Global Poverty

Mark Lazarowicz Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

I thank my hon. Friend for his detailed intervention. If he will allow me to come to the point directly, I shall then answer his specific point about China.

I was making the point that a ring-fenced budget imposes a double duty on my Department to eliminate waste and unnecessary expenditure, and to ensure that we achieve value for money. Within a few days of taking office, I cancelled funding for five awareness-raising projects, including a Brazilian-style dance group specialising in percussion in Hackney, securing savings in excess of £500,000. In addition, I am cancelling the global development engagement fund, which would have funded further awareness-raising activity in the UK, and creating savings of £6.5 million. I shall make further announcements on prudent and sensible savings over the coming weeks.

I expect shortly to be able to announce that more than £100 million will be saved from projects that are a low priority or not performing. That money will be reallocated to programmes that are more effective in helping the world’s poorest people. Last but by no means least, I am letting out another floor of my Department. That better use of space in DFID will earn revenue of almost £1 million a year, once let.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

DFID has cancelled grant support for a project run by Scotdec, the Scottish development education centre, which has offices in my constituency. It was given no reason for the withdrawal, other than the new policy that the Government announced, and it was just about to submit the one-year evaluation of its project. Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that that is not the way to act if he is to encourage projects to respond to Government concerns? Surely Scotdec should have been given an opportunity to respond to any Government concerns about its project, and should not the Government reconsider the funding withdrawal that he announced a few weeks ago?

[Mr Mitchell]

I have had a letter from the hon. Gentleman on that point, and I wrote to him late last night. I apologise for the fact that he did not receive it in time for this debate. I should make it clear to him that several projects to which I put a stop will now proceed, and officials are in touch with those responsible for them, making clear our value-for-money requirements. However, I have cancelled five, including the one to which he refers, after looking very carefully at them and following advice from officials.

Let me list those five projects. I hope that the House will consider whether they should be funded from Britain’s development project. First, there was £146,000 for a Brazilian-style dance troupe with percussion expertise in Hackney. Secondly, there was £55,000 to run stalls at summer music festivals. Thirdly, there was £120,000 to train nursery school teachers in global issues. Fourthly, there was £130,000 for a global gardens schools’ network. And finally, there was £140,000 to train outdoor education tutors in Britain in development.

Spending money on international development in the UK rather than on poor people overseas seems highly questionable. We need to ensure that any expenditure has demonstrable outcomes in developing countries, and that is why I took the action that I did. However, I have written to the hon. Gentleman, and he will have a chance to see in some detail why we took those decisions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

I should like to say a few words about the issue raised by the withdrawal of a grant to an organisation based in my constituency, which I raised briefly in an intervention on the Secretary of State. I appreciate that we are considering many issues of great international significance in this debate, and I do not want to take up too much time on what some may regard as a relatively tangential matter, but I want to raise my concerns about the way in which, certainly on the information I have, a small organisation doing good work has been unfairly treated. That decision also raises issues about the Government’s approach to development awareness activities in the UK funded by the Department, and the Minister should say something about it in his reply to the debate.

I shall first give some information about the grant that has been withdrawn and the organisation that received it. Hon. Members will recall that at the start of the debate the Secretary of State, as he set out his decisions, headlined one of the five projects from which funding has been withdrawn—a Brazilian-style dance troupe with percussion in Hackney. That project was certainly given some attention in the media. I presume that the only reason why the Secretary of State headlined that project was that “Brazilian-style”, “dance troupe with percussion” and above all “Hackney” are phrases that set every bell ringing in the right-wing media and pressure groups. If one mentions “Brazilian-style dance troupe” and “Hackney” together, one does not really have to argue any further in some people’s minds. That is an unfortunate approach to the debate and I suspect that it stereotypes that particular group in Hackney. I have no knowledge of the group, but I suspect that my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) who intervened on the Secretary of State wanted to suggest that it was somewhat more than the latter had portrayed.

In any event, I assure the House that when I visited the very small office of the organisation based in my constituency, there were no samba bands practising in the room and no indication of anything to which anyone would have any objection if they studied its work. Scotdec—the Scottish Development Education Centre—is based in my constituency but does work in many parts of Scotland. It is a respected educational organisation that works with local authorities, the Scottish Government and development organisations and has been supported by DFID for work with teachers over many years. I can only assume that the work was recognised by the further grants that were given to it for the current project, which has now had its funding withdrawn just one year into a three-year project.

