International Aid: Treasury Update

Mark Harper Excerpts

Programme motion
Tuesday 13th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

I start by thanking you, Mr Speaker, and hon. Members from across the House for ensuring that this debate took place today. In particular, I thank the right hon. Members for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) and for Maidenhead (Mrs May). I think they are the “lefty” propagandists that the Prime Minister was talking about a couple of weeks ago. I have to say that if the Prime Minister had confidence in the arguments he is making to this House, he would have given way to them a moment ago so that his arguments could be tested. He does not have confidence in them, otherwise he would have done so—that is obvious already. However, we do welcome the chance to debate this motion.

The motion is broad and, if I may say so, from this Prime Minister it is typically slippery. The House should have had the opportunity for a straight up/down vote on whether to approve or reject the Government’s cut to overseas aid to 0.5%. This motion does not do that. But the Chancellor’s written ministerial statement is clear: if the motion is carried, the cut in overseas aid to 0.5% will effectively carry on indefinitely. I will expand on that point in just a moment—[Interruption.] I will expand on that point and take interventions on it.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Keir Starmer]

I am going to develop that argument. When I get to it, I will give way so that that argument can be tested, in the usual way. But if the motion is rejected,

“the Government would consequently return to spending 0.7% of GNI on international aid in the next calendar year”.—[Official Report, 12 July 2021; Vol. 699, c. 4WS.]

Let me be clear: Labour will vote to reject this motion tonight and to return overseas aid to 0.7% of GNI.

[Mr Harper]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Keir Starmer]

I am going to summarise my argument—[Interruption.] I am going make my argument, and when I get to the relevant part, I will take interventions.

The case that we make is this: first, that the cut is wrong, because investing 0.7% on international aid is in Britain’s national interest; secondly, because the economic criteria set out by the Chancellor would lead to an indefinite cut that is likely to last beyond this Parliament; and, thirdly, because it matters that this House keeps its word to the voters who elected us. Every Member here—every Member here—was elected on a manifesto to retain the 0.7% target, and it matters that we keep our promises to the world’s poorest, particularly at such a time of global uncertainty.

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way. I agree with him about keeping promises, and Conservative Members were also elected to keep fiscal promises to reduce our debt and not to borrow for day-to-day spending. I hope in his remarks he will set out, given that he is not going to support this motion, which areas of spending he is going to cut to pay for it or which taxes he is going to raise. If he does not do either of those things, then I am afraid his promises and his vote today are hollow, and no one will believe him.

[Keir Starmer]

I have to say that it is a bit rich from someone who may break the manifesto commitment to say that the vote today and the words today are hollow, but just to take that straight on, it is a false economy, I am afraid. Cutting aid will increase costs and have a big impact on our economy. Development aid—we all know this—reduces conflict, disease and people fleeing from their homes. It is a false economy to pretend that this is some sort of cut that does not have consequences.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

Since Ministers announced that the UK was going to be the only G7 country to cut its aid this year, despite all the other countries facing the same fiscal pressures, there is not one Member of this House who is not now aware of the consequences of the decision that Ministers have taken—a cut of 85% in the support that we give to the United Nations Population Fund to prevent maternal and child death and unwanted pregnancy; a cut of 95% to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, at the very moment when the world is closer than it has ever been to eradicating that dreadful disease; and a cut of 50% in the support we give to the humanitarian mine action programme, which stops people losing their arms, their legs and their lives to unexploded ordnance. It is a very long list, and every one of those things harms our reputation and does not help us to persuade others, because other countries judge us not by what we say, but by what we do.

