Overseas Aid: Child Health and Education

Layla Moran Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2023 Westminster Hall

[Matt Rodda]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for his words. Of course, the work of community, voluntary, church and other faith groups is so important and makes an enormous contribution, and in many ways plays a leading role in aid around the world.

As I was saying, I am afraid that our influence is in retreat, as is our ability to be a force for good. That sad reality should be—and I hope will be—a cause for reflection and a much-needed reassessment by the Minister and his colleagues.

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

I might expand on this point later. I was struck in a conversation I had with someone working in one of our embassies who remarked that, from their perspective, the D in FCDO is currently silent. They were worried about their ability to do other things in that country as a result. Is that similar to conversations the hon. Gentleman has had with others in this space?

[Matt Rodda]

The hon. Member makes an excellent point. There is a real risk that the development work of the Government gets downplayed due to the reorganisation. As I said earlier, there are also issues with delivery and capacity in the new merged Department.

I would like to spell out what this retreat means in real terms on the ground for the very poorest. We now know that bilateral aid on education fell from £789 million in 2019 to just £545 million in 2020. That is a reduction of nearly a third. Final spending in 2021 was just £457 million. That falls way short. The UK’s £430 million pledge for the Global Partnership for Education for 2021-25 was an increase on previous commitments, but lower than many had expected. Further analysis by charities indicates that education programmes were cut by 30% in the first round of cuts in 2020. Those are severe cuts.

Many local and international NGOs have spoken about the impact of cuts on children’s education and health. For example, the Dhaka Ahsania Mission, after seeing 100% of its funding cut, said that 1,250 out-of-school children living in flood prone areas in northern Bangladesh will not have access to quality non-formal primary education. It said,

“Within weeks…our project would have enrolled 700 out-of-school girls (and 560 out-of-school boys) into rural-based, non-formal primary education centres.”

All that has been cut.

In another case, an NGO that preferred to remain anonymous saw a 100% cut to funding for a programme that protected the rights of children and enabled them to grow up healthily. The project improved access to inclusive quality education for 1,700 children marginalised by ethnicity, gender and/or disability in three rural villages in Laos.

Again on health, in 2022 the UK pledged £1 billion to the global fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, which is £400 million less than in 2019. I remind colleagues that every minute of the day a child dies of malaria, and hundreds—around 600—are estimated to die every day of TB. I hope I have set out what the current policy means to those who are most in need of help.

I turn to some of the principles that I believe should guide our wider strategy, at a point when, as I said earlier, I hope the Government are able to rethink their recent approach. It is clear that current policy is simply not working, and Ministers should start again. They should think again about how the world has changed, at the same time building on what we know has worked in the recent past.

We need to take a sensible and strategic approach to this important issue. First, the UK should lead by example, not break our word or commitments. That means not reducing our development spending or asking others to do more in our place. It also means not preaching about net zero without a credible plan to get there. Secondly, our strategy should mean rediscovering our core principles, which should always guide us, and our commitment to human rights, democracy and the rule of law. Thirdly, our approach to development needs to reflect the world we live in—a world that, as I said, is quite clearly changing. We should focus on where we really can make a difference, and our approach should be grounded in an understanding of the wider world and of how aid can be delivered in partnership with local communities and developing countries.

There is so much I could say about innovative work in partnership with local community-level initiatives. However, time is pressing and I want to sum up, because I appreciate that many other colleagues want to contribute. As I said earlier, we are responsible for supporting people in need around the world. This is about responding in an emergency, and I thank those who supported people in Turkey and Syria following the recent earthquakes. However, there is a much longer-term need that we need to acknowledge and address properly.