Scotdec tells me that it works with almost half the schools in south-east Scotland. That is a lot of work for just three staff, not only answering inquiries but going into 228 schools. I have had letters from staff at Jewel and Esk college in Edinburgh and other organisations with which Scotdec has worked, saying that it performs valuable work that fits into wider educational programmes and teacher training programmes in south-east Scotland. Mention was made of the fact that the project works with nursery teachers, as if that was sufficient to say that it must in some way be a bit dotty. Let me assure the Secretary of State that, according to my information, the project works not only with the occasional nursery teacher but with further education colleges and their educators as part of programmes that have been validated and recognised for their value since the project started just over a year ago.

[Mr Andrew Mitchell]

The hon. Gentleman is making a strong case for his constituents and the organisation that is based in his constituency. We are endeavouring to get him a copy of the letter that should have reached him this morning; I hope that it will arrive during the debate.

The issue is not really whether the expenditure that he has identified is of good quality; it is whether it should come from the budget that I mentioned earlier. The hon. Gentleman may wish to consider whether it is an appropriate way to deploy international development expenditure or whether there are alternative forms of support that his constituents might be able to attract.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

I know that the Secretary of State’s office has been trying to get a letter to me this morning and this afternoon. Unfortunately, despite contact with both my office here and my constituency office, it appears still to be lost somewhere in cyberspace. The right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that I have to proceed on the basis of the information that I have.

I shall address the Secretary of State’s comment about whether this project is the type of work that should be funded by DFID, but I want first to say something about the project itself. The Secretary of State has almost given support to my argument because he does not appear to suggest that there is anything untoward about the project. I understand that he had no criticism of the work that the project has undertaken. Indeed, I am informed by Scotdec that it was about to submit its first-year report to DFID, but had not actually gone into the Department, so presumably the decision to withdraw the funding could not have been based on any knowledge or understanding of the project. The Secretary of State’s comments seem to suggest that that is the case: the decision was based on a general principle rather than any criticism of the project’s work.

The project organiser was very unhappy—I can see why—about the fact that the first information the organisation had that the project was going to lose its funding was a phone call and e-mail received late on a Friday afternoon, followed by a press notice on the Monday. Apart from being extremely discourteous, that was hardly a fair way to allow a small organisation to respond to a withdrawal of funding which has severely impacted on its ability to carry out its work.

I shall look at the letter that the Secretary of State is seeking to send me. It may well arrive by more conventional means during the afternoon.

Behind the Secretary of State’s decision there is, as he has indicated, a clear political choice to stop funding for projects of this nature. Is there now a general policy of not funding projects promoting development awareness and education in the UK? If so, that takes matters further than the Department’s press statement on 17 May, in which the Secretary of State said:

“There is a legitimate role for development education in the UK, but I do not believe that these projects give the taxpayer value for money.”

No evidence has been given that these sorts of projects do not give value for money. The project in my constituency has been cut just over a year into what was to be a three-year project. A lot of preparatory work has been carried out for the next year, which suggests that it would not be good value for money to cut it at this stage.

In any event, the press notice from the Secretary of State seemed to suggest that there might be some circumstances in which development education was to be funded in the UK by DFID, but if the policy is now that no development education will be funded in the UK, that is extremely regrettable.

The Secretary of State and the Prime Minister face criticism from some of the more right-wing elements on their Back Benches and in the media for agreeing, with all the qualifications that we have heard in this debate, to maintain spending on international development. It seems that a few projects are being thrown to the wolves—a bit of red meat for the right wing—in order to distract their attention from the rest of the Department’s work, and if that is the case it is extremely regrettable. If the Secretary of State is, indeed, withdrawing support for development education in the UK, I ask him to reconsider that decision in respect of the project in my constituency and more generally, because it would be a retrograde step and a reversal of what Governments of all parties have recognised as a minor, but important part of the activity that DFID funds here in the UK.

I shall briefly make the case for Government support of development education in the UK. Everyone in the debate so far has recognised that an essential component of international development is justice—trade justice and debt justice. That requires action not only by Governments and international organisations, but by civil society, including citizens, business organisations, trade unions and many more besides. Such action is more likely to be achieved, and Governments are more likely to move towards greater trade justice and debt justice, if as many people in this country as possible are able to engage with and understand the issues—yes, through awareness-raising work among the general public.

If the Government are withdrawing funding from such programmes, I find that extremely regrettable. In terms of the project in my constituency, where better to start on awareness-raising work than with our youngest citizens-to-be? I urge the Secretary of State to reconsider his decision on that project and, if it reflects a wider policy, the wider policy as well.