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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

Turkey and Syria Earthquake

Layla Moran Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2023 Commons Chamber

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

I thank the Secretary of State for coming to the House so that we can express our sorrow and solidarity with the people of Turkey and Syria, and with families up and down this country who are desperately worried about those back home. I welcome the support offered and the potential offer of more, but may I press him on Syria? Organisations on the ground are ill-equipped to hand out the support that is desperately needed. Many of them are also affected by the earthquakes. The Foreign Secretary said that this is exceptional—one in 80 years—so although we are not planning to send personnel and equipment into Syria itself, I urge him to think as creatively as he can to make whatever exceptions he can, so that we do not hurt those who have already been hurt so much.

[James Cleverly]

As the Development Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), said this morning, we are working closely with the United Nations. We will look creatively at what we can do to support it and our partners on the ground to maximise our ability to get humanitarian aid and support to the people who need it most.

The Execution of Alireza Akbari

Layla Moran Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

My right hon. Friend highlights something that we should all consider, which is that the actions of the Iranian regime are a display of weakness, not strength. The regime lives in fear of the voices of the Iranian people, which is why it is responding so brutally. My advice to the regime—it will not take it, I have no doubt—is to listen to its own people, and to stop blaming external actors for actions stimulated by its oppression of its people. I can assure my right hon. Friend that we will continue to work closely with our international friends and allies, so many of whom have expressed solidarity over the weekend in response to Mr Akbari’s execution.

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

The execution of Alireza Akbari is horrendous. If we ever wanted proof that we are dealing with barbarians, it is this and what has happened over the last few months. While the Foreign Secretary is considering proscription and the harshest possible sanctions—I would like to add the voices of the Liberal Democrats to that and offer our support—I urge him to consider another move. We have learned from the war in Ukraine that going after individuals and the spoils of their human rights abuses is also a very effective way of sanctioning. What consideration have the Government given to auditing the assets of those we have sanctioned, particularly the assets of family members who may be resident in the UK, and can he assure the House that not a single penny of their spoils is sloshing around the British economy?

[James Cleverly]

We will of course always examine ways of ensuring that our sanctions are most effective and have the deterrent effect as well as the punitive effect that they are designed to have. I can assure the hon. Lady that, as I have said, we will continue working internationally with our friends and allies who share our revulsion at the actions of the Iranian regime. She describes the regime as barbarian, and one of the great ironies is that Iran has a long history—a multi-millennial history—of sophistication and thoughtfulness. That history and reputation is being destroyed on a daily basis by the people currently holding the levers of power in Tehran, and I think that is a massive shame for the Iranian people more broadly.

Iran

Layla Moran Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. Clearly, we have been constantly asking what else the IRGC must do before the Government proscribe it. There have been positive signs over the Christmas period, with Ministers suggesting that the Government may take the action we would like, and I hope we will get an announcement from the Minister in answer to this debate.

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

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate, and may I add my voice and those of my Liberal Democrat colleagues to the call for proscription, as that is way past due? The Minister would have support from all parts of the House if he chose to announce that at the Dispatch Box today, and we sincerely hope he does. I also thank the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for raising the issue of the diaspora, because this affects our communities as much as it affects people in Iran. One constituent contacted me to say that her aunt was arrested and sentenced to eight months in prison and 74 lashes—that makes my skin crawl. Her cousin, who is male, was also arrested, just for travelling to the university to attend a protest; he did not even attend the protest. He was sentenced to five years in prison. There is more we can do, and not just proscription. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we should consider a lifeboat scheme—I urge the Minister on this—particularly for brave Iranian women who have been leading these protests across the world? If they can get out, we should be offering sanctuary.

[Bob Blackman]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention and I agree with her entirely on those aspects.

Missile Incident in Poland

Layla Moran Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right in her assessment of what Vladimir Putin is attempting to do. I remind the House that the rocket attacks we saw overnight were targeting locations deep to the west of Ukraine, hundreds of miles away from the line of contact—specifically, they were targeting critical national infrastructure. At the start of the conflict, it was our anti-tank missiles—the NLAW missile systems—that helped the Ukrainians to defend themselves. Now, they need air defence and energy generation, and we will continue to supply them with what they need until they prevail in this conflict.

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

A swift and measured response is absolutely the right call. I thank the Foreign Secretary for the tone of his statement, which was spot on. I am very aware of how, across the House, we have pulled together and, at every moment, spoken with one voice. Through the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022 and the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill, we have tried to put in place as many measures as possible to punish Putin and his cronies. One area is largely missing from the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill, however: golden visas.

We have still not seen the Home Office’s report on the visa scheme. The Government could this afternoon accept the amendments to the National Security Bill, which would compel them to publish that report within two weeks. Will the Foreign Secretary look at that? We in this House must strain every sinew to hold Putin and his cronies to account.

