Refugee Camps

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Sanders.

I congratulate my colleague the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) on driving forward the desire to have this debate. She and I visited a refugee camp in northern Rwanda and we were both struck by what we saw there. That sparked the idea for this debate.

I want to talk about two issues. I am not as expert as the hon. Lady on the situations in camps around the world, but I do want to talk a bit about my experience visiting Rwanda and, perhaps more pertinent to the Minister’s role, about the UK’s role in resettlement and making sure that we play our part, as a nation, to support and tackle the humanitarian crisis around the world.

As a constituency MP in Hackney South and Shoreditch, the issues in Rwanda and other parts of Africa are pertinent, day to day. I can stand at bus stops in Hackney and have many conversations about the situation at le petit barrier, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or what is going on in other parts of Africa, particularly west Africa. Partly because of resettlement, which I will come to, these are real, living issues for communities in my constituency and throughout the country.

We visited a camp for Congolese nationals in northern Rwanda. As the hon. Lady said, we were both shocked by some of the things we saw there. It was overcrowded and there was a high number of young people, most of whom had nowhere to go and nothing to do. This is not to be hypercritical of the UNCHR, because it was clear that education was being provided up to age 11 and a few older young people had been provided with education in the community, through support from the Rwandan Government. However, with education only up to age 11, a lot of young people are idle, without the skills necessary to integrate into society and without either families or the support and ability to access anything beyond that stage. There is little education and no skills training.

We met a couple of articulate young men, who spoke both good French and very good English, we felt, and had the benefit of some education beyond the age of 11. They were desperate to play a role as young men, but felt stuck in the limbo of teenage years.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

The hon. Lady is speaking about education and young people. Given the air of permanence that is emerging in some refugee camps—we do not want to consider that as a long-term solution—does she agree that, in trying to assist, we need to turn our minds to issues such as education and health care, as well as to the immediate problems, to ensure that those communities see that there is life beyond the next few months and to help them plan for the long term?

[Meg Hillier]

The hon. Gentleman hits the nail on the head. It was striking that people still believe that there is a chance of going home. We met young people born in the camp I just mentioned, who believed that there was a chance that they would be able to go back to war-torn, militia-ridden parts of the DRC—we know it is a challenging country—but who are held in limbo. We must have a big discussion as an international community about whether it is sensible to limit education. It is right that education is a basic provision—it is all funded by taxpayers around the globe, not just in the UK—but it cannot benefit our wider international community if cohorts of people misplaced through war and conflict end up in such a state of limbo and then quickly become uneducated parents.

I will not repeat the excellent points made by the hon. Lady about girls. The girls in the Rwandan camp, as in camps around the world, become mothers while still children themselves, because there is little else for them to do. Becoming a mother is a rational choice for them, because it gives them a purpose in life. However, in overcrowded conditions, where families are all living cheek by jowl and are crowded in, sleeping together, it is no surprise that pregnancy is rife.

The camp met with UN requirements—there was no sign that it was badly run—but the challenges in that region mean that camps quickly become overcrowded. This one had been closed to new admissions, but of course the birth rate means that the number of people carries on growing.

It was striking that children talked about going home, but for many there could be much better immediate prospects locally, as the hon. Gentleman said, if they could be given support to integrate—although perhaps not always in the country where the camp is located—through a proper regional integration and relocation policy. That would not mean that those refugees never had the chance to return, but it would give them the chance to build skills and opportunity, so that, if the happy day came when they were able to return to the DRC, they would be able to contribute massively more. We saw that directly with some of the MPs and Senators who accompanied us on visits around Rwanda. Most of those Rwandans had been refugees who fled Rwanda and worked in other parts of the world. They kept their skills up, had a good education and then came back to lead Rwanda out of the horrors of the genocide of 20 years ago. We can see what happens when people have support; there was a direct contrast.

On the UK’s role, I had the privilege when I was a Minister in the previous Government to have some oversight of the gateway scheme, through which the UK Government take refugees from United Nations camps around the world. The Government accept those who meet the UN criteria. For the record it would be useful to remind Members what those are. The categories for vulnerable people include

“women and girls at risk…survivors of violence and/or torture…refugees with medical needs or disabilities…LGBTI refugees at risk…vulnerable older adults…refugees in need of family reunification and…those who face serious threats to their physical security, especially due to their political opinion or belonging to a minority group.”

The first categories are probably more pertinent, day to day, in camps.

