Sub-Saharan Africa (Report from the International Relations and Defence Committee)

Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay Excerpts

Wednesday 8th September 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Collins, said, this has been a wide-ranging and interesting debate. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Anelay of St Johns for the way in which she opened the debate and for her great dedication as chair of your Lordships’ International Relations and Defence Committee. I am also grateful for her understanding, as a former Chief Whip, for the reasons for the delay in having this debate, as well as for the patience of all the committee’s members; I recognise that it has been tested. I am glad, however, that there have been opportunities during our many Statements, Questions and PNQs on the pandemic for some of the points raised in the debate to be made in your Lordships’ House.

The committee made several recommendations to the Government in its report. Many of them are already informing our approach to African countries as we tackle the pandemic and work towards a sustainable recovery. Africa is a continent of unequalled diversity. It is critical that we calibrate our engagement accordingly and focus our resources to ensure that we deliver the greatest possible impact for those with whom we work and for the UK taxpayer.

The Government’s vision for the UK in the world, including in relation to Africa, is set out in the integrated review. It highlighted our focus on east Africa and the continent’s regional powers, such as Nigeria, South Africa and Ghana, but we are also working to strengthen partnerships across the continent to boost trade, strengthen democracies and bolster security. Our overarching objective is to increase economic growth in African countries and support them becoming greener, healthier, more open and more secure.

To achieve this, we are focusing on five priority areas: economic growth; tackling threats; open societies; human development; and the shift towards a greener, cleaner planet. In the time available, I will say a bit about each of these priority areas. I will also try to address as many of the points made and answer as many of the questions posed by noble Lords as possible. As ever, I will of course consult the official record afterwards to ensure that all noble Lords’ points are properly followed up.

Our first priority is supporting economic growth to help African countries recover from the pandemic and meet the aspirations of their growing populations; as the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Swansea, and my noble friends Lord Eccles and Lady Anelay noted, the number of people on the continent is doubling every 27 years. If African countries are to put themselves at the forefront of emerging global markets, economic growth needs not only to keep pace with but to consistently exceed population growth. That sounds ambitious—it is—but, as my noble friend Lady Fall mentioned, before the pandemic countries such as Ethiopia, Rwanda, Ghana, Benin and Côte d’Ivoire had growth rates of more than 7%. Those rates put them among the fastest-growing economies in the world. Fifteen other African countries grew at more than 5%. We want to help them to bounce back to those levels as quickly as possible.

As the Prime Minister reiterated at the Africa Investment Conference in January, our ambition is to be Africa’s investor of choice. These are competitive markets—as they should be—but we have much to offer and are working hard to increase trade and investment with and between African countries. We are supporting the African Continental Free Trade Area, as your Lordships’ report recommended, and strengthening our trade agreements; my noble friend Lady Anelay asked about that.

The African Continental Free Trade Area is the African Union’s most ambitious regional economic integration initiative and is a potential game-changer for Africa’s economic growth, driving industrialisation, jobs and prosperity. As well as delivering increased prosperity for Africa, if implemented fully, it could also generate new trade and investment opportunities for UK businesses, for example by reducing the complexity and cost for businesses of operating in multiple countries. That is why the UK is a strong supporter of it and why, on 3 September, my honourable friend the Minister for Africa, James Duddridge, signed a memorandum of understanding with the secretariat. The MoU is the first of its kind with a non-African country and will facilitate UK collaboration with the African Continental Free Trade Area across a number of areas, including investment and trade facilitation.

At the UK-Africa Investment Summit last year, we announced more than £15 billion of commercial deals between British companies and African partners. The summit was followed up earlier this year with the Africa Investment Conference, highlighting our goal significantly to increase trade and investment with the region, which your Lordships’ report recommended; the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, touched on this in his contribution. Supporting UK investment in Africa is a priority for Her Majesty’s Government. In 2019, using ONS statistics, UK investment stock was £50.6 billion —an increase on the previous year of almost 15%. Last year, when many investors in Africa were withdrawing, UK development finance committed more than £800 million of investment. To touch on the points made by my noble friend Lord Sarfraz, as others were withdrawing from Africa during the pandemic, the CDC Group stepped up to provide much-needed, impact-driven, targeted capital and liquidity to investment partners in the region.

In June, as G7 president, we committed the group’s leaders to working with their development finance institutions and multilateral partners to invest at least $80 billion in the private sector in Africa over the next five years.

The noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, pressed for specific details about our trading arrangements. We have successfully signed nine agreements with 16 countries in Africa, representing bilateral trade worth £21.7 billion—

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

My Lords, there is a Division in the Chamber. The Committee will adjourn for five minutes.

