UN Sustainable Development Goals

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)]

I certainly half agree with the noble Lord: the investment that we can put into the countries from which the migrants are coming is essential. We have to ensure that countries in north and sub-Saharan Africa are building a future for their own people and providing jobs; otherwise, those people will be on the move. The figures are outstanding: the population of Europe in 1950 was twice that of Africa, but by the end of this century the population of Africa will be four times that of Europe. So making sure that those countries develop is crucial but, at the same time, when you have problems of widespread illegal immigration, it is important to stop the boats.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, will the Foreign Secretary not take another look at the issue of debt forgiveness that he spoke rather critically of just now? In previous iterations of this saga, we have recognised in the end that debt forgiveness was necessary for some of the poorest countries. Could he not look at that again, as well as whether we could link it with the commitment by a country that was forgiven its debt to do more on climate change?

[Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)]

I respect the noble Lord and what he says. We have been leaders on this through the Paris Club and other mechanisms; in many cases it has been the right thing to do to write down a country’s debt. With respect to climate change, these climate resilient debt clauses can make a great difference in helping these countries. Fundamentally, if we want to achieve the SDGs, we need to motivate global finance, and one of the ways that we can do that is through the multilateral development banks because if they expand their balance sheets there is probably an extra £400 billion that they can invest to help these countries with their growth.