Integrated Review: Development Aid

Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick Excerpts

Wednesday 28th April 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick (CB)]

My Lords, this weekend, the Defence Secretary, in anticipation of the first overseas tour by the Royal Navy’s new flagship carrier and six other Navy ships to tilt at the Indo-China region, stated:

“When our Carrier Strike Group sets sail”


next month,

“it will be flying the flag for Global Britain—projecting our influence, signalling our power, engaging with our friends and reaffirming our commitment to addressing the security challenges of today and tomorrow.”

No, Mr Wallace: this is the very week that, after 20 years of a wasted war in Afghanistan, US and UK troops start their weary journey home—trillions spent and no victory. It was Hillary Clinton, when US Secretary of State, who, in despair at ongoing defence deployment, stated that if we had wanted to win the war with the Taliban and liberate Afghanistan, we would have been building schools for girls and boys, and empowering excellent global education from the 1970s onwards.

Truly, to project power and soft power, influence is not in bombs and ships. As Nelson Mandela once said:

“Education is the single most powerful weapon … to change the world.”


That is why it is scandalous to cut education aid by 40% over four years. As one of the many ambassadors here for the Global Partnership for Education, I say: if we want security, we need to invest in minds, not mines in the ground; in subjects, not submarines; and in war history, not war machines. Learning is the vaccine to the pandemic of ignorance and injustice that our world suffers.