[James Cleverly]

I remind the hon. Lady that that scheme is closed and has been for some time. Obviously, visas are a matter for the Home Office rather than the Foreign Office, but I remind her that, in a number of instances, people come to this country because they are fleeing persecution in the countries of their birth. I know that, for a number of British nationals of Russian heritage, that was very much the case.

I am very proud that the UK was one of the first countries to bring in sanctions specifically to target the money people around Vladimir Putin and to choke off the supply of funds that helped him to prosecute this conflict. We will continue to work in conjunction and co-ordination with our international allies to do likewise.

Iran

Layla Moran Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[David Rutley]

I reassure my hon. Friend that human rights are at the forefront of our conversations, dialogue and diplomatic activity, whether with Iran, Egypt—we have already talked about the case of Mr Fattah—or Israel. It is at the forefront of our work, particularly in the middle east.

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

I thank the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for securing this urgent question, and I add the Liberal Democrats’ voice to the solidarity with the brave Iranian people, who deserve so much better.

May I press the Minister on giving safe haven to some of these brave protesters? They are patriots, and they clearly want their country to be a better place, but their being locked up and executed is not the way to ensure Iran’s future stability. Surely it would be better to offer them temporary safe haven in this country, so they can go back and rebuild. What consideration has he given to a resettlement scheme?

[David Rutley]

There may well be routes available for these individuals, and I will certainly bring it to Lord Ahmad’s attention.

Ukraine

Layla Moran Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

I am proud to have been joined on the Front Bench by the Minister for the Armed Forces and Veterans, my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wells (James Heappey). I am incredibly proud of the work that the British armed forces have done in training members of the Ukrainian armed forces, and we are being joined by an increasingly large number of international allies who are doing likewise. I think it is being demonstrated on the battlefield that what has been decisive is not just the equipment we have supplied or the inherent resolve of the Ukrainian forces, but the technical improvement that our training of those forces has helped to bring about, and I have no doubt that that will continue.

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

I thank the Foreign Secretary for his words. I particularly agreed with his statement that we would not allow Putin to use hunger as global leverage, because doing so is barbaric and condemns to death thousands more than he has already killed.

Given that backdrop, does the Foreign Secretary share my concern that we are now spending only 0.3% of gross national income on aid across the world? We found that out over the weekend. All of us here have campaigned on manifestos specifying 0.7%. Surely the answer now is for us to step up again and ensure that what Putin wants to do cannot be done, because we will be there to ensure that his barbaric act will not have the effect for which he hopes.

[James Cleverly]

I do not agree with the figures that the hon. Lady has used, but the broader fact is that we continue to support countries in the global south and poor countries around the world—directly, but also by ensuring that grain exports continue; we are helping Ukraine through the Black sea grain initiative—and I can assure her and the House that we will continue to do both. It is important that we re-establish the principle that powerful neighbours cannot invade another country with impunity, and that territorial integrity must be preserved. It is the very people in other parts of the world to whom the hon. Lady referred who will suffer if the message is sent to potential aggressors that we will stand idly by and watch them brutalise their neighbours. We will never do that.

Chinese Consul General: Manchester Protest

Layla Moran Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman]

I personally was not aware of any further demonstrations, but the House has now been made aware of them. I will ensure that officials make some notification of that. This is a Home Office matter, so it will go through the Home Office. Even within the Home Office network of relationships, our police are independent of Government, and rightly so for the best rule-of-law reasons, so we will respect that. I am not sure yet that what happened here necessarily was a failure of policing. In this case, it certainly appears that way, and we expect the Greater Manchester police to be able to do whatever they can the next time round.

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

Frankly, this is now just ridiculous. I hope the Minister can see the force of the will of the House and that it helps him in what he needs to do next. Article 41 of the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations states that diplomats need to

“respect the laws and regulations of the receiving State.”

Article 9 states that the receiving state has the right to declare that person “persona non grata” at any time with no explanation. The Crown Prosecution Service then says that that is done when the police have sufficient evidence to justify court proceedings. Given the video and the admission, the lack of action by the Government is frankly laughable at this point. This is now a political decision. Can the Minister explain why he is not making them persona non grata now?

[Jesse Norman]

The hon. Lady quotes the convention, and it is very interesting, but she skated over the key phrase, which is when police have “sufficient” evidence, and we are not in that position yet. When we are, as I have assured the House, there will be consequences if that evidence proves to be dispositive.

Strategy for International Development

Layla Moran Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend—he is my hon. Friend—is absolutely right in what he says, and it is very good of him to make mention of my book, “Beyond a Fringe: Tales from a Reformed Establishment Lackey”, which is still available in bookshops. I am very grateful indeed to him for drawing the House’s attention to that. I should say that the Minister, who has a starring role in my book, understands these issues, and I absolve her of all blame for any of the criticism I am making because she inherited much of this situation and was not responsible for it.

