0.7% Official Development Assistance Target

Layla Moran Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD) [V]]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) on securing this debate and on his speech. His recollection of starving children in Uganda brought a tear to my eye, and I was reminded of the extreme poverty I saw when I lived in Ethiopia in the late 1980s. He is right: those memories never leave you. It is those children I met—many of them my own age—who are at the front of my mind now, too.

In his remarks, the Minister drew moral equivalence between maintaining our promises to starving children and leaving future generations with extra debt—how shameful. There is no equivalence there, because one is a death sentence and the other is not, especially when our young people, just like the rest of our country, overwhelmingly support 0.7% being spent on aid spending.

To abandon this commitment comes at a real cost, and it is not just a humanitarian cost. It is true that more lives will be lost this year, next year and the year after that, until the day when the Government finally decide to return to 0.7%, and that is notwithstanding the mess that has been caused by cutting off those funding streams so quickly.

There is also a cost to the UK’s global reputation. How on earth are we to convince developing nations at COP26 to trust our leadership at the most pivotal climate change summit in a generation when in the same breath we have undermined our credibility with them? This is a Government who say one thing and do another, who cannot be trusted, and who behave in a way that is so fundamentally un-British that it makes me feel ashamed.

When the Prime Minister stands up at the G7 this weekend, what will our allies and friends think? The Prime Minister will encourage our allies to pledge more to fund girls’ education while he cuts spending by nearly £200 million. He will offer a hand of friendship to Italy, Germany and France while his Brexit negotiator continues to make incendiary comments about the Northern Ireland protocol. He will speak of the importance of promoting democracy around the world and adhering to the rule of law when this Government deny elected representatives the chance of any vote on aid spending, even when lawyers suggest that we are breaking our own law.

If the Prime Minister wants to make a statement about his Government’s global ambitions, the single most meaningful and impactful thing that he could do right now is give us a vote on whether we should reverse these cuts. If a vote is granted, the Liberal Democrats, who introduced the legislation that enshrined the 0.7% in law, will join others from all sides of the House and will vote to keep our promises and hold on to our word.

I said that this Government and their actions make me ashamed. By contrast, this debate and the clear will of colleagues on all sides of the House to do the right thing should make all Britons proud. I look forward to continuing to work with them for as long as it takes until this Government listen.