When the Government talk about reducing immigration from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands, we must not lose sight—I hope the Minister will make clear the Government’s position on this—of our international humanitarian responsibilities in this regard. When I became a Minister, we were accepting 500 people from the camps annually, but we aimed to raise that to 1,000 a year. Can the Minister tell me what the figures are over the past two or three years, so that we can see what the trajectory is and what the projections are? If not, perhaps she can write to me.

We also face pressures—I will come back to the gateway scheme in a moment—within the European Union, where Mediterranean countries continually receive boatloads of desperate and vulnerable people from north Africa. Discussions about burden sharing, as those countries put it, absorb a lot of time at EU Justice and Home Affairs Council meetings. We need to have a greater and wider view on the matter. I sat next to the Maltese Minister for three years. Every time I sat next to him, he asked whether we would take refugees who had arrived in Malta. We were, however, also trying to take refugees from camps around the world. We need to see that bigger picture across the EU much more. Some EU countries take good numbers of people from UN camps. Others take very small numbers. We need to look at that as part of a wider strategy. It is a sensible strategy for Europe to enable those in great need to resettle in Europe, where appropriate, and have them contribute to the European Union. It sends a message that we are supportive, but it is important that we have immigration controls more generally.

On the gateway project, it was a privilege to work with the Home Office officials who work to support resettlement. They visited the camps—I was prevented from doing so at the time by pregnancy—to see for themselves the families that they, working with the UN, felt could be relocated in the UK. There was a joint resettlement between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, so that there was a critical mass of people from a particular region, which meant that there was language support and the other support necessary for that group. Scotland was also very good at receiving groups of refugees. The idea was that local authorities would bid to take on refugees from the camps, and there was no shortage of willing volunteer local authorities. I was slightly worried that there would be.

It is perhaps pertinent for the Minister to take this back to some of her colleagues in Government, but what was heartening was that communities—often, churches and community groups—that knew they would be receiving people who had lived through desperate times would work positively to receive and welcome those people into the community. The media coverage locally was positive and it was seen as humanity, not as a burden to the UK.

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

I endorse what the hon. Lady is saying. Bradford as a community accepted the Rohingya—I believe they were part of that gateway programme—which shows that, even in an area where there is tension from increased immigration, there is still a positive and welcoming response when people understand the circumstances of where these groups are coming from.

[Meg Hillier]

Absolutely. It is wise for all of us who sit in this House and have the opportunity to speak about these issues to be moderate in our discussion of immigration. I was a Home Office Minister and I partly dealt with immigration issues. I absolutely believe that we should have an immigration policy and criteria, but the rhetoric that sometimes comes out—unfortunately we often saw that coming out very negatively during the European elections—is deeply unhelpful. I am sure the Minister will want to put on record her position and that of the Government on how they want to support people from around the world whose lives have been torn apart by conflict.

When I was a Minister, we looked at the Canadian model and it would be interesting to know whether there have been any further developments on that. The model could boost the numbers by allowing local groups, particularly religious groups—churches and mosques and others—to raise money locally to accept more from a particular community into their area, effectively match-funding some of the Government money going into the project. The model would build on the good will and humanitarian support that is embedded in the British psyche and ensure that we do everything we can to support these groups.

On the wider issue of refugee camps, we have to have a bigger debate internationally. We all look at the issues, particularly what is happening in Syria, where many have been displaced. A young man, Chris, who is going to Palestine, came to visit me at my surgery yesterday. He said, “Remember that a lot of the people in those camps have already been displaced once. They are being displaced again.” There are whole areas of the world where people are not settled and do not have the right to a stable home, to education and to get on with their lives. They do not have that opportunity. It is important that as a community, not only in the UK, but in the EU and the other partnerships in which we work, we recognise the instability that that causes to the world.

Our Government need to do all they can to support and stabilise what is happening in Syria. It is difficult for one Government to achieve that alone, and that is why we must work with our international partners. We must also ensure that we think about the long-term consequences of having camps that sit, grow and become communities that are almost sub-sections of a society in their own right. We must also ask questions about whether that is desirable in the long term. We should be shifting the boundaries of the debate, helping more of those refugees to resettle, whether that be in the region or elsewhere, and giving them the chance, as the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire put it so eloquently, to normalise their life so that they can adapt, when the opportunity arrives, to life outside of the enclosed and artificial environment of the refugee camp, of which there are many around the world.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. The news out today is that we now have the largest number of companies we have ever had in our country, and over the past three years we have seen 400,000 extra companies established. What we have to do is help them in every way we can. The most powerful thing we are doing is cutting the national insurance that they will have to pay by £2,000, starting next year. That will be a real boost to small businesses. On the red tape they are currently throttled with, we are dealing with that at every level, including at the European Council coming up this week, where I have organised a meeting for our businesses to explain their proposals for cutting red tape to fellow European leaders from Finland, Italy, Germany and elsewhere. It is an agenda right across the board to help small businesses grow our economy.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q6. New research shows that the right hon. Gentleman’s Government are trapping low-earning aspirant parents on benefits. His benefit cap is hitting vulnerable children, stopping parents working and costing the taxpayer—is it not time for a rethink?