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[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, I was saying in response to the question raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, that the nine agreements we have signed with 16 countries in Africa represent bilateral trade worth £21.7 billion in 2019. There are also 12 trade envoys to Africa covering 15 countries, four of them Members of your Lordships’ House.

A number of noble Lords raised visas. We have designed our new visa system to support our business and trade ties with Africa. It treats people from every part of the world equally, welcoming them based not on the continent they come from but on their skills and the contribution they can make to the United Kingdom. I know that my honourable friend the Minister for Africa has had correspondence with your Lordships’ committee on this, including giving the reassurance that he raised many of the issues highlighted in your Lordships’ report with Ministers at the Home Office, but this is a new system. As we build it, we will of course keep reviewing it and ways that it could be improved to ensure it has the confidence of those we want to welcome to the UK. We would welcome continued feedback from your Lordships’ committee on this issue as we do that.

For growth to be sustainable, we must address security threats that could undermine it and harm our interests and those of our African partners. There remain pockets of violent conflict across Africa, and our second priority is to tackle them, working with affected countries, the African Union and the UN Security Council. We have expanded our diplomatic presence across the Sahel, one of the poorest regions on the planet and one suffering from growing insecurity and violent extremism. The noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, and the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, asked about that, particularly whether we have changed our shift to the Sahel in the light of recent events. Since 2018, we have significantly expanded our presence in the region, with resident ambassadors in Mauritania, Niger and Chad for the first time, and an increase in the size of our embassy in Mali. We have also increased staffing in London, set up an advisory hub in Dakar and appointed an envoy. We are playing a prominent role in the Sahel Coalition and the Sahel Alliance.

The noble Lord, Lord Hannay of Chiswick, and others raised peacekeeping. We provide 300 troops to MINUSMA, the UN’s peacekeeping mission in Mali, and four Chinook helicopters to the French counter-terrorism Operation Barkhane, as the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, noted. We also use our £12 million Conflict, Stability and Security Fund programme to build stability and bolster conflict resolution in Mali and the wider Sahel.

We are working to tackle terrorism in west Africa and the Lake Chad basin through a £12.6 million support package to counter Daesh in the region. We continue to support conflict resolution in Somalia and Sudan, and their transitions to democracy. In addition to pressing Somalia to hold rapid and credible elections, we are using our £24 million CSSF programme to seek to reduce current and future threats by focusing on building and delivering capability in its security sector, supporting stabilisation efforts and our efforts to counter al-Shabaab.

We are working with our partners and through the UN Security Council to end hostilities in Tigray. We have used our G7 presidency to amplify our calls for unfettered humanitarian access, a dialogue to resolve the conflict and accountability for atrocities. My noble friend Lady Helic mentioned some of these. Thanks in large part to her work in government, the UK is a global leader on tackling sexual violence in conflict. We have deployed the UK team of experts more than 90 times since 2012 to build the capacity of Governments, the UN and NGOs, including most recently in Tigray, to investigate crimes of conflict-related sexual violence and to hold perpetrators to account. This year, the UK will publish the three-year PSVI strategy, which will focus UK efforts on strengthening pathways to justice for all survivors and enhancing the support available to them, including tackling stigma.

Our third priority is to nurture open societies. That means supporting human rights and democratic values and supporting civil society groups to provide African-led solutions to the continent’s challenges. It means building institutions that can stave off authoritarianism and corruption, and it means supporting democratic values and institutions through diplomacy. In Kenya, for instance, we have supported the reform of the police and strengthened independent institutions such as the judiciary and elections commission. It also means holding those who violate human rights to account, including through our sanctions regimes. In Zimbabwe, we used our new autonomous sanctions regime to hold to account four security officials who were responsible for some of Zimbabwe’s worst human rights violations under the Mnangagwa Government.

Providing developmental support is our fourth priority. We are determined to end preventable deaths, improve sexual and reproductive health, and help more girls to receive 12 years of quality education. Between 2015 and 2020, more than 37 million young children, women and adolescent girls in Africa were reached through our nutrition programmes, and we supported more than 26 million people in Africa to gain access to clean water or better sanitation. Over the same period, we enabled an average of 25 million women and girls each year to access modern methods of family planning, many of them in sub-Saharan Africa.

We will continue to invest in stronger health systems towards saving the lives of mothers and children, including bilateral programmes in Ethiopia, Nigeria, Somalia, the DRC, Malawi, Uganda and Mozambique. Our bilateral programmes will be enhanced by multilateral investment and partnerships. The UK will continue to support the large-scale delivery of vaccines to children through GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, and scale up the prevention and treatment of HIV, tuberculosis and malaria through the Global Fund.

