UN Sustainable Development Goals

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I declare that I voluntarily chair the UK board of Search for Common Ground, which is a global peacebuilding charity delivering programmes supported by the UK Government. I am also an associate of Global Partners Governance, which focuses on strengthening representative institutions linked with sustainable development goal 17.

As others have, I commend the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, for securing this very important debate and for his tireless work in the all-party parliamentary group. Most recently, very early yesterday morning we had a session with Minister Dodds, who spoke with great passion about the Government’s commitment to the SDGs. This is an important debate. The SDGs were not in the Labour manifesto, so it is a good opportunity, early in the new Government’s term, for the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Collins, to outline the Government’s thinking on how they will be going forward, and to report back on the very valuable work he did at the United Nations in recent weeks.

My noble friend Lord Bruce commented on the number of speakers in this debate. I note that the next debate on VAT for private schools has more speakers than a debate on global poverty, but “quality rather than quantity” could perhaps be said of this debate. That debate is sandwiched by another very important debate this afternoon, regarding Ethiopia. So this is a good day for us to consider not only the global challenges, which have been discussed, but what the UK’s response should be.

My noble friend Lord Bruce also explained why it is important. It is in the strategic interests of the United Kingdom to restore our scale and reputation of partnership programming. The very essence of a liberal, rules-based international order, compared with a multi- polar world based around Beijing or Moscow, is in our defence, security, diplomatic and development priorities. The SDGs should be at the heart of that.

My noble friend Lady Northover, in her extremely powerful contribution, outlined the consequences of the approach of the climate emergency—food insecurity and resource conflict potentially displacing 200 million people. We know that in the UK we are not immune from the consequences of that. It is in our domestic interests that we work abroad.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, and my noble friend indicated, the greatest impact is on women and girls. The sustainable livelihoods that would be denied, and the lack of economic development for women and girls, will mean fewer trading partners and less sustainability for the UK. Therefore, all this should be at the heart of what we believe should be a feminist UK development policy.

Conflict was, quite rightly, one of the themes of this debate. There is a need for a concerted effort on prevention, even as the number of conflict areas in the world has grown. But conflict today is different from what it was. I note what the noble Lord, Lord Sahota, said about the consequences of colonialism, and I share many of his views. But, unfortunately, some elements of conflict are different from in the past: civilians are more actively targeted and there is hybrid warfare and access to resource conflict. One more recent development is that conflict is not solely about nationality or territory; often, it is now about profiteering and the UK should take a lead on the dark links between global finance and conflict.

I am glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, “banged on” about volunteering. I declare that, earlier this year, I took part in a VSO visit to Cox’s Bazar and Dhaka. She is absolutely right—volunteering is not just a nice thing to do that helps the volunteer; it allows there to be networks of young people at the hard edge of peace and reconciliation work. I saw the programmes on climate action, young women’s sexual health and women’s economic development. That was in Bangladesh, where VSO has had programmes for 50 years. This has been a sustainable part of the UK’s relationship, regardless of the political circumstances, which can be complex and destabilising. So I hope the Minister will respond on the Government’s plans for the volunteering programme. It was welcome that the previous Government’s White Paper said that citizenship and volunteering would be brought back—although not at the scale there was under the coalition Government. I would be grateful to hear from the Government what the timing of that might be.

The 0.7% has been a constant element in many of the contributions, because it is not just what the UK’s policies for supporting the SDGs are; it is that we do it at scale. Over the period of the SDGs, very few countries have been able to deploy the level of resource that can have a global impact on their development. As the UK has pulled back by cutting our ODA by a third, we see the SDGs falling back. In many of the SDG areas, the UK was the principal funder—not just a contributory funder—and it was impossible to infill from other countries.

We heard that one of the worst impacts of the UK reneging on its obligation was that it gave some licence for other countries to cut and pull back too. This means that the cumulative impact has been even worse. We did that not in a calm and benign global environment but in the centre of a global crisis, with the climate emergency and a pandemic. The signal this sent to our development partners was terrible, especially since so many programmes specifically linked with delivery of the SDGs were cancelled mid-programme. ICAI showed the impact of this.

The noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, was right: one of the worst elements of not only the cuts but also of removing DfID was that we hollowed out a network of policy staff, especially in agriculture. The UK was not only a deliverer of programmes but in many areas a thought leader, and it supported policy-making in many countries that lack the capacity themselves. The running down of the humanitarian response fund also meant that the UK response to humanitarian crises over recent years has been weaker than in the preceding decade.

I am disappointed that the Government have chosen not to restore an independent development department and I am also disappointed that they are using, word for word, the same language on the restoration of 0.7% as the previous Government—when the fiscal rules apply. Gordon Brown increased ODA after the 2008 global crash. David Cameron and Nick Clegg delivered 0.7% while other budgets were cut. Meeting 0.7% is not a fiscal choice but a policy one. Indeed, it should not be a choice at all; it is a legal obligation, not just to meet 0.7% but, under the 2002 legislation, for Ministers to have the ability to “provide assistance” for the reduction of poverty in countries “outside the United Kingdom”. If Governments choose to renege on legislation, they should be up front and repeal it; they should not ignore it. The consequences of that reneging are huge, especially since, as we heard, for the first time in our country’s history more official development assistance was spent in the United Kingdom than overseas.

In 2015 we had a window of opportunity of political consensus at home and the ability to bring political consensus abroad. Given the existing dysfunction in the United Nations and the higher number of conflict areas and vulnerable states than a decade ago, I fear that we would not be able to agree the goals today. Therefore, if we fail to deliver them, we will not have an opportunity again. The UK must restore its ability for global leadership and development and do it at scale—it is urgent.