[The Prime Minister]

We know that the Labour party is against the benefit cap. It wants unlimited benefits for families. It is no longer the Labour party; it is the welfare party. That is very clear from the questions Labour Members ask. We think it is right to cap benefits so that no family can earn more out of work than they would earn in work. The early evidence is showing that this is encouraging people to look for work. For a party that believes in hard-working people, that is good news. Presumably for the welfare party it is bad news.

Post-2015 Development Agenda

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is, as ever, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley) on securing the debate and on corralling the all-party parliamentary groups with a strong interest in this matter to make the important case for the British Parliament to have influence on the Prime Minister’s work in this area.

I chair the all-party group on Nigeria and, with Lord Crisp, I co-chair the APG on global health, so I have a strong interest in the area. I am proud to be a Co-op MP as well as a Labour MP, and a strong supporter of work that has been done on loans to small businesses and co-operatives in developing parts of the world.

Thirteen years ago, we set up the first millennium development goals, which were, as my hon. Friend said, a great triumph. They created huge momentum to tackle poverty, and I am delighted that the Prime Minister has such a key lead role in ensuring that we focus on the next development goals from 2015. It is his chance to make a place in history, and I wish him all the best in doing that. Let me add, too, my congratulations to the Government on delivering their 0.7% development aid target.

While I am on this roll of congratulations, let me also congratulate the Secretary of State on her commitment and business-like approach on the matter. She made it clear that part of her job, and the job of her team and the Government, is to secure good value for money for every single pound of aid spent. Taxpayers’ money is a valuable resource and we need to ensure that we provide value for money. I speak as a member of the Public Accounts Committee, which has looked into the matter, and the Committee will continue to challenge the Department to ensure that it achieves that aim.

The momentum to tackle poverty has made a big difference. In 2000, official development assistance was $72 billion. Between then and 2009, it rose to $128 billion. Although such rises cannot be put down to the MDGs alone, they have helped to focus our efforts. The figures have dropped in the last two years as a result of the global recession, so it is particularly welcome that our Government are showing the way and that the UK Parliament has backed them to send a signal to other developed countries that such assistance is important to global health, well-being and security.

In 2015, there will still be almost 1 billion people living on less than $1.25 a day. Moreover, the maternal mortality ratio has declined by less than 1% since 2000, so while the MDGs have made a difference, there is still a lot to be done. What should we be asking from the Prime Minister in his role on the high-level panel, and what should the focus be? One of the interesting issues is around inequalities, because while the millennium development goals focused rather a lot on averages, those averages can mask inequalities. An average reduction can mask a lack of progress among the very poorest people, and that needs to be in the panel’s minds when it makes recommendations.

There also needs to be thought about how measurement is conducted. It can be easy to go for goals that are seemingly easy to measure, but that measurement must be achievable at a local level. When measuring progress on development goals, there must be some understanding of the local challenges. I will touch a little later on some of my experiences in Nigeria, because even within one single nation, various states face different challenges. Moreover, the goals and indicators cannot be vague. We need to be clear about outcomes and what the new goals achieve.

Several hon. Members have discussed the key matter of local participation and empowerment. Development must involve working in partnership with countries, rather than being something that is done to countries. The all-party group on global health produced an interesting report about empowering health workers. It is important that, as well as passing on useful lessons to other countries, we learn lessons for our own national health service. In Malawi, for example, we see a desire, with strong political leadership, to increase the number of midwives and reduce maternal mortality. Wherever we are in the world, we can all learn from that driving political force. Many countries produce policies out of necessity. Lower level health workers are therefore empowered, trained and supported to provide early interventions that can save lives, whereas we tend to follow a more hierarchical model, notwithstanding some of changes that have been made in recent years to empower our nurses. We must learn from each other and not be seen to be doing things to other countries.