Sadly, I am afraid the current Government are failing, and the cuts have set back vital work around the world. This is having a very real effect on communities and, indeed, on the most vulnerable, and the failure to continue with the 0.7% target is harming the education, health and economic opportunities of the very people who need our support the most. We need to get Britain back on track to meet its commitment to the UN’s 0.7% target as soon as the financial situation allows. What is needed now is a reassessment of the situation and a new strategy, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

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[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi), who gave a powerful speech on the significant impact of the cuts on the fight against HIV and AIDS. I very much hope that her points are heard and acted on. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) for securing the debate and for his opening remarks, rightly praising all those from the UK, in particular, doing their level best to help the peoples of Turkey and Syria to deal with the terrible impact of the earthquakes. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) also rightly praised the many church groups that help to keep all of us in this House focused on these issues—I can think of a number in my constituency that do just that.

I share the views of my hon. Friends the Members for Reading East and for Vauxhall, in that I think we need a timetable to get back on track to 0.7%. I certainly think we need to re-establish an International Development Department as a separate Department, which perhaps reflects the point made by the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran). Perhaps slightly unfashionably, I also think we should renew support to the World Bank, which saw one of the biggest cuts in multilateral aid as a result of the UK’s cuts in development assistance. I will return to that in a moment.

I have always believed that our first responsibility in this House is to our own citizens. However, there is surely also a moral responsibility for us, as one of the richest nations in the world, to do our bit to help those in the poorest countries and the worst circumstances to access better lives, too. I have also always believed that it was in our self-interest to do so. DFID was a global leader in development throughout its existence, which certainly enhanced UK soft power. Development assistance helps to build up markets, creating job opportunities not just in country but, as a result of trade, that benefit people here in the UK. It helps to reduce the pressures on those in the poorest places to migrate and seek sanctuary in the UK or other developed countries. In the light of covid, better healthcare in developing countries also helps to reduce the threat of diseases that may start in other places having a significant impact on our citizens too. The charity ONE estimated that, as a result of the cuts in development assistance, some 3.7 million girls worldwide would no longer receive a decent education —surely a matter of significant shame for the UK.

The International Development Committee looked particularly at the impacts of the decline in UK aid on specific countries and sectors. It noted that the biggest cut in long-term development assistance would be to Pakistan, where the largest sectoral decrease as a result of the cut to aid spending would be in education, and that there would be

“significant and abrupt cuts to programmes focused on education, economic empowerment, and sexual and reproductive services targeted at women and girls in Pakistan”.

While earthquakes in Turkey and Syria have rightly caught the world’s attention, it has not been that long since the terrible floods in Pakistan were on our television screens. More than a third, at least, of the population in Pakistan were very directly affected by those floods. Surely Pakistan, a fellow Commonwealth country, is worthy of continuing and significant support from the UK. I stress that nearly 23 million Pakistani children aged five to 16 do not attend school, because of teacher shortages, distances and parents’ safety concerns. Surely we have a particular responsibility to provide increased support there.

Another area of development assistance that does not always get the attention that it deserves is the support that we give in the Palestinian territories—particularly support for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency with investment in education in the west bank and Gaza. Education is very highly valued by families across the Palestinian territories, and there is very high enrolment in basic education, but there are issues with the quality of education. The protracted nature of the conflict, the significant threat of exposure to violence and the many other humanitarian issues affect the quality of schooling that can be provided. Again, British support to UNRWA has been fundamental in helping to keep the Palestinian education system moving in the right direction. I gently encourage the Minister to take a particular interest in that issue.

[Layla Moran]

As a Palestinian myself, I fully agree with the hon. Member about the value of education to a community that feels completely abandoned and let down. Will he join hon. Members across the House in condemning the fact that schools have been torn down by the Israeli Government illegally, and in saying again to the FCDO that we thank it for its support in saying that that is illegal, but that saying that and then doing nothing more about it is frankly a bit toothless?

[Gareth Thomas]

Any school being torn down, particularly in a developing country and particularly in the circumstances that the hon. Member describes, is devastating for the communities affected. We need to support the people of the Palestinian territories to get those schools back up, because education gives hope—it gives a route out of poverty and hope of a better future. Surely that is something that the whole House could row in behind.

I am privileged to have a very large Indian community in my constituency. India has seen huge growth and development over the past 20 years, with massive progress on access to education along the way, but there are still significant issues with access to the necessary quality of education on occasion. British development assistance can help to provide support to address some of those issues, in particular by providing the ideas to improve them. Clearly that is done in partnership with the Indian authorities and other multilateral players.

