UN Sustainable Development Goals

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Collins of Highbury]

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs what steps he is taking to promote the implementation of the UN sustainable development goals.

[The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton) (Con)]

My Lords, the UK was instrumental in developing the sustainable development goals. Following the global recommitment to the SDGs at the United Nations General Assembly last autumn, we recognise the opportunity to reinvigorate a sense of collective purpose and partnership to deliver those goals. The international development White Paper sets out a re-energised agenda for the UK, working with partners, to accelerate progress on the SDGs by 2030. We will champion the SDGs throughout the key summits and meetings this year, and I will be making a speech on the SDGs in Davos tomorrow.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I very much welcome that last comment. Of course, one barrier to progress is debt. The average low-income country now spends 2.3 times more on servicing debt than on social assistance. At the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, the Minister stressed the importance of cross-Whitehall working to address priority areas, and debt is one of those areas.

One of the mechanisms that the UN adopted for monitoring progress on the SDGs is voluntary national reviews. We had our last one—our only one—in 2019. Spain is due to publish its third, Argentina its fourth, but what are we doing? Can the Minister explain why we have not followed that example and used the voluntary national reviews?

[Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)]

I very much agree with the noble Lord on the important position regarding debt and what needs to be done to help countries to relieve their debt. I do not necessarily think the answer is always to cancel debt, because in many cases that affects a country’s credit rating, but we support things such as climate resilient debt clauses and the flexibility they give.

On voluntary national reviews, we had one in 2019, as the noble Lord knows, but we have not made a decision about a follow-up. I say to him: look, it is not really Britain that is the problem in meeting the SDGs. What has happened here is that, because of Covid and Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, African countries have had a triple whammy. They have had the whammy of Covid, the whammy of higher fuel prices and the whammy of higher food prices. That has caused an increase in poverty and set the SDGs off track. We have to energise the world—the voluntary sector and, crucially, the private sector—to invest in the future of the SDGs and get us back on track.