Lord Sikka
Main Page: Lord Sikka (Labour - Life peer)
Lord Sikka (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, for facilitating this debate, and I support the passionate pleas of all noble Lords. I will use my two minutes to question the Government’s much-bandied figure of £10 billion, which I believe is grossly exaggerated and needs to be adjusted to take account of the wealth extracted from poorer countries.
I will give three examples in the time available. First, in 2019, Africa alone lost $88.6 billion through illicit financial flows related to corporate tax avoidance, deliberate mispricing of import and export invoices and corruption. The destination of these illicit flows is often western countries, including the UK and its Crown dependencies and overseas territories.
Secondly, developing countries spend large amounts of money to produce doctors, nurses and engineers, but they never see the full benefit because the UK poaches skilled persons from poorer countries. No compensation has ever been paid.
Thirdly, money stolen by dictators, whether they are from Nigeria, Libya, Belarus or elsewhere, ends up in British banks and property. The full extent of such theft is not known because the Government refuse to investigate. In January this year, the Nigerian Government told the BBC that they are still awaiting repatriation from the UK of all the money stolen by General Abacha—nearly 40 years after the events.
I ask the Minister to publish a revised figure for foreign aid that takes account of wealth extracted by UK entities from poorer countries so that we can then really discuss whether Britain is making a positive contribution or, as it appears, a negative one.