The World Bank developed what is called the learning poverty indicator, which flags, as a key statistic for each country to be measured against, the proportion of 10-year-old children who are unable to read and understand a short, age-appropriate text. The World Bank’s ambition is that the number who cannot read and understand a short, age-appropriate text by the age of 10 should halve by 2030. That is a significant target that the UK should get behind. I suspect we will need an increase in development assistance to the World Bank to support that. I urge the Minister to look again at reversing the cut in funding to the World Bank as another way of addressing the challenges of access to education in developing countries.

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I start by declaring an interest. Last week, I went to Kenya with STOPAIDS and Unitaid to look at public health projects in and around Nairobi. The details are submitted and will appear on the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as soon as they can be processed.

I thank the hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) for securing this incredibly important debate. Liberal Democrats have always made the case for the UK to meet its commitments to the world’s poorest: it was we who proudly introduced, during the coalition Government, the private Member’s Bill that was adopted by the Conservative-led Government of the time to enshrine 0.7% in law.

Helping those most in need not only changes lives, but ensures that we build a stronger, safer and more sustainable world for us all. It is in our self-interest as much as theirs. That point seems to be missed constantly by this iteration of a Conservative Government, who have reneged on a promise in their own manifesto. They seemed to be very happy to keep others, but this one they were very happy to lose.

The scale of the cuts has been utterly eye-watering. In Lebanon, aid has been cut from £85 million to £13 million; in Ethiopia, a country dear to my heart—my family lived there for three years—aid has been cut from £350 million to £100 million; in Yemen, one of the most war-torn areas of crisis across the world, aid has been cut from £240 million to £100 million. These are huge sums. It is impossible to talk about these millions and billions of pounds that are being slashed.

What gets lost in debates is the stories of the individual people who are affected. Development is about helping the poorest and the most vulnerable around the world. Sometimes it is the smallest of actions that make the biggest impact—something as simple as providing a mug of porridge before school can help a young person to stay in school and receive a better education, and can transform their life. We are campaigning for that for children here, but it applies even more elsewhere, where the children have even less.

I am grateful for the opportunity to talk about the impact of the cuts, particularly on children’s health and education. I will start with a country-specific example, in Malawi. Cuts to BRACED—the building resilience and adaptation to climate extremes and disaster programme —meant that budgets plummeted from £25 million in 2019 to just £5 million in 2022. Water Witness International, which also works in Malawi, reported that early warning systems funded by BRACED had failed in the run-up to Tropical Storm Ana in January 2022. In the wake of that storm, 84,000 people were displaced. The flooding exacerbated the outbreak of cholera; 1,160 children contracted the disease and 184 died. These cuts have had a real, tangible and mortal effect.

As I mentioned, I was in Nairobi last week and the power of education, particularly for women and girls, was plain to see. We visited a Government-run healthcare facility on the outskirts of the city and met women carrying their babies. All those women were miracles in their own right, because they were living with HIV. It was very moving.

One mother came over to talk to us. She could not wait to tell us her story. She said that she had received little education about HIV in school. She had got HIV from her second husband, after three children. She did not understand that the treatment was now so sophisticated that the viral load could be suppressed sufficiently to save her fourth child from getting HIV in the first place—she had no idea. It was possible only because of healthcare professionals, trained with money that we give via the Global Fund and the money put in by the Kenyan Government to fund community health workers and peers who were able to get that message across. It was really amazing.

[Florence Eshalomi]

Is the hon. Member aware that the UK was sadly one of the only countries to reduce its funding to the Global Fund, so the excellent work that she has just highlighted could be impacted further?

[Layla Moran]

The hon. Member is absolutely right. We want to celebrate the fact that we are a big donor. It is vital work that is literally saving lives, and it is such a shame that the funding is being cut.