The real problem, which is even worse than breaking our promise on the money, is the vaporisation of DFID. I think the abolition of DFID is now acknowledged in almost every corner as an absolute disaster because it has cut at a stroke the expertise assembled by Britain. The international community used to come to Britain to come to DFID, and to our universities with their programmes that were so closely entwined with DFID, to see how to drive forward the efforts in their part of the world to degrade and try to eliminate grinding international poverty. Most importantly, the top 100 people who were responsible for driving forward the Government’s agenda in DFID have gone. Of course they have, because they have been headhunted by the international system, whether in New York, Geneva or the charitable sector. They have gone because they see a Government who do not recognise or appreciate that extraordinary skill that existed in DFID. The Government are now faced with a large budget but a diminishing level of expertise.

It is even worse than that, because the Prime Minister decided that we should not revert to what Mrs Thatcher so rightly had—the Overseas Development Administration as a Department within the Foreign Office that Tony Blair subsequently took into DFID. The Prime Minister does not want an ODA in the Foreign Office because he knows that if it was there, another Administration after him could immediately re-set up, or try to re-set up, DFID, and he wants development done on a geographical basis. That is the destruction of a real hub and driver of UK leadership, influence, expertise and knowledge. All that has now gone.

All international development spending is about Britain’s national interest. It is spent largely in areas where we have a historical connection. When I was DFID Secretary, the Foreign Office always had a view, which we always accepted, about where was the best place in which British influence through development could and should be exerted. The aim of international development policy, which Britain drove forward so successfully under both political parties for so very many years, was to build safer and more prosperous communities overseas. It was to make sure that we helped countries, through partnership, to deal with conflicts—to stop conflicts starting, or, once a conflict had started, to eliminate it and reconcile people who had been torn apart by it, and then to build prosperity and help to promote economic activity to ensure that people had the tools to lift themselves out of poverty. It was hugely in our national interest to pursue those policies because it made us safer in Britain and more prosperous as well. The world is a small place and we are all increasingly dependent on each other. That is an eternal truth.

Furthermore, building stronger and safer societies over there helps to stop the high level of migration, which is now being fuelled by starvation and famine, climate change emergencies, and the ease of travel. The whole burden of British development policy was to try to help to resolve that by building those safer and more prosperous societies overseas.

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

The right hon. Gentleman is making an incredibly powerful speech. Does he agree that there is a direct link between the poor people coming across on boats that this Government are now intent on rounding up and putting in detention centres, until legal challenge is stopped, to send them off to Rwanda, and the aid that we are no longer giving to the country they have come from, thus forcing them in that direction? If we want to stop people making those dangerous journeys, is not the best investment we can make to help them to do what they want to do, which is to stay where they were born and where they can be prosperous?

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Lady has said more eloquently than me precisely why this is such an important aspect of British policy and also why it is strongly approved of by the Daily Mail and the right, which is because it helps achieve the aim of mitigating and addressing flows of migration and refugees. That brings me to my next point, of which again the Chair of the Select Committee may not approve. I am not opposed to sending people who have been processed here, and who are not eligible for asylum here, to Rwanda, if it is prepared to take them, which it is. I know Rwanda very well. I was there recently for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, participating in an investment conference. It is a wonderful place, and I have no objection in principle to us sending people there, once they have been processed here, if Rwandans are prepared to take them.

However, there are two problems with the current policy. One is that it will not work, and the second is that it is extraordinarily expensive. In this business, there is no alternative but to put in the work, to do the hard yards and to recognise that we have to process far more quickly and effectively people who are coming to our shores, many of whom are fleeing persecution in great jeopardy. We need to hear their cases and process them.

Secondly, we need to open up lawful, legal and safe routes. At the moment, those legal and safe routes do not exist. They exist for Ukrainians, and they did exist for Afghanis—and some time ago for Syrians—but for others they do not. Some 87% of the people who come to our shores come from just four countries, and we should remember that 75% of them end up being found eligible to stay in the country. We need these proper legal routes, we need to process in the right way and we need to restore the relationship with France.

The relationship with France, as anyone who has engaged with the French Government in any way in recent weeks and months will know, is appalling and needs to be restored. There are huge reservoirs of knowledge in this country about France and of good will with senior French politicians. Politicians on both sides of the channel know each other well, and the relationship has never been worse than it is today. It urgently needs to be restored if we are to address the issues that exist in the channel. They are issues of life and death and of order, and we cannot address them properly if we are at loggerheads with a country 22 miles away across the channel.

The final thing that we have to do if we are to resolve these issues is renegotiate the 1951 Geneva convention on refugees, which was set up largely by British effort. It was British officials who helped corral all the different parties to accept this international convention, but it was made at a time when travel was not as easy as today. The situation has completely changed. If we are to resolve this problem, which will get worse because of climate change migration, we need to understand that the rich world has to play its part if it expects the poor world to comply. That is a real job of work.

On 25 July, just under a year ago, I had this precise conversation with the Prime Minister, who described the analysis as excellent, but nothing has been done in the past year to give some extra strength and a boost to the international system to do something about it. That is my objection to the Rwanda plan. It is not that I am seduced by the relevant lobby; my objection is one of severe practicality and cost, and the plan just will not work.

