G7 Summit

Lord Oates Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, as I have said, the Prime Minister will be announcing details in due course. I understand that my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary will make a Statement in another place later; I cannot anticipate that. But I agree with the noble Lord opposite that the G7 does have a track record of delivering meaningful outcomes under successive leaderships. Indeed, it has taken action to save 27 million lives from AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

[Lord Oates (LD)]

Does the Minister recognise that a key priority for the G7 must be how it supports developing economies, which have suffered the severest economic impacts from Covid? Is it not therefore disgraceful that the Government have chosen this exact moment to betray our commitment to the poorest in the world in order, shamefully, to spend the money on weapons instead?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord’s intervention was strong on adverbs and adjectives. I will give your Lordships a fact: 0.5%, or £10,000 million, whatever noble Lords say, is more than all 29 members of the OECD development committee contribute. Their average is 0.38%. I repeat that we are the second-highest donor in the G7 and will remain so.