International Disaster Relief

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) on setting the scene so well, as he always does in debates in Westminster Hall. Debates here often are used to raise issues that are important to us, which is what the hon. Gentleman has done. Other hon. Members and I are here because we share his interest and concerns.

I have been outspoken on the obligation of those who have much to those who have little. We have a duty to help and to show compassion for those in need. However, having been brought up as an Ulster Scot with some Brethren ties, let me assure hon. Members that we are called to be good stewards of our money. We need to ensure that what we send gets to where it should get to and that it helps those who we want to help. There has to be some monitoring and regulation to make sure that it happens. For that reason, although I support overseas aid, I am concerned about how it is used. It is easy to dismiss the many newspaper and media reports, but they raise some concerns about where the moneys are spent.

I am always pleased to see the Minister in his place, because we all know him to have compassion and a real deep interest in his subject matter. There will be no one in the House or outside it, I suspect, who would do anything other than support him in his work. I asked the former Secretary of State for International Development what recent estimate had made of the proportion of the Palestinian Authority’s foreign aid receipts spent on payments to convicted terrorists in Israeli prisons in the last 12 months. The response I received was excellent, and I thank the Minister for it. It stated:

“In August 2017, the International Monetary Fund estimated that external financial support to the Palestinian Authority (PA) in 2017 will total $666 million USD (approx. £500 million GBP). Many donors, including the UK and European Union, restrict their support to the PA for specific purposes and projects, and ensure that none of their aid is used for payments to convicted terrorists in Israeli prisons. No estimates have been made of the proportion of the PA’s external financial support which was spent on payments to convicted terrorists in Israeli prisons in the last 12 months.”

It continued:

“No UK aid is used for payments to Palestinian prisoners or their families. UK financial assistance to the PA is only used to help to pay the salaries of health and education public servants in the West Bank. Only named public servants from a pre-approved EU list are eligible and a robust verification system validates that funds are used for the intended purposes. The UK government strongly condemns all forms of violence including incitement to violence.”

That reply was exactly what I wanted. It sets the scene and puts to rest some of my concerns, and outlines where we are. I welcome that good, comprehensive response.

It is essential that we know where the relief is going, who has their hands on it and who the beneficiaries of the relief are. I always give examples from Northern Ireland and my own constituency because I want everybody inside and outside this House to know about Strangford. I recently hosted a fund-raising dinner for my branch of the Democratic Unionist party. We have a dinner every year and have done so for the past five years. The dinner has a dual purpose. The event is in a local church that provides a fantastic four-course meal for those who purchase tickets. It is in a lovely area and the proceeds raised from the price of a meal go to a charity in Swaziland, the Eden Mission. It does great work: it digs wells and provides schooling and health services. The hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) is nodding his head. Like me, he understands that we have a close connection with what is happening.

I have hosted the dinner for the past five years and will continue to do so. I trust what the mission does and it promises to make a difference in Swaziland. I have seen the children’s choir that the mission brought to Northern Ireland. They have sung in my office and in the halls of Stormont, where the Northern Ireland Assembly functioned until a short time ago. We hope it will function again, but we must wait and see. I know that the choice I made to host my dinner in a church hall as opposed to a local restaurant that would charge roughly the same was a good decision to make. Just over £1,000 was raised for the charity. The church did the catering and we had some auctions.

My desire is to make sure that we make good decisions about how our aid is spent and who the real beneficiaries are. The project that I support sends containers out every year to Africa. The project workers tell me stories about what happens. They pack the container to within an inch of its life. Every conceivable portion of space is used. Sweets and clothes are packed into every crevice of the container. They also tell me that they have learnt the lesson of packing because they found that when they packed expensive items, such as wheelchairs and schooling aids, to the front, those would go missing during customs searches. That is a fact. It happened. It is unfortunate it happened, but it did. They have learnt to pack the expensive items in the middle of the container to make it harder to take them.

When I was told that story I wondered how much of our aid—I pose this as a question—has been siphoned off and whether we are doing all we can to protect our aid and to pack it in the middle, as it were, as my church, an Eden Church, has done in the past. This is why I asked the Secretary of State for International Development what monitoring the Department undertakes to ensure that aid granted to specific areas is used for the purposes for which it was intended; and whether it will liaise with religious missionaries in the destination country to ensure that UK aid is effectively distributed. The reply was excellent.

I do not question that the effective use of the UK aid budget is central to the Department for International Development’s work. I understand that all funding is subject to rigorous due diligence checks and that we have strict auditing and monitoring controls in place to ensure that all funding is used as it should be, and that every project is subject to an annual performance review and a project completion review to ensure that the objectives have been achieved and aid has been delivered to the intended beneficiaries. I am pleased that the Department uses multiple sources of information, including its partnerships with civil society, to be confident that UK aid reaches those intended. However, I would push for greater interaction with those on the ground who are able to distribute the aid.

I again ask the Minister whether he will outline what work is done with NGOs to see that aid reaches the mouths of the babies with bellies swollen from malnutrition, and not the custom official with a swollen belly from too much food. It may be a little harsh to say that, but it is a fact. I have seen photographs—we have all seen them—of bellies swollen because of malnutrition and a big guy across the way whose idea of a balanced meal is probably two hamburgers in each hand. He seems to indulge in food when others are starving. I feel genuinely aggrieved by that. When we see the starving children, any person with any compassion whatever would be well aware of that. Having heard at first hand the struggles that children in Africa and other areas go through to survive, and understanding that there is a limited amount that this country can afford to give, every penny must be made to count. That is why I urge the Government again to ensure that it counts on the ground and not simply on a checklist on a desk.

Should we give aid internationally, despite the pressure we face at home? Yes, we should, and I fully endorse the Minister’s and the Government’s stand. Indeed, they have cross-party support. Should we account for every penny, every blanket, every grain of rice? We must, because it is our job to be good stewards. Should we make use of on-the-ground agencies and bodies? That is wisdom and good stewardship. I thank DFID and the Minister for the leadership and stewardship that he gives to the Department. That is why we have trust in him and support him. 1 want to make sure we are doing all that is possible to get it right.

[Several hon. Members rose—]