A number of noble Lords made points relating to Covid and the provision of vaccines. I am mindful that the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, has secured a debate on that very subject in your Lordships’ House tomorrow so I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I go into only some detail on it now; I will be responding to that debate and will be able to go into further detail with the extra time allowed there. We continue to support the delivery of Covid-19 vaccines in Africa, where we have contributed £548 million to COVAX. Forty-two African countries have received a total of 31 million doses through the initiative. Furthermore, the Prime Minister has announced that the UK will share 100 million vaccine doses by June next year. However, I will take back the point made by my friend Lady Fall about further discussions at UNGA and discuss it with colleagues.

In July, we hosted the Global Education Summit in partnership with Kenya, advancing our commitment to 12 years of quality education for all girls by 2030 and supporting education across Africa. This was an extraordinary demonstration of global solidarity, raising more than $4 billion to help the world’s most vulnerable children. The UK made our largest-ever pledge of £430 million to the Global Partnership for Education fund, maintaining our position as its top bilateral donor. However, we must acknowledge some of the difficult decisions that have been taken because of the economic impact of the pandemic.

Many noble Lords raised—as we have debated many times before—the need temporarily to reduce our development spending from 0.7% to 0.5% of GNI. This was a difficult decision, and the Prime Minister has committed to returning to 0.7% as soon as possible. However, we will still spend more than £10 billion around the world this year to fight poverty, tackle climate change and improve global health. We remain the third-largest G7 donor and will spend close to half our bilateral aid budget this year in Africa. We are targeting our support where human suffering is most acute. Our focus is on preventing deaths, getting girls into school, boosting science and technology and tackling climate change.

The noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Swansea, asked some questions about VSO in the light of that. We have agreed funding with VSO for the V4D programme until the end of this financial year, and officials have started discussions with VSO on our future relationship.

A number of noble Lords, including my noble friend Lady Anelay, the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, and the noble Lords, Lord Grocott, Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Collins of Highbury, raised the issue of remittances. The Government recognise the importance of remittances sent from the UK to low and middle-income countries. We are committed to achieving G20 and SDG targets, seeking to reduce the average cost of remittances to 3% of the total being sent and with no send costs in excess of 5%. The noble Lord, Lord Collins, asked about the decline in remittances. They declined by 1.6% globally in 2020, which is a fall but a lot less than was predicted earlier by the World Bank and others.

Our fifth priority is to help African countries to become low-carbon economies and shield them from the worst impacts of climate change. We are working with countries and the African Union to prioritise climate, nature and a green recovery from Covid-19, including through the African Union’s Green Recovery Action Plan, which was launched in July this year. We will use the COP 26 summit to address the disproportionate impact of climate change on Africa and turbocharge global action. We are pressing donor countries to live up to the $100 billion climate finance commitment made at the Paris climate summit. For our part, we have committed to doubling our climate finance to £11.6 billion. This is helping developing countries to pursue sustainable low-carbon futures.

Like my noble friends Lord Lilley and Lord Hannan of Kingsclere, we recognise the importance of reliable, affordable and clean energy to African nations’ development. Low levels of access to electricity present a major barrier to development and an opportunity to leap-frog to low-carbon economies, driven by renewable energy. That is why the UK launched the COP 26 Energy Transition Council, which will help to accelerate the transition from coal to clean energy across Africa. It will bring together the global political, financial and technical leadership in the power sector to seek to improve the international offer in support of an equitable transition from coal.

In the time available, I have given just a glimpse of the work we are doing across Africa. We have one of the largest diplomatic networks—

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

Before the Minister sits down, I hope he is going to address Cameroon.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I am indeed. I was not yet winding up, simply saying that I have been able to give but a glimpse of the soft power work that we are doing across Africa. We have one of the largest diplomatic networks across the continent, strengthening partnerships with African countries and creating further people-to-people links. In working towards our goals, we will make the most of our considerable soft power assets, which were noted in your Lordships’ report and its recommendations. We have a rich array of creative, cultural and sporting links to build on, whether through scientific collaborations, tech start-ups, Africa Fashion Week London or BBC Africa.

The education sector is another vital link in this area. More than 30,000 African students are studying here in the UK. The British Council supports better knowledge of the English language through a number of programmes, including English Connects, which engaged with more than 1.3 million 18 to 35 year-olds through digital resources in the last academic year. Our Chevening programme, which was mentioned, has an extraordinary record of accomplishment in helping to educate future and current African leaders. We have increased funding for the programme and the 2019 intake of 1,100 was the largest ever.

