0.7% Official Development Assistance Target

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin), the former Minister, on her speech. She speaks very powerfully from her own experience of visiting projects. When I was first elected back in 2005, the first overseas visit I was invited to go on was when Oxfam took me to the camps for internally displaced people in the north of Uganda. I had never seen poverty on that scale. It was very much like the sorts of images that we would have seen during the Live Aid broadcasts. That made a huge impact on me, and I have seen on other overseas trips—for example, to look at our disaster relief effort after the earthquake in Kashmir—how much good we can do on the ground, often with very small but much-needed amounts of money.

Many of us sometimes get criticism for travelling abroad as MPs, but it really brings home to us the importance of such pledges. It is frankly shameful that during a global pandemic, when the need for international leadership and support for poorer countries is greater than ever, the Government would renege on their commitment to support the poorest people of the world without bringing it to the House for a vote.

The pandemic has fuelled an increase in gender-based violence, disrupted children’s education, increased food insecurity and threatens access to crucial healthcare. And yet, as we have heard, the UK aid budget for education has been slashed by 40%. UNICEF has lost 60% of its core funding, and the United Nations Population Fund has lost 85%, which it says could mean 250,000—a quarter of a million—more mother and baby deaths. In Yemen, home to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, we are cutting funding by nearly 60%, while refusing to suspend arms sales. The International Trade Secretary has said in response to letters that I have written to her that current arms exports are legal and match the consolidated criteria, but we cannot simultaneously be peacemaker and arms dealer.

I want to make a special plea today, though, for the Government to recognise, ahead of COP26, our obligations towards climate-vulnerable countries. These countries bear very little responsibility for our changing climate, yet are most affected by its consequences, be they rising sea levels, changing temperatures, droughts, declining crop yields or extreme weather events, which are becoming ever more frequent and more severe. There is an urgent need for more funding for climate adaptation, as well as aid to help to address the deepening inequality linked to climate change; and, as we play host to the G7, we should be leading on debt relief for the poorest countries, too. We cannot carry on giving less with one hand and taking away with the other.

I also want to flag up the plight of the small island developing states, as chair of the new all-party group. Although the UN has recognised SIDS as having particular social, economic and environmental vulnerabilities, the common metrics used to determine vulnerability and need when it comes to ODA do not take that into account. As a result, many SIDS do not qualify for aid, yet work by the United Nations Development Programme on a multidimensional vulnerability index shows that the majority of SIDS are far more economically vulnerable than their income level would suggest. SIDS are not only facing some of the very worst consequences of climate change; they have also been devastated financially by the pandemic because of the collapse in tourism and are particularly prone to extreme weather events and other natural disasters. The recent volcanic eruption could cost Saint Vincent and the Grenadines up to 50% of GDP. Other SIDS are trapped in a vicious cycle of debt, including Belize, which has defaulted on or restructured its debt five times in the last 14 years.

To conclude, we are facing the biggest global challenges in our history, with a pandemic that has devastated the global economy and a rapidly changing climate. We know that some nations are more prepared than others for these challenges, and we cannot turn our backs on the vulnerable now.