The good work is not just in Kenya. The charity STiR Education does fantastic work in India and Uganda by supporting education systems through training and development for teachers. One teacher, Juliet, said after taking part in its programme:

“I have now fallen back in love with my job, and believe in helping my learners perform beyond their limits!”

But in March 2021, STiR was given just three weeks’ notice that the entire remainder of its FCDO grant was to be cut. It lost £828,000 with three weeks’ notice. It was forced to make a number of redundancies, cut back on its programme spending, move to smaller officers and postpone all salary increments and promotions. That all meant fewer resources available to help people like Juliet. The fundraising team worked hard, but that was just to keep STiR afloat—imagine what it could have done if it had that funding basis and could spend the fundraising money on doing even more work.

It is not just delivery of projects but research that is affected. Research and innovation is a vital part of the international development landscape and helps us to understand what kinds of interventions work, thereby making sure that projects deliver value for money, which I am sure the Government are very keen on.

[Matt Rodda]

The hon. Member is making an excellent speech. Does she agree that the cuts have a terrible impact because there is not only the immediate impact on the specific project, but often a multiplier effect? The cuts are made very abruptly and, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, they affect other agencies, which may come from a faith or other background, as well as local groups. There is a dreadful multiplier effect that cascades through the aid and development provision in countries that often have a very great need to develop.

[Layla Moran]

When NGOs that are based here have had to make cuts, the in-country staff have usually faced the deepest and quickest cuts. That is a real shame, because it takes expertise out of that ecosystem.

The Government are clearly worried about value for money, and they should be, because our constituents are, too. The Institute of Development Studies, which is based in Sussex, carried out research into projects that work to support teachers, students and school communities in crisis-affected areas. The research found a measurable and sharp increase in the number of students in schools where ODA funding kept education free. Even research projects of that kind are now under threat. The Institute of Development Studies here in the UK has had its budget cut by 50%.

What does this all mean? The United Kingdom used to be an international development superpower, but the D in FCDO is silent. We hear it nowhere unless a debate such as this one is initiated by Back Benchers. It is clearly not a priority for this Government. The aid cuts continue to hit budgets in terms of research and project delivery.

The bottom line is that this is not just the moral, compassionate thing to do, but the smart thing to do. At a time when we should be more muscular on the world stage, we are retracting in all areas. The Liberal Democrats are proud of our record of championing international development and will continue to call for an immediate reinstatement of the 0.7% target that would deliver so much more that is appreciated around the world.

[David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, which I am pleased the hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) secured.

The speech that the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) has just made demonstrates the importance of MPs going on visits to see for themselves what is happening around the world. Although we are often criticised for such trips, they are really important so that we can get a grip on what is happening.

I recently benefited from a trip to Washington, where, as the hon. Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) will be pleased to know, I visited the World Bank and had a very good conversation with its representatives. I made the point to them that they must do better on selling their own message and making clear the outcomes from what the World Bank does. We have to acknowledge that the public have moved away from the view that large global organisations are automatically a force for good. Many people have formed the view that actually they just gobble up money and do not achieve outcomes. I do not think that that is the case in relation to the World Bank, but it has to sell the outcomes that it achieves much more clearly, and we have a role in that.

I think Members of all parties actually did a very good job in relation to the Global Fund. I fully appreciate that hon. Members may think that the sum given was not enough, but let us be honest: it could have been less if it had not been for the active lobbying of many Members from all parties. I certainly believe that the Global Fund is the best way to deliver across the world in relation to malaria, HIV and TB, but we have to make the positive case for it.

As the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) mentioned, I co-chair the all-party parliamentary group on HIV and AIDS; I am also co-chair of the APPG on nutrition for development, which is the successor to the APPG on nutrition for growth. That APPG and others lobbied very effectively to ensure that the UK made a pledge to the nutrition for growth summit; it came right at the final hour, but the UK made a £1.5 billion pledge. That pledge, for which I will hold the Minister and indeed all FCDO Ministers to account, needs to be delivered, because, as the hon. Member for Vauxhall said, nutrition is at the heart of everything we deliver for young people and women. The statistics are very clear that if children are undernourished, they will not benefit from the school experience to the extent that they could. Nutrition has an impact on every aspect of what they are doing, and on every aspect of the support and development that we can provide.