Having broken our promise on the budget and having effectively abolished the Department, we are now left with a big budget being spent in ways that are determined by the Foreign Office. I remind the House that it was a law of Whitehall that while the Foreign Office did prose, the Department for International Development did money. Whenever Tony Blair and David Cameron went to an international conference where money was being discussed, they always took a senior DFID official, because DFID, as even the Treasury would admit, was extremely good at money and running money.

Frankly, the idea of these brilliant diplomats who prosecute British diplomacy so well being responsible for and running multimillion-pound development programmes should give the taxpayer the heebie-jeebies. What will happen is this: the Daily Mail will discover examples of Foreign Office misspending of the ODA budget, and it will rightly pick up on them. It will say, “If Britain cannot honour its pledge to the taxpayer of value for money, and if it spends money badly in this way, why do we have this budget at all? Why don’t we spend all the money on our schools and hospitals here?” The argument will be made for abolishing the budget altogether, and if it is made on the back of misspending, it will be heard by our constituents.

The Independent Commission for Aid Impact is the watchdog that reports on international development—rightly, to the Select Committee and not to Ministers who can sweep inconvenient truths under the carpet. It draws its power from the legislature and is an important new part of the Government’s architecture. Officials hate it because, of course, it can look at what they are doing and expose them. It is the taxpayer’s friend, it reports to Parliament, and Ministers have the benefit of its work, attention and rigour. It is a vital tool of making policy, so I urge the Minister, who understands such things, to become its strong supporter.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

I had the great privilege of serving for nearly four years as the International Development Secretary, and I worked with many people— including the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), who it is a great pleasure to follow because he was a terrific Development Secretary—who were passionate about the betterment of human kind. I was able to work with some absolutely wonderful, determined and passionate civil servants at DFID. I must be frank that it was a job that changed the way in which I think about the world, see it and seek to understand it.

We meet here today to look at the wreckage that has resulted from the Government’s reversal of many things that were achieved by the creation of DFID, under Governments of both parties, and I for one am greatly saddened. I think the Prime Minister’s decision to abolish DFID, to break his word and to cut the aid budget was a terrible mistake. It has had material consequences for girls’ education, safe motherhood and access to contraception, as well as for children’s education. The precious opportunity that going to school gives us opens a window on the world and gives us the knowledge, confidence and aspiration to make our way in our lives.

Many of DFID’s programmes, which were funded by the generosity of the British taxpayer, have had to cope with the consequence of sudden cuts. To take one example, UK aid to the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been cut by about 60%. Picking up the point just made by the right hon. Gentleman, that is a country where 27 million people are experiencing, to use the jargon, acute food insecurity. The funding cut from girls’ education—how on earth did that happen?—has now been restored this year, following the Foreign Secretary’s appearance before the International Development Committee, but it will only be the same in cash terms as it was in 2019, so it will in fact be a real-terms reduction.

The process of making those cuts has had a huge impact on our relationship with partner countries, multilateral institutions, non-governmental organisations and other aid organisations. It is a terrible self-inflicted wound that is not just about the money, because Britain had a reputation in the world of development. We had respect, we were listened to and we had great influence in debates about peace and security. I do not wish to appear to be dwelling on glories of the past and I recognise that times change—I will come in a moment to the challenges facing the world—but when we undermine our role as a world leader in development, it is really important that we are honest about what has been lost.

I have read the Government’s new strategy for international development, which was published in May. It talks about providing a “better offer”—whatever that is—and “honest and reliable investment” as if the cuts to our development budget had happened in a completely parallel universe. Whatever else might be said about what has occurred, what Ministers have done has shown that we are not a reliable partner. So, when Samantha Power, the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development wants to pick up the phone to talk to Britain, who does she ring in the FCDO? What does that mean for our relationship with other countries? The right hon. Gentleman and I, and others in the Chamber who served in DFID, know that building consistent relationships with other people and creating trust is essential if we are to solve problems, and trust can easily be lost, as the Prime Minister is in the process of finding out.

I am afraid it is the casualness with which that happened that angers me more than anything else. I was sitting in the Chamber when the Prime Minister stood at the Dispatch Box and uttered the words that DFID was like

“some giant cashpoint in the sky.”—[Official Report, 16 June 2020; Vol. 677, c. 670.]

The right hon. Gentleman winces, and rightly so. I listened to that and thought, “This man clearly has no understanding whatsoever of what DFID is and what it has achieved.” While all that has been happening, not a single other G7 country has cut its aid budget—not one—even though they face the same pressures from covid and from the international economic situation and rising prices. Indeed, France and Germany are moving further towards 0.7%. Notwithstanding the rather clever tests that the former Chancellor set on when we will return to 0.7%, I am not sure whether we will see that any time soon.

