Ministry of Defence, the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Service and the Foreign Office, who worked on our response to the terrible Haiti earthquake many years ago. Disasters such as Haiti demonstrate exactly what is at stake. In addition to providing the immediate humanitarian response, we also need to address the underlying causes of vulnerability in those situations. That requires long-term, predictable and assured assistance from countries such as ours.

The argument about predictability has been put forward a number of times. Members have asked why we need the Bill, and why we need to firm up this commitment and put it into law. The reason is that the predictable assurance of effective aid in the long term creates an ability to move away from aid. If we can support countries in building up strong health and education systems and good governance, we will ultimately be able to move them away from needing development assistance.

This activity also helps to create a social contract in countries where people should be able to expect services such as health and education to be provided by their Government. Our assistance can get them over that hump. That is what happened in this country. Let us not forget that, many years ago, health care and education services were provided voluntarily, as charity, here before we moved to nationally funded systems. We can have a debate about how those systems should be handled in the future, but we have moved to those national systems with national standards and predictable, secure funding. That creates an expectation among the population and helps to further democracy and the overall quality of life in a country. We should never forget that. This is a fundamental point to be made to those who ask why we need this commitment.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that another important consequence of predictable funding is that, through DFID, we are able to support long-term programmes of research, particularly agricultural research and health research into much needed vaccines and medicines? Does he agree that those are global public goods?

[Stephen Doughty]

I thoroughly agree with the hon. Gentleman. I have seen many of those programmes at work, and we should pay tribute to those in DFID who work on them. DFID is a world leader in research on many of these issues, and we need to see long-term funding going into those programmes to enable us to come up with solutions for agriculture, for vaccinations and for other crucial areas. In the end, such solutions will remove the need for further support. We need the assurance for that funding, however, because if it is simply left to the whims and the day-to-day politics of this place and of other countries around the world, it could easily fall victim to the siren voices, which would ultimately do long-term damage as we would not be able to achieve the scale and effectiveness that we require.

Many right hon. and hon. Members have mentioned the importance of Scotland. It is exemplified by the fact that the Bill is being promoted by the right hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk and by the presence today of the Chairman of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Gordon. We must remember the impact that Scotland has had on these debates, not only here in the House but globally. I mentioned the impact of the Make Poverty History march in Scotland before the Gleneagles summit. That summit would not have taken place there if Scotland had not been part of the United Kingdom. The people of Scotland who feel passionately about these issues would not have been able to have that impact on cancelling debt, trebling aid and arguing for fairer trade rules had that summit not taken place in Scotland and had we not had leaders including our Prime Minister and Chancellor who were willing to stand up for those issues and respond to those campaigners.

Some of the most excellent DFID staff are to be found in Scotland, in East Kilbride. I have had the pleasure of visiting their offices. The right hon. Member for Gordon and my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke) have rightly said that it would be a huge tragedy to lose them. In response to the hon. Member for Angus (Mr Weir), I would say that, yes, Scotland could have an aid programme—it already gives support to Malawi and other countries, and that is fantastic—but effective aid depends on scale. It depends on doing things together and working with institutions such as the European Union and the United Nations and with successful, long-established development agencies such as DFID. Breaking that up in order to set up a separate scheme and badge it in a different way would be foolish. It would be a sad ending for the hundreds of thousands of people who stood on the streets of Edinburgh in 2005.

The Bill is about investing in the future of some of the world’s poorest people. It is also about investing in our own common future. This is the right thing to do. It is about justice, not charity. It is about putting Britain on the world stage and doing the right thing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

No, I will not.

I can mention two organisations in my constituency in that regard: Mpika Relief Fund does a fantastic amount of work helping people in Africa, and there is one in Burley-in-Wharfedale that does a similar job. They raise money for very worthwhile causes. I very much support what they do; I have even made donations to them in the past. What they spend their money on is much more worthwhile than these grandiose schemes that the Government come up with, where Ministers like to go out and say how wonderful they are because they are indulging their largesse everywhere. I prefer the smaller schemes that are run bottom-up from organisations like the ones in my constituency.

It might even be a good idea for the Government to offer tax relief for people who want to go out to other countries to help with particular projects. I would welcome that.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

It might help my hon. Friend to know that, actually, the gift aid from those kinds of donations is included within the 0.7% we are talking about, so that is happening at the moment.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is missing my point. I am not talking about gift aid on donations. I am talking about tax relief to help assist people who want to go out and do something practical themselves—who want to give up their job for a while to do something worthwhile. That would be a much more valuable and worthwhile thing for the Government to do than simply flex their muscles on how much they spend.

Because I am feeling in a generous mood, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will give way to the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), seeing as she is so excitable about intervening.