Official Development Assistance and the British Council

Kenny MacAskill Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (Alba)]

First of all, and rather unusually, I pay tribute to some Members on the Government Benches. They have kept the flame alive, if I can put it that way, of the 0.7% share that should be paid. It is never easy to speak out as a Member of the governing party. I have been in that position. It would be churlish to say that it is down to patronage or threats. Ultimately, it is about loyalty to a cause that you stand by, so I pay tribute to those Members who have spoken out against their own Administration and, in respect of their own principles, have supported what was not just principle but a manifesto commitment. It cannot have been easy, but they have the power to change. We Opposition Members have the power to protest and to hold to account, but the fundamental change required cannot come today. That must come from those on the Government Benches. I encourage them to keep the faith, and I pay tribute to the efforts they have made to date. It is essential for the reasons that others have mentioned: it is a moral necessity; it is an economic imperative; and it is a health and wellbeing requirement, not just for ourselves but for the entire world.

Only a few weeks after the Prime Minister’s trumpeting of this issue at the G7 summit, it appears that we are going into reverse. I accept that there is a logic and a rationale in what the Government argue. The 0.7% commitment is met by only two countries—Denmark and France, if memory serves—but that does not mean that we should seek to follow those other countries. This is a time to take a lead, because it is a necessity not only for others, as has been said by almost every speaker, but for ourselves. I ask the Government to stick to the principles that were stood on and supported by all parties in the last election, and that remain in their manifesto.

Of course, it is in our own economic interest. There are those who trumpet Brexit as part of a new global Britain of free trade around the world. Let us remember that there can only be free trade if we can stimulate demand. If countries are too poor to be able to buy our goods and services, then we cannot generate the work here. We have to use some Keynesian logic and economics to ensure that they have the resource available to acquire things from us; and we must support, as many Members have said, measures to address starvation, flooding and all the dangers that too often blight so many lands. We will benefit economically from giving aid and we will face consequences if we do not, so it is in our own interests.

It is, however, also primarily a moral necessity. It is an unfair world. The opulence in this House, and most especially in the House just along the corridor, confirms the wealth that has been generated over many years. We see it north and south of the border; we see it in every city. We have benefited from it over many years. Of course, in those years, people have worked hard and have shown endeavour and risk, but let us also remember that one reason we have this wealth here—not just in this city, but in Glasgow, Edinburgh and across the whole of this country—is that we have exploited; we have enforced deals on colonies and on other nations. We have taken from them. We made sure that we stripped them of their natural resources and that they had to buy the product that was created from ourselves.

Giving development aid is not simply about charity; it is about taking responsibility for actions that this country participated in, along with others in the developed world. We did it, the French did it, the Dutch did it, the Belgians did it and on it went. The western and developed world accrued their wealth at the expense of what is now the developing world, because we took from them and insisted that we benefited from their natural resources. This is not about giving charity; this is about their right. It is our obligation to give back and to try to provide that fairness.

The Government talk about a levelling-up agenda, and they are right; there has to be a levelling-up agenda not simply in the north of England, but, indeed, across the border between Scotland and England. Fundamentally, though, there has to be a levelling up across this globe between the northern and southern hemispheres. The wrong and the poverty that exist, which manifest themselves in the UK in the north-south divide, exist on planet Earth in a north-south divide and it is our obligation and a necessity that we take action to reverse that.

This is also about health and wellbeing. Some statistics I saw yesterday showed that 85% of shots or vaccinations have been carried out in upper and middle-income tier countries. A total of 0.3%—not even 0.7%—has been carried out in lower-income countries. We have already seen what has happened with the delta variant. If we want to make sure that we do not face a further variant that will not be dealt with by our vaccines—as epidemiologists fear—then we must take steps to ensure that we support the health and welfare within those countries. That is why it is in our own interests to ensure that we provide that 0.7%.

Finally, in the short time that I have left, I want to comment on the position being taken on women and girls. That is fundamental. As a former Justice Secretary, I recall dealing with violence reduction. We made great progress in Scotland in tackling violence reduction. There is still a long way to go, but I say this because it is a microcosm. We were doing youth five-aside football at night to stop young men drinking and participating in gang violence and whatever. The lightbulb moment came for some police officers when they suddenly realised that they were keeping the lads out of trouble, but standing around waiting to speak to the lads were all the young teenage girls. The officers realised that if they did not deal with these teenage girls, they would be dealing with their children in 16 years’ time. Anybody who has seen the Justice Analytical Services’ correlation between youth offending, criminal offending and teenage pregnancies will know that it is stark. That is a microcosm. If we want to make these countries better, we must pour resources into women and children, as we do to make a fairer country in this land. As I have said, it is for these reasons—for our own economic wellbeing, for our moral purpose, and, equally, for our own health and wellbeing—that we have to have 0.7%.