A number of noble Lords talked about the importance of the diaspora communities here in the UK. We are looking to make better use of the knowledge and expertise of our African diaspora communities in strengthening our partnerships. Already, this approach has helped to identify trade and investment opportunities in countries such as Ghana and Nigeria. There are important ways in which the diaspora communities can build bridges with civil society and communities in their countries of descent to support action on priorities such as open societies and climate change. The noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, mentioned COP 26, and of course we want everybody in the United Kingdom to be engaged with that important summit.

The noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, and my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford both raised China. As the Government’s response to your Lordships’ report made clear, the committee’s recommendations reflect the Government’s current approach. China is an important source of aid, trade and investment for many African nations. However, we are clear-eyed about the potential risks that this poses vis-à-vis issues such as debt sustainability and China’s economic and political influence. We take a nuanced and differentiated approach. We seek to maximise the positive impacts that China might have, especially in multilateral fora, while working to mitigate any risks. We distinguish carefully between the threats and opportunities China poses in Africa, and proactively engage where doing so is in the national interest and supports our Africa objectives.

The noble Lord, Lord Alton, also raised the case of Leah Sharibu. We remain deeply concerned about Leah’s welfare. Our officials in Abuja raised her case with the Nigerian Government in March this year. The Nigerian Government have provided assurances that they are doing all they can to secure her release, and the release of all those still held in captivity.

Cameroon was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, and others. The Government remain deeply concerned about the situation in the northwest and southwest regions of Cameroon. We are aware of reports of human rights abuses in those regions and have made representations to the authorities about the importance of timely and transparent investigations into such reports. Indeed, we regularly raise our concerns about the crisis with the Government of Cameroon at the highest levels. The Minister for Africa visited Cameroon in March this year, met both President Biya and Prime Minister Ngute and set out the UK’s commitment to supporting a peaceful resolution.

The UK has also shared our experience of conflict resolution with the Government of Cameroon, and we work in conjunction with international partners, including France, as the noble Lord said, to raise the crisis in multilateral fora. During my honourable friend’s visit in March, he met the American, French and Swiss representatives to share assessments of the crisis. We also welcome the active conflict resolution role that can be played by faith leaders, both locally and globally, and welcomed the visit by the Vatican’s Foreign Minister, Cardinal Parolin, in June.

The noble Lord, Lord Boateng, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, asked about trade in the light of all this. The UK-Cameroon economic partnership agreement ensures continuity of our trading arrangements, but the Government’s approach is clear: using trade to support development is not mutually exclusive to the rule of law, protecting human rights and democratic principles. We continue to press the Government of Cameroon to uphold these important principles, which underpin the economic partnership agreement.

I am now, however, running out of time, and must conclude—

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

I recognise the time too and wish to ask a question, because the Minister has not answered at all the two points most frequently raised in this debate: visas and our trade policy, going beyond simply running to stand still. Does the Minister, on behalf of the Government, accept that within six months they will bring forward an overall approach to improving trade with African countries, as was called for by the noble Lords, Lord Lilley and Lord Hannan of Kingsclere? Is he unable to give us any information about visa policy, which, as a large number of noble Lords pointed out, is probably the biggest single impediment—apart from the cut in aid—to our improved relationship?

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[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I am very sorry if the noble Lord missed it, but I did address the points that many noble Lords raised about visas. I noted that my honourable friend the Minister for Africa responded to the committee about that and gave the reassurance that he had raised the points mentioned in your Lordships’ report with Ministers at the Home Office as we implement our new visa arrangement, which welcomes people from around the world, based not on the continent they come from but on the skills they provide and the contribution they can make. I repeat what I said earlier: we welcome further discussion with the committee and the experiences of the people with whom noble Lords come into contact as they use the new system. We want it to enjoy the confidence of all those who use it.

I also outlined the Government’s approach to trade vis-à-vis Africa with the investment summit and the work we have been doing with the trade envoys, which continues, but I will certainly revisit the official record and, if I have missed some of the points that the noble Lord, in particular, raised, I will ensure that he gets the response he wants.

[Lord Oates (LD)]

On a point of clarification, can the Minister assure the Grand Committee that the MoU with the Africa trade area will be referred to your Lordships’ International Agreements Committee and will be published? I declare an interest as a member of that committee.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

If the Committee will permit me, I will take that back and provide a response once I have been able to discuss it with colleagues at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. I will ensure that the Committee has an answer on that point.

In conclusion, the Government greatly value the interest of your Lordships and the committee in our relationship with sub-Saharan Africa and ensuring that Africa is a key part of the long-term approach of global Britain. We recognise the enormous potential that comes with the continent’s young demographic and growing markets. We are very grateful for the report and this debate, which has been a welcome opportunity to discuss it in depth and to cover some new ground as well. I know that the debate will continue, but for today I end by again thanking everyone for their participation and my noble friend for the way that she opened the debate.