Official Development Assistance: Vulnerable Children

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

We continue to support work on education, particularly in Afghanistan. As the noble Baroness and other noble Lords will know, it is a particularly difficult context in which to operate, and the impact, especially on girls, is profound. We will continue to work through our partners in Afghanistan to do whatever we can to support girls in that horrendous situation.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, we know that the impact of conflict, climate and other world crises has a disproportionate impact on girls and education in particular. We also know that by far the best return to the pound that we spend on development partnership assistance is when we invest in education in the most needed areas. Why, therefore, have the Government deprioritised education and girls’ education, and why is it not being protected and will now be facing a 40% cut?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

The ODA budget faces a 40% cut because we have decided to spend more on the Ministry of Defence, and I think everybody here is aware of that. The best buy in education is actually not through programming or delivery of education; it is through policy change in-country. What we need, and what countries are telling us they want, is more of an emphasis on partnership rather than paternalism. They wish to undertake more of the delivery of education of their own children, and I think we can all understand and respect why that would be. We have huge amounts of expertise, we have our university partnerships and we have many, many ways in which we can support countries to deliver that quality education. In those most difficult circumstances that he refers to, we continue to support global partnerships focused on education, including Education Cannot Wait, which delivers that emergency education in refugee settings, in those places that are very difficult and where other agencies would find it very difficult to operate.