Having said all of that—and feeling slightly better for having done so—I will address the rest of my remarks to the challenges that confront the world, because that is what we will have to address with the resources now available to the FCDO. The events of the last decade have reminded us of a very important truth. We may think that we have overcome the crises of the past, we may hope that they may never be repeated and we may believe that, because things are as they are today, they will ever be thus, but, sadly, that is not true. The global crash of 2008-09 was the worst since the crash and subsequent depression of the 1930s. The collapse of the Soviet Union was not the end of history; it was a semicolon, as the terrible war in Ukraine is currently demonstrating.

We have achieved incredible things with the gifts that the earth gives us. Look around at every single thing that human beings have built, created or made, from computers to skyscrapers and from vaccines to placing a rover on the surface of the planet Mars: every single one of them has come from things that are either on the earth or lie beneath it. That shows the extraordinary capacity of human beings to interact with what we have and to build and create. What we have done—the development that we have wrought in our own country and in others—would astonish our forebears and ancestors, but, if we thought that the process could be never-ending and that we could continue without consequence, the crisis in the natural world and the climate crisis have taught us that that is not the case, either.

I make that argument not to depress colleagues. On the contrary, I believe that we can overcome those challenges and build something better precisely because human beings have shown their ability to achieve extraordinary things, but we need the process of politics, international relationships, persuasion, encouragement, leadership, ideas, innovation and a lot of determination to be able to do that. When I look at my constituency in Leeds, I see big differences in life expectancy, health, wealth, opportunity and income between those who have and those who do not. The absolute poverty is, of course, very different to that which we are discussing in our debate today, but the challenge to overcome it is exactly the same. We face it as a country and we face it as a world.

I look also at the consequences of the threats to peace and security and how war causes millions to flee. We know that most people will seek to find somewhere safe. Although a lot of them will dream of being able to return home, sometimes that will not be possible. In our human response to those who seek shelter, wherever that happens in the world, we always need to ask ourselves one really important question. If it was us, how would we like to be treated, to be welcomed? When I read that some people who are seeking asylum in this country may have ankle tags fitted, or that some people who are seeking asylum in this country may be put on a plane to a country 5,000 miles away where they know no one and do not speak the language, I think that that, too, is a mistake.

[Layla Moran]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the answer is not to detain them indefinitely in places like Campsfield House, which closed under this Government in 2018 but which they intend to reopen? That would be a retrograde step and shows that their plans are simply not working. It is the wrong approach and it should not reopen.

[Hilary Benn]

The right approach is to consider an asylum application and to make a swift decision. As the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield pointed out, the large majority of those seeking to come to the country are found to have a perfectly valid claim for asylum.

If we do not meet the challenges of war, insecurity, economic development, climate change and damage to the natural world, then people will not stay in the place where they were born and raised. They will do what human beings have done since the dawn of time, which is to move. When the history of this century is written, I think there will be a really big chapter on global migration. Whether it is fleeing in search of food or a better life, getting away from war and persecution, or moving because it has stopped raining where they were living—I have met people who have done precisely that—people will move. All these issues are interconnected—all of them. They cannot be dealt with separately. So, when we argue that Britain should have a strong voice in the world on all these matters, we are making the argument not just because it is morally right but because it is in our self-interest.

There are those, particularly populists, who seek to pretend otherwise. These are the people who pursue narrow nationalism and seek to gain power by sowing division. All I say to them is that if they think we can shut the doors, close the curtains, get into bed, pull up the bed covers and hope that the rest of the world and the rest of the future will go away, they are profoundly mistaken. There are no fences strong enough and no walls high enough that will resist an onward tide of human beings who are on the move. I say that, because the very condition of humankind at the beginning of the 21st century is defined by our interdependence. We depend one upon another. We share a very small and very fragile planet, and we have to co-operate and work together to succeed.

I am not arguing for a separate approach to development, because from my experience I regard security, foreign policy, defence, trade and responding to humanitarian catastrophes as part of a continuum—and of course, development is not something that we bring like some benevolent former colonial power to the partner countries with which we work. Development is something that people, communities, societies and countries do for themselves, and our job is to assist them in that process. If a Government want to get all their children into school but do not have the cash to make it possible, then of course they welcome help from countries like ours to employ the teachers, build the schools, buy the textbooks and put in the desks. We know from our experience—this is another truth—that, in 1,000 years of history, we have made just about every mistake that is possible. I sometimes felt slightly embarrassed about talking to Ministers from developing countries, because I was conscious of that history, and I would say, “I don’t want it to take you as long as it took us to progress from where we were to where we are today”.

We have learned that we can make progress through a process of political, social and economic development, which has transformed the lives of our citizens. We know what the essential building blocks are: peace; good health; the right to go to school; the rule of law; intolerance of corruption; trade; economic opportunity and justice; and sustainability when it comes to the natural world and the climate. All those can help to enable people to improve their lives.

