Integrated Review: Development Aid

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Wednesday 28th April 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for this debate. Unfortunately, it is in Cross-Bench time; I would have wished it to be in government time because, frankly, there are questions to be answered. One of them is: why have only two and a half speakers supported the Government, when I am speaker No. 36?

I want to pay tribute to my good friend Lord Judd, who I had known for almost 50 years. He was a great man in many ways.

We have had an unprecedented increase in public expenditure in the past year. There has never been more money spent. This is a petty cut, of which we should be deeply ashamed. It is not something we can justify; we are not up against it; we are not cutting everything. It is not something to be proud of; it is a petty decision. I pay tribute to my good and noble friend Lady Sugg for her willingness to make this an issue of principle, because that is what it is.

I feel that we are just playing to the gallery. Yes, it probably is popular to cut overseas aid. It would also be quite popular to bring back hanging. I recall once sitting next to Ted Heath at dinner and talking about hanging. He said, “Look, there’s some questions you just don’t ask.” This is a question we should not have asked. We should not have asked people whether they wanted to cut aid to the poorest, and we should not go along with it.

I want the Government to come clean and tell us what they plan to do to restore this spending. If there was one proud moment in David Cameron’s premiership and leadership, it was this. As someone who worked for David and who, as I have said, is still willing to say a nice word about him, I want to see it back again.