I fully concur with what the hon. Lady said about HIV and AIDS. The battle is not over. The situation in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly among women and children, is very concerning, and we must play our part in addressing it. I am very much looking forward to the opportunity to visit South Africa and see the situation on the ground, although I know that it is not positive.

[Layla Moran]

Does the right hon. Gentleman share my concern about the impact of these cuts, particularly on the LGBT community? We know that there are Governments in sub-Saharan Africa who have moved politically in a direction that suggests that they will not be as open to funding programmes as they might previously have been, particularly with respect to men who have sex with men. I met a man who said that he had been taught at school that it was not possible to get AIDS, because they did not talk about men having sex with men. Surely this is an area in which our Government should be able to step in where other Governments may feel that politically they cannot?

[David Mundell]

I think our Government have a very good record on championing LGBT rights internationally. The most significant thing, as the APPG has recognised, is decriminalisation. The criminalisation of gay sex with men, and of sex workers, is the single biggest impediment to people getting the support that they need. I think this Government are taking forward as many measures as they can, but we have to continue to lobby in that regard to ensure that more is done, because the hon. Lady is right that this is a serious issue.

I am sure hon. Members welcome the fact that the International Development Committee is about to produce a report on ODA budget spending on refugees in the UK. The current situation is not acceptable: every £1 that is spent on a hotel for a refugee is £1 less for HIV, for nutrition or even for the World Bank. That is not a situation that we can tolerate. As hon. Members, we must highlight it so that people fully understand the link between that budget and the international budget.

Finally, I commend what other hon. Members have said about the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. There is so much to be done, and we must play our full part.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (David Rutley)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Bone, and I am sorry that the shadow Minister was cut off in her prime. I have a huge amount of respect for her, and our friendship extends outside this room as well, so I am sure that our conversation will continue. She makes important points. Indeed, everyone has made important points. This is an important debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) on securing it. It is unusual for me to debate with him on this subject; just a few months ago we had quite a few exchanges on the Floor of the House on matters related to the Department for Work and Pensions. It is good to see him in what I consider an unfamiliar setting, but this is clearly, for him, a subject close to his heart. He made his points incredibly well.

Those who know the subject area well will know that our Minister for Development and Africa, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), would normally respond to this debate. He is in country, travelling on his ministerial duties, not the least of which was a recent visit to Turkey, where he thanked international partners and UK responders for their amazing work in response to the terrible tragedy in Turkey and Syria. We all thank them. Tomorrow there is another debate on that, which I think some of us will look forward to. It will highlight the important work that has gone on.

I am grateful for the contributions to the debate, and I will endeavour to respond to the points that have been made. Given the economic impacts of the pandemic and Russia’s barbaric attack on Ukraine, the UK’s aid budget currently sits at around 0.5% of gross national income. That equated to over £11 billion in 2021, and we are proud to remain one of the world’s biggest aid donors. Over the last 18 months, the UK has provided enormous support to people fleeing Afghanistan and Ukraine and seeking sanctuary in the UK. Across the House, people will recognise that those are huge priorities. However, it has not come across so loudly in the debate—I understand that there will be political differences—that that support has without a doubt placed significant pressure on the aid budget. It has placed significant pressure on some of our communities. I think any right-minded person would recognise that these are incredibly challenging circumstances. Among those challenging points, the good news is that the Treasury has provided an extra £2.5 billion of official development assistance over two years—£1 billion in 2022-23 and £1.5 billion in 2023-24.

[Layla Moran]

Will the Minister give way?

[David Rutley]

Yes, but only once, because we need to crack on.

[Layla Moran]

Does the Minister accept that the point about a percentage is that as the economy shrank, the amount of money was always going to shrink?  The issue with taking it down to 0.5% is that it was an even greater cut, but it is wrong to say that the money was not always going to decrease to recognise the pressures on our communities as well.