The choice before the House today is a very stark one: do we act to put this right, or do we accept the double lock that has been proposed? I urge the House to reject it, because there is a principle here. What is it about the level of Government spending on helping the world’s poorest people that means that it alone is going to be subject to these tests? No other area of Government expenditure is: just this one. If this is about protecting the public finances, why is this area of Government expenditure—the money we spend on getting children into school, or on vaccinating children so they do not die of diseases that our children do not die of—being singled out? I have great admiration for the OBR, but determining the level of our international aid spending is not part of its responsibility. It is the Government’s responsibility, it is a political responsibility, and Ministers should not try to pass the buck on to someone else, especially since the latest OBR forecast makes clear that it is exceedingly unlikely that the two tests would be met in the next five years.

[Mr Harper]

Can I just pick the right hon. Gentleman up on that point about other areas of expenditure? The Treasury and the Chancellor have set out these tests—promises that are in our manifesto, and which we mean to keep. The comprehensive spending review is taking place this year, and it seems to me that we will be judging all other areas of Government expenditure by these same measures. I see the Chancellor nodding, so it seems to me that we are being very consistent here, and it is important that we keep our promises about our fiscal responsibilities as well as getting back on track to meet our aid responsibilities.

[Hilary Benn]

I am afraid that I take a different view of the Government’s consistency from the right hon. Gentleman’s, because they have chosen quite specifically, knowingly and deliberately to break a cast-iron promise to the world’s poorest people that was also contained in that manifesto. As I said in my last contribution on this subject, most of those people probably have no idea that this House made that commitment together, but the Government have chosen to break it, and the choice we are making today is whether we think that is right or wrong.

The Chancellor might think that the double lock is a way out of this political problem, but I do not think it is, because the issue before us has not gone away. It is just the same as it was on the day when the original cut was announced, and the question before us is whether it is right—morally, practically or politically—to break our word to the world’s poorest people. I would argue that it is not: it is wrong in principle and it is harmful in practice, as we have heard from excellent speeches made by Conservative Members. It is not who we are; it is not the country that we should aspire to be; and I ask the House to reject this motion so that we can restore aid to 0.7% and keep the promise that we made to the people of this country and the people of the world.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

I have listened very carefully to the speeches in this debate, and many of them focused on our manifesto promise on aid spending. That is entirely correct but, as I said in one of my interventions, we also made a commitment not to borrow money for day-to-day spending and to reduce our debt burden. All those commitments have been made more challenging by the global pandemic we have faced. The Treasury’s motion, which I will support, as I hope all my colleagues will, is an attempt to deal with the challenge of the pandemic and deliver on all our manifesto commitments in a way that reflects the reality of what has happened over the past year.

I have also heard many Members talk about the borrowing that we have had to make over the last year. I know the Chancellor and I am very proud of that borrowing, because it has helped us get through an incredibly difficult year, but one-off borrowing for a crisis is not the same as ongoing day-to-day spending. I am surprised by many of my colleagues who talk about the £5 billion a year that it would cost to replace this spending as if £5 billion was not a lot of money.

I can remember many difficult conversations when I was a Minister, and indeed when I was Government Chief Whip, about far smaller sums of money, sometimes involving many of the colleagues I have heard talk about £5 billion as if it were nothing. I am afraid that we are going to have to get used to the fact that there are certain realities in the world—that money we spend has to be paid for, and it either has to be borrowed or financed from taxation.

One of the problems we now have with the borrowing we have had to make over the last year is that we are very vulnerable to increases in inflation or interest rates. I heard someone say we are living in an era of low interest rates. We do not know how long that is going to last, and a 1% rise in inflation and interest rates would cost us twenty-five thousand million pounds, five times the amount we are arguing about today. Those are the realities that not just the Chancellor but all of us in this Parliament, and particularly those of us in the governing party, have to grapple with.

My final point is just to say to my colleagues that I fear that this debate is going to be repeated many times as we move through the comprehensive spending review. We are all going to have to face very difficult challenges. Governing is about choosing. It is about setting priorities for what we think is important. This is important, but so is keeping the fiscal measures on balance. All of them are important, and I am glad that the Chancellor has brought forward the measures that he has today.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I am sorry that we have not been able to get more speakers in, but we now have to move to the wind-ups. I call the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves.