Official Development Assistance and the British Council

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab) [V]]

As this is the second time I have spoken on this topic recently, I do not want to repeat everything I said first time around, other than that I still believe that it is morally reprehensible that the Government have reneged on their commitment to spend 0.7% on aid and are prepared to override by backdoor means the will of the House, which voted in 2015 for that commitment to be enshrined in law.

The global pandemic has been used as an excuse for these cuts, but we are the only G7 country that has resorted to such measures. We know that there is an underlying agenda and it is not just because of the pandemic. It has been evident for some years that many on the Government Benches have been trying to undermine the case for aid spending for a long time, either because they do not believe that helping those in extreme poverty around the world should be a priority or because they believe that voters do not believe that. Until now, that agenda has been a matter of some subterfuge, but with the spending review of 2020 it burst out into the open. Of course, not all Government Members think in the way I have described, and I am pleased that by virtue of this estimates debate we have had the second opportunity this month for them—including the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May)—to make that very clear.

When we talk about reducing 0.7% to 0.5%, it may sound like small numbers, but the reality is that £5 billion has been cut from our aid spending since 2019. The Government have tried to mask the impact of the cuts by combining previous DFID budget subheadings into a single line in the estimates, strategic priorities and other programme spending, but they cannot hide what the headline numbers say: both capital and resource spending under that subheading have been drastically slashed. Although we have not had transparency from the Government, we have heard today and in the debate earlier this month about the impact the cuts will have on our overseas aid programmes in respect of health, education, livelihoods, gender equality, water sanitation and much more. We should be talking about not the impact on programmes but the impact on people. There are real people out there who will not get the healthcare, education or family planning that they need, who will go to bed hungry each day, and who will die, because of the Government’s decision.

Saving people’s lives and lifting them out of extreme poverty, particularly in the wake of a pandemic that has had a huge impact in less-developed countries, absolutely must be a priority, but submissions to the International Development Committee’s inquiry show that aid cuts have also harmed numerous environmental charities. Climate Action Network said that there was a lot of uncertainty, with the organisation not knowing where the cuts to climate and environmental programmes were going to fall. Yet it looks as if CDC Group, with its £700 million fossil fuel portfolio—which Tearfund highlighted in its submission to the Committee—will be unaffected. That shows completely the wrong priorities from the Government in the run-up to COP26.

Another charity, Temwa, had a project ready to go in Malawi to fund more sustainable farming practices, only for the Government to axe a £250,000 grant at the very last minute. I have been to Malawi and seen the long-entrenched poverty there. Of all the countries I have visited, it was the one that it seemed most difficult to help. It is not a country that is rich in natural resources and it does not have many routes out of poverty. I have been to Kenya and Rwanda with the all-party group on agriculture and food for development and seen at first hand just how much difference agricultural programmes can make with even small-scale funding, so £250,000 in Malawi could be absolutely transformative.

MPs have been contacted by the Galapagos Conservation Trust, which says that grants to the trust to conduct research on the prevention and removal of plastic waste were cut by 64% this year, and that funding for future years is not guaranteed. Fifty jobs are now at stake. Each year, 1 million tonnes of plastic waste leak into the ocean from the Pacific coastline of central and south America, and without action that amount will double by 2025, threatening an area where more than 20% of unique marine species live.

I refuse to believe that the people in this country do not want the UK Government to take action to stop plastic pollution on the horrendous scale I just described, or to help Malawi to improve its farming sector. I refuse to believe that people are happy to support cuts that will deny people in developing countries vaccines, maternal healthcare, family planning services and education for all. I just do not believe that this country is like that. I hope the Government will realise that, too, and restore spending to where it should be.