UK Foreign Aid Programme

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, we have all been indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, for bringing this debate to the House. He said in opening his remarks that it was hard to express in a few words the scale and magnitude of the cuts, but he and other noble Lords have demonstrated eloquently, and in many cases movingly, the sheer breadth and depth of the impact and devastation. Out of 43 speakers who have taken part in this debate, we await the only defence of the Government, from the Minister in his speech—so I hope it is a good one.

A year ago last week in the House of Commons, Boris Johnson described the world’s most effective and respected development body as a

“giant cashpoint in the sky”.—[Official Report, Commons, 16/6/20; col. 670.]

From the moment when I watched that with a sinking heart, I knew that a consensus had ended—a consensus in UK politics that has been so hard to secure in a decade of disruption, with periods of financial crash, austerity and hardship, as the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, said, divisive referenda about our internal relationship and that with our near neighbours, and four general elections. At a time of turmoil, one area kept consensus throughout all this: the UK should finally meet its obligation to the world’s most disadvantaged and we should maintain it.

That consensus of all parties and none in 2015 allowed the Private Member’s Bill to pass Parliament, enshrining the long-held UN target of 0.7% of GNI into law. In 2015, debt as a proportion to GDP was nearly 85%; now it is 95%. In 2015, the global goals were agreed, and now they are likely to be missed, because of one of the greatest health crises in the world. These cuts, beyond what would have been lawfully permitted under the 2015 Act with a fall in GNI have been made, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, said, as a result of ministerial assertion of non-compliance with a statutory duty.

There is no provision in law to set a new target. Parliament specifically rejected amendments for differing targets. Indeed, an amendment in this House tabled by four former Permanent Secretaries of the Treasury was rejected by this House, as the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, said. Those who spoke most powerfully against that amendment were those who headed up our Armed Forces and had been Permanent Secretaries at the Foreign Office, because they knew how our global reputation would be enhanced by this legislation.

Now, in 2021, United Nations appeals for humanitarian assistance have increased by 27% over the last year. Developed country contributions have reduced by 1.2% overall. The German and US contributions increased from their lower base by 6% and 27% respectively. UK contributions to global humanitarian assistance fell by 31%, and this has meant that in the worst humanitarian challenge of our lifetime, the response has been cut. What a scar on the world, and what a shameful response by this Government.

Even more shameful is that on the first of four occasions when we hosted the world’s richest nations, the UK made no mention at all of the 0.7% target. I asked the Leader of the House, in responding to the Statement on the G7 summit, whether she would recommend and encourage other countries to meet the 0.7% target, and she refused. I recently asked the Deputy Leader whether he would, and he did not answer—our moral leadership washed away in the sands of Carbis Bay.

As the noble Lord, Lord Oates, said, by withdrawing bilateral assistance to scores of countries in Africa at a time when their people need it most—and from existing programmes—we will be able to see the impact on lives. As the noble Lord, Lord Trees, indicated, on complex and neglected tropical diseases, which kill, blind, disfigure and maim, causing considerable and largely untold suffering to millions of people worldwide, the World Health Organization’s submission to the International Development Committee in the Commons said that

“as a consequence of the aid cuts, 20,000-30,000 individuals are likely to die”,

and, horrifically,

“the withdrawal of UK funding makes it likely that an estimated in-country inventory of 276,802,004 tablets donated by British and international pharmaceutical companies will expire and need to be incinerated”.

Can we just reflect for one moment on the image of cases of UK-branded medication being incinerated in 2021? I asked the noble Earl, Lord Howe, in the debate of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, recently, whether the Government would commit to UK medication not being destroyed. If he responds on anything I say today, will the Minister, on behalf of the Government, say that no British-funded medication will be destroyed as a result of these cuts?

How are the Government doing it? On 29 August, the Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, promised new levels of “transparency and accountability” in his Statement, but the ICAI report of May 2021 said:

“However, as it turned out, the approach adopted by central government at mid-year resulted in more drastic aid cuts than were needed … The criteria used for reprioritisation were open to broad interpretation and inconsistently applied … Budget reductions were concentrated in … countries considered most vulnerable to COVID-19.”


This was partly due to their scale, as only sizeable programmes could make a contribution to the cuts. One of these was to one of the poorest countries on earth, suffering a malaria crisis unparalleled in our lifetime—Yemen.

The Minister for the Middle East, James Cleverly, told Parliament on 2 March that the UK

“will feed an additional 240,000 of the most vulnerable Yemenis every month.”—[Official Report, Commons, 2/3/21; col. 117.]

This was down from 500,000 a month, which he promised on 22 January. Just last week, the FCDO ended funding to the Yemen multisector humanitarian response programme, which could see a further 213,000 women and children losing financial assistance for their food baskets. We know, through CARE International and others, that in Yemen, 73% of the impact of this will be on women and children. The UNFPA warned in March this year that lack of funding could lead to 100,000 women dying from complications in pregnancy and childbirth. The UK response was to reduce its contribution to UNFPA by 85% and its overall funding to Yemen by 59%.

The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, reflected on his remarks in the House in 2015, and that prompted me to reflect on what I said six years ago at Second Reading of the 2015 Bill. I concluded by saying that

“the UK has less than 1% of the world’s population. Our global footprint is massively disproportionate to the size of our tiny islands. If the UK is a citizen of the world, what kind of citizen must we be? I say we are one that comes to the assistance of others who are in need … We establish our place and our identity as a citizen of the world if we uphold our obligations and encourage others to do likewise. This Bill is one major way in which we demonstrate our citizenship of the world.”—[Official Report, 23/1/15; col. 1520.]

But this Government are reneging on these obligations. Even after I challenged the Leader and Deputy Leader, they could not even bring themselves to encourage others to meet the UN target. The Government cut support by half to some of the poorest and most vulnerable women and children in the world and do not think a humanitarian impact assessment is worth while before they do so.

We are not just cutting aid but reducing partnerships. We are not just cutting aid but undermining trust. In doing so, the Government breach the law and equivocate on conditions for a return, and, when we have heard for years of bringing back parliamentary sovereignty, they fail to bring a vote to Parliament. What kind of citizen is this?