In a world where there is so much change and uncertainty, where what we rely on today may not be relied on tomorrow, it is really important that Britain is seen as a reliable, trusted, consistent and honest partner. I am afraid that the events of the past two years, which are reflected in the estimates before the House, have done that aim great harm. That is why I look forward to the day when that harm is undone.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I start by thanking the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) for securing this incredibly important debate. Notwithstanding whatever state the Government may be in now—the latest apparently being that they cannot find MPs to fill the roles of all the Ministers who have resigned—this incredibly important debate shows that Parliament continues to work, even if the Government do not.

Last week, we debated the Government’s thoroughly un-British plan to go back on their word and break their promise over the Northern Ireland protocol. Today we must remind ourselves that this is another promise, made right at the beginning of the Prime Minister’s premiership, that has been broken. I found the remarks of the Prime Minister interesting when he said, clearly in relation to the right hon. Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher), that some people do not change. I am afraid that is what we have seen in this Prime Minister as well, because he has not, and the decisions that this Government have made are wrecking our reputation, not just domestically, but internationally, too, whether that is the diplomatic service, the BBC World Service, the British Council, or, as has rightly been the focus of the debate today, the international development budget.

The Liberal Democrats are particularly proud that we brought forward the Bill that enshrined 0.7% in law, but it was a cross-party, settled matter among MPs across the whole House. It was in all our manifestos, and we collectively promised it. That promise to the British people was broken by this Government when they reneged on 0.7%, and shame on them. Perhaps the good that will come from the eventual, inevitable fall of this Prime Minister is that decency and honesty might be restored to this Government. I hope therefore that the first act of the new incoming Administration might be to restore the aid budget immediately.

Today I want to focus on this Government’s current mishandling of the aid budget. The cut to the budget has hit and continues to hit those countries who need it most, including Ethiopia. The House may not know, but I lived in Ethiopia. We moved there when I was five, and we were there until I was eight. It was in the early ’80s, and people may remember the famine. We were there because my father had been given the job of economic adviser to the European mission out there, and my earliest memories of life at all are going with him to aid projects, where I would meet little children of my age who were emaciated, did not have clean water and were not able to go to school. It is a success story of aid that many of those children down the line, and their children, would have had better prospects than perhaps the young children I met.

In the context of the war in Ethiopia, the aid budget has been slashed from £325 million in 2020-21 to £30 million in 2024-25—less than a tenth. In Bangladesh, the budget will have halved from £200 million in 2020-21 to just £100 million in 2024-25. Those cuts are not a proud record of global leadership in international development; they are an international disgrace that is affecting the most vulnerable now more than ever.

Since the Government reneged on their promise, we have found ourselves with a war in Ukraine, which means that the 400 million people worldwide who rely on Ukrainian food supplies cannot get them. That ongoing military crisis—the blockade of ports, the destruction of agricultural machinery and the shells strewn across fields—is preventing grain from leaving what is rightly named the breadbasket of the world. That crisis will lead to people dying and to further instability.

I also lived in Egypt for a while; we moved there right after the revolution. The reason that the Arab spring happened was the price of tomatoes and bread. That kind of poverty and economic instability lead to political instability. To the points that have been made on both sides of the House I would say that if we are intent on helping people so that they do not have to flee and come to our shores as refugees, the best investment that we can make is to give money to partners abroad that can help them to have the best possible life where they want to be—in their cultures, in their homes, in those countries. Of course we want 0.7% to be restored, and the Ukraine crisis is why it should be restored now. In the light of that crisis, we need to step up to the plate—to the global catastrophe in front of us.

There may be hope. The latest Office for Budget Responsibility forecast reveals that a return of 0.7% is on the cards, because the fiscal tests of the old Chancellor are due to be met in 2023-24—less than a year away. Now that that decision has been made, however, it does not give me hope that the Treasury will acknowledge that 0.7% will return, because every time it has been pressed, it has refused to say whether it will allow it in the autumn. By its own tests, it should be in this autumn’s Budget that we return to 0.7%, but as has been mentioned, that promise was made by the last Chancellor. As of today, we have a new Chancellor; perhaps he will do the right thing and restore 0.7%.

International development was a proud thing for this country to hang its hat on, which matched our proud reputation as a development superpower. If the Government were serious about global Britain—Great Britain—they would lean into that reputation. It had its own Department and Secretary of State with a dedicated seat at the Cabinet table and at the National Security Council. The United Kingdom is a centre for excellence for international development and we are home to institutions that deliver world-leading research and development technical expertise and project co-ordination.

Yet the international development strategy makes it clear how far we have already fallen. After reading it, it was interesting and instructive to do a little word search. If the point of international aid is to alleviate poverty—the Government’s stated aim—why was it mentioned only nine times? Investment, however, particularly linked to trade, was mentioned 48 times. That tells us everything that we need to know about the Government’s priorities.

When the Government announced their plan to merge the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office into the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Members on both sides of the House joined forces with the sector to raise concerns about what that would mean for effectiveness. I am sorry to say that that fear has come true.

