Sustainable Development Goals

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

I am going to make some progress.

There is nothing wrong with supporting the private sector and infrastructure investment in poor countries, but we Opposition Members have grave concerns about the lack of transparency over where this funding for private sector development is going. That area will account for £1.8 billion—nearly one fifth of the Secretary of State’s budget next year.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

Just before this debate, the Select Committee was taking evidence from the Secretary of State on precisely the issue of private sector investment, but not a single Labour member of the Committee attended the session.

[Mary Creagh]

Perhaps my hon. Friends were writing their speeches. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell) is planning to speak in this debate. I pay tribute to the work of the Select Committee, which the right hon. Gentleman chairs, and I shall quote extensively from some of his reports, if he will give me the chance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

I am pleased to follow the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke), who has a long and distinguished record of championing development issues and was the author of important legislation in this field.

I welcome this debate. In a year when momentous decisions have to be taken on international development, it is important to have such a debate. However, I am disappointed by the tone and terms of the motion. I have had the honour to chair the International Development Committee for nearly 10 years, in opposition and government, and during the tenure of four different Secretaries of State. I have never feared our being critical of Governments so long as our criticisms are constructive, evidence based and designed to improve the quality of our aid delivery and to probe how effectively it can be delivered. That is the tone with which we most assuredly deliver the best outcomes.

Many people, including representatives of donor Governments who have not achieved the 0.7% target, ask me how we have managed to do it. I say, “It’s quite simple. The overriding reason has been cross-party consensus”. The suggestion, therefore, that the Labour party might now break that consensus is deeply disappointing, and it should reflect on the implications. The motion criticises the Government for not having legislated on the 0.7% target, but only one country, Belgium, has done so; there is no requirement to do so; and, most importantly, we have actually delivered the target—0.71% in fact. Having said that, I am pleased that the Bill introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Michael Moore) is well on the way to completion, with Government support. Yes, of course it could have been done by the Government, and I wish it had been, but that is not a point of substance, because it is happening thanks to cross-party support.

The motion also criticises aspects of the SDGs, which, like the Secretary of State, I do not actually understand. We have 17 draft goals and 169 supporting resolutions, which is clearly unmanageable. It has to be boiled down to something that people can work with and remember. Ban Ki-moon has got his own six essential elements, for which I think he is seeking support. The Secretary of State or the Minister might want to say where the Government stand on that, although I imagine that we will want to be constructive and work with the United Nations. After all, it is the United Nations that to a substantial degree has ownership, although we are all members of the United Nations and Britain is a particularly important member. I think Ban Ki-moon understands, as we do, that having a plethora of goals dilutes them to the point where nobody can remember them.

Those six points—which I am sure will receive support—encapsulate the very essence of what is being criticised in today’s motion. There is a commitment on health and a commitment on climate change—they are central to those six overriding sustainable development goals. What we should be doing is working to get the maximum international consensus for a set of goals that are understandable and transparent and that enable all those commitments to be delivered in terms that will make a difference, which means ending absolute poverty by 2030 and leaving no one behind. Surely we are all agreed about that.

I believe that is where we should go. In addition, I am particularly pleased that the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) referred specifically to women and girls and disability, two things that have been particularly championed by the present Government—I am not saying they were not championed by the previous Government, but they have been taken forward. I pay tribute to the Secretary of State and her former colleague as Under-Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), who took those causes up and championed them with her brand of campaigning enthusiasm.

That has made a difference, not just here and in our policy, but globally and internationally, because the thing I have found in the 10 years that I have had the privilege of doing this job in the House is that the UK gives huge leadership, not just through the volume of what we do, but through the quality of the way we do it. I know that there is an election coming up in May, but there are people outside who want to discredit and destroy our commitment on international development. I would plead with Members to recognise that what will ensure that it is delivered is for us to stay together in our commitments and to ensure that our criticisms are constructive and designed to improve the outcome and make sure that what we do actually makes a difference.

As for the final criticism—of the engagement of the private sector—in reality, unless people can gain livelihoods and employment that will enable them ultimately to pay taxes and fund social services, health care and education, the countries we are supporting will never get out of poverty. The question is: what is the role of the private sector, what is the role of the donors and how do they work together? The questions we have heard are perfectly legitimate—let me be clear about that—but the implication behind them is that, somehow or other, DFID is doing the wrong thing by pursuing that agenda, and I could not agree less.

The Committee has taken evidence from the Secretary of State this afternoon; we will publish a report that will give our view on this issue in due course. We will also publish a report next week on the future of aid, giving real challenges to DFID, but ones that are based on evidence and that I hope all parties in the House will support, so that we can continue to lead the world on the quality of development that we deliver.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—