Safeguarding in the Aid Sector

Lord Hayward Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

In recognising the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Collins, and the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, in relation to work that is undertaken in particularly dangerous and difficult circumstances, I was in Iraq last week, as my noble friend knows, where I met DfID, charity and voluntary workers. They are working in incredibly dangerous and difficult circumstances. It would be a disaster for the communities if the work being undertaken was deferred by even a few days or weeks. Will my noble friend therefore exhort all contributors, whether large or small, to continue to make donations to the charities to which they contribute, so that those charities can continue to make their crucial contribution to societies, whether in Iraq or around the rest of the world?

[Lord Bates]

I am very happy to give that undertaking. My noble friend is absolutely right that British people are generous to people around the world. In many ways, the great tragedy of what has happened is that the failure to act in a transparent and timely way has genuinely put lives at risk, because people might stop giving in the way that he talked about. Oxfam alone has around 10,000 people in 90 countries; it is working with DfID at present in places such as Yemen and South Sudan, delivering life-saving materials. In everything we do, we are going to ensure that our prime concern is for the people whom we are trying to help. We will not deal with contracts in a pre-emptive way until we are absolutely confident that those people who need our help, whether they are called beneficiaries or aid recipients, are our number one concern. They must be protected at all times. That is what the charities themselves should have been thinking all the way through.