The strategy prioritises bilateral aid over multilateral aid. This is fundamentally counter to the liberal ideal of working within international structures to solve the world’s problems. It should be “and”, not “or”—not multilateral or bilateral, but both. Multilaterals, including the United Nations, are very often the first to be able to get there on the ground with dedicated teams. In times of urgent humanitarian crises, it is very often specialist teams from such multilateral organisations that can deliver the big asks needed for rebuilding, so I am deeply concerned about how this policy will impact on the UK’s ability to respond to emerging disasters, in particular.

If we are serious about tackling poverty, inequality and vulnerability across the world, it is also essential that trade is distributed where it is most needed—not where it is most likely to benefit us; that is wrong. Trade is an important part of why we do aid, but it should never be the whole reason. Trade is important, of course, and so is aid, but tying one to the other, as is the direction of travel, is the wrong approach. I remain highly concerned by this Government’s approach, which may be leading us down a dark path towards tied aid. If people want a story about what that looked like, they should look at the corruption surrounding the Pergau dam. If we say, “Well, we legislated against that”, look what the Government are doing with their own legislation: they just throw it out the window when they think it is the right time.

[Jim Shannon]

I wholeheartedly agree with what the hon. Lady says. I am very conscious that in many of the countries my constituents have relationships with—Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Malawi, to give just three examples—there are NGOs and church groups on the ground, and they understand where the real needs are. Sometimes, it is better to feed in to the knowledge of the people on the ground about where the real needs are to ensure that aid gets through. Would that be an example of what the Government should be trying to do?

[Layla Moran]

I thank the hon. Member very much for his intervention. I have seen this in the Ukraine crisis with a charity I know that operates in Moldova. The smaller charities are often very nimble and can use their knowledge straightaway on the ground. However, this needs to be “and”, not “or”. They cannot do it all; they have to do it in partnership with the multilaterals. Taking from one and not feeding into the other is the wrong approach.

In my view, the international development strategy emphasises short-term quick wins and overlooks the deeper causes of poverty and vulnerability. I will pick one specific example about women and girls, who are purportedly a priority in this strategy. The strategy claims that the Government

“intend to restore funding for this vital work.”

I ask the Minister to clarify what exactly she and the Government mean by “restore”, and to what level. This is not just about funding for schools. If we do not fund period poverty plans, sexual health plans and water plans, we find that women and girls are the first ones to start making up the gap.

There should not just be a snappy headline with the three Es of education, empowerment and ending violence against women and girls. Those are pointless unless they are followed up behind by things that are actually going to make a difference. I pay tribute again to the hon. Member for Rotherham and her Committee, because her use of privilege to make public the equalities report showed that the Government knew that their cuts were going to affect women, girls and minorities the most—and yet they have the brass neck to suggest in this strategy that it is their priority. This is the typical doublespeak we have come to rely on from this Government. To see what the Government are actually doing, look at what they say they are doing best. By and large, people will probably find that it is the thing the Government are doing worst.

[Sarah Champion]

The hon. Member is making an incredibly powerful speech. She has worked so hard in this area, and I commend her for it. Does she agree that the development strategy is not a strategy? We do not know what the strategy is. This is a collection of buzzwords with a few statistics put in, but where is the underpinning vision, which is meant to be the SDGs and reducing and removing poverty? It just does not exist.

[Layla Moran]

The hon. Member is absolutely right: it is the strategy that is completely missing from the Government.

This is not just about the money. We are debating the estimates and the money, so that is the right thing to focus on, but what determines whether money is being spent effectively is knowing what we want to achieve with that money. I will tell hon. Members what the Liberal Democrat vision is: the eradication of poverty, human rights for all, and a bolstering, not a deterioration, of the international rules-based order. Under our plans, the 0.7% target would be restored and a completely different approach to foreign policy delivered. I am sorry to say that the Government seem to be doing the exact opposite.

[Mr Speaker]

We come to the maiden speech.

Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Layla Moran Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 27th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

Negotiate—just as Labour did to get the Good Friday agreement. We negotiate. We do not break international law and alienate our partners and allies not just in Europe but across the world, and the right hon. Gentleman should know better.

As we debate the Bill, we should ask ourselves some simple questions. First, will it resolve the situation in Northern Ireland? Secondly, is it in the best interests of our great country? Thirdly, is it compatible with our commitment to the rule of law? Let me take each of those in turn.

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

Will the right hon. Member give way?

[Mr Lammy]

I will not at the moment.

Let us deal with Northern Ireland first as context. None of us in this House doubts that the situation in Northern Ireland is serious. Opposition Members need no reminder of the importance of the Good Friday agreement, which is one of the proudest achievements of a Labour Government, together with parties and communities across Northern Ireland and the Irish Government in Dublin. It was the result of hard work and compromise, graft and statesmanship, a relentless focus on the goal of peace. It was born six months after Bloody Sunday. For more than half my lifetime, Northern Ireland endured the pain and violence of conflict and division. More than 3,500 people were killed. Thousands more were injured. Cities and communities were riven by intolerance and division. I remember what that conflict brought to my city, from the Baltic Exchange attack to the Docklands bombing. Above the door over there and other doors into this Chamber are plaques to Airey Neave, Ian Gow, Sir Anthony Berry, Robert Bradford and, most recently, to Sir Henry Wilson.

Nearly a quarter of a century has passed since that hopeful Easter in 1998. Since then, we have seen transformational progress. A generation has grown up in a new Northern Ireland, harvesting the fruits of a hard-won peace. That legacy demands that all of us act with the utmost responsibility and sensitivity. We need calm heads at this moment and responsible leadership.

We recognise that the operation of the protocol and the barriers and checks that were inherent in its design have created new tensions that need to be addressed. Unionists feel that their place in the UK is threatened, and we must listen to all concerns on all sides. We all want to see power sharing restored. The UK Government, the European Union and parties across Northern Ireland need to show willing and act in good faith. However, at its most fundamental level, the Bill will not achieve its objectives. The House cannot impose a unilateral solution when progress demands that both sides agree. This is not an act of good faith, nor is it a long-term solution.

Only an agreement that works for all sides and delivers for the people and businesses of Northern Ireland will have durability and provide the political stability that businesses crave and the public deserve. Instead, the Bill will make a resolution more difficult. By breaking their obligations, the Government dissolve the little trust that remains; by taking this aggressive action, we make it harder for those on the other side of the table to compromise. On that basis alone, the Bill should be rejected.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I have to say that there are elements of this debate that feel a bit like a bad sequel. We thought that the Brexit debates were behind us, but instead we see a Government intent on reopening old wounds to save their own political skin, rather than looking forward and solving the issues facing the country now. People are in crisis here and now. The cost of living crisis is real, but what is the Government’s response? Rather than spending time focusing on that, they are reneging on an international agreement and risking plunging us into a trade war with our biggest trading partner. As a result, the Bill will only increase blocks and barriers against imports and exports, and that in turn will cause prices to rise even further. That is the last thing that farmers, fishermen and families up and down the country want.

Businesses in Northern Ireland do not want it, either. The UK Trade and Business Commission, of which I am a member, has taken evidence from people and businesses in Northern Ireland over the last year. One leading service provider told us that unfettered access to both the UK and the EU single market has benefited the Northern Irish economy. Another witness told us that support for the protocol is growing in Northern Ireland precisely because it protects the Good Friday agreement and brings economic opportunities. It is for that reason that the majority of Members of the Legislative Assembly support the protocol.

That said, no one is suggesting that there are no issues. We knew that we would have to go into further negotiations. Let us start with a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement. Doing that is going to be difficult, but how do we do it without basic trust between both sides? I ask the Minister: how does breaking international law increase trust between negotiating partners? It does not. We knew that this was going to happen, because the Treasury highlighted in its 2019 impact assessment what the protocol would do. It said that the protocol would be disruptive, particularly to Northern Ireland businesses. It is extraordinary that it is only now that the Government seem to care about cross-community consent, because most people in Northern Ireland voted against Brexit, and even more voted against the hard Brexit chosen by this Government, and yet the Government went ahead anyway. To be fair to the DUP, it voted against the withdrawal agreement. It was clear before the Prime Minister signed it that the protocol did not have cross-party consent.

What has materially changed since then? The answer is the Prime Minister’s position. And so what does he do? He breaks the law—again. This is an egregious breach of international law. Article 25 of the International Law Commission’s text on internationally wrongful acts of state allows a breach of international obligations only where it is

“the only way for the State to safeguard an essential interest against a grave and imminent peril”.

Others have already explained why this is not the only way. Furthermore, article 25 states that necessity may not be invoked when

“the State has contributed to the situation of necessity.”

How can anyone claim that we did not know? The Government signed the agreement and it was debated to death in this place all through the Brexit years. To suggest that this is new information is doublespeak—it is straight out of Orwell’s “1984”. Moreover, despots across the world will be delighted. How on earth can we hold others to account when we are tying ourselves up in knots, trying to find loopholes to get out of the agreements that we sign? This is how banana republics act, not Great Britain. The world looks to us. Can they trust us, they ask, when they want to make trade agreements with us? It is that trust that is being eroded today in this Bill.

This is being noticed on the ground. It would be remiss of me to not mention my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord), who joined our Benches today. Like many in this House, including Government Members, I was there, knocking on doors, and this came up—trust in this Government, trust in this Prime Minister. This Government breaking international law is par for the course.

This Bill is a disgraceful course of action, and I and the Liberal Democrats will vote against it, because we are a party of law and order. We believe in the international rules-based order. The Government should withdraw this Bill and get on with tackling the cost of living emergency and safeguarding the interests of the whole of our nation.