Agriculture is important—I will touch on that in a bit more detail in a moment—and integrating climate change policies into the development goals is critical. In Nigeria, for instance, the Government are parcelling up areas for private companies to deliver to the grid, which will provide a welcome boost to the power sector, but if that is not done in a green way, we will be shooting ourselves in the foot as we try to maintain our commitment to international climate change obligations. The Prime Minister must consider such matters as he leads the high-level panel. The panel is meeting soon, so this debate is timely and will, hopefully, help the Prime Minister to realise that he has support from Britain, as well as giving him some ideas.

I am heartened that 60 lower and middle-income countries have run national and regional consultations in an attempt to achieve a more meaningful input and to buy into the process. That will hopefully lead to a joint method of working, rather the goals being imposed on them.

A separate process is under way to agree global sustainable development goals. There will be a report on those goals at some point between this September and September next year, but there is no firm date for it yet. Those goals may significantly overlap with the post-millennium development goals, so it would make sense to bring the two sets of targets together at some point. I hope that when the two sets are being drawn up, each group will be thinking about the other group’s work.

I want to focus on health. The process of developing post-2015 goals is ongoing, as I said, but there seems to be reasonable agreement about what the overall list of goals should contain. However, there is not yet a clear consensus on what their hierarchy should be, and on what the headline goals and sub-targets will be. The hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) said that the International Development Committee’s report recommended not having too many goals.

The all-party group on global health hosted a fruitful session with a lot of development agencies and others with an interest in this area. The event was standing room only in one of the larger Committee Rooms in the main House, and we heard a long list of suggestions for new MDGs. The Prime Minister’s challenge is to ensure that the list of new MDGs is not so long that it becomes meaningless, thus allowing people to hide behind what they are doing rather than what they ought to be doing. That will be the political challenge, but it is not an easy one to face.

I fear that health issues are unlikely to be as prominent in the headline priorities of the new MDGs as was the case with the original MDGs, when of course they constituted three of the eight goals—on child mortality, maternal health, and HIV/AIDs and malaria. It is vital that people continue to make the case that global health issues should not be neglected in the future list of priorities, which is partly why I am speaking in the debate.

We need a joined-up approach to improve health. The many single disease-specific goals in the MDGs were successful at focusing global attention on critical areas that might otherwise have been neglected, such as malaria. However, they also were in danger of creating silos of activity that were a barrier to building strong overall health systems, so the post-2015 agenda should correct that by emphasising the need for joined-up, holistic health services, in addition to placing a stress on the importance of programmes to prevent people from becoming ill in the first place.

Of course, those aims are also important for reducing poverty, because those in poor health will be poorer. For instance, if we look at just the impact of polio alone, a disabled child in Africa is a burden on their family as they will be unable to work and support themselves, and that of course affects their life expectancy considerably.

Health must be central to development. Good health is critical to achieving the other development goals, so it must not be neglected. Healthy populations are more productive, not only because people can go out to work, but because ill health is a cause as well as a consequence of poverty. The World Health Organisation estimates that catastrophic health costs push 100 million people into poverty every year. We cannot make development progress in any sphere without addressing health needs.

Many believe that we will end up with one stand-alone post-2015 goal for health, and some consensus is forming behind the idea that it will involve universal access to health care. It came out strongly from the meeting of the all-party group on global health that was held before Christmas that that goal would suffer from focusing on a process rather than an outcome, and would be in danger of diverting attention towards addressing the financial barriers that stop people from receiving health services, rather than the quality of those services. In addition, it could ignore the wider determinants of health in society.

Arguably a better goal would be on improving the life expectancy of the bottom 25% relative to the rest of the population, because that would focus on those in greatest need and ensure that we did not water down the aims on which there is a fairly strong consensus—certainly in this House and among a lot of the groups that came to the all-party group’s meeting and submitted their thoughts. That goal would have the advantage of focusing on outcomes, addressing the critical issue of health inequalities, and being equally relevant—this is a very important point for the post-2015 agenda—for high, middle and low-income countries. It could be applied across the board, and it is important that we look at the post-2015 MDGs in that context.

That goal would also be flexible by allowing each nation to decide what aspects of health are the greatest priority for improvement. We can consider the Malawi situation in that context, and there are interesting challenges in different parts of Nigeria, which is, of course, a federal country in which there are big differences between states. For instance, the transmission of HIV and AIDS is affected by the multiple marriages in parts of the country. Sadly, other parts of the country are still affected by polio. I visited Niger state about a year ago and met the governor, who has determined that every child in the state will receive a polio vaccination. However, not every governor in the country takes the same approach. Indeed, such a policy is a challenge for governors in many states, including Niger state, because of their rural districts.

I will not detain Members by talking about just Nigeria, but I saw in Niger state and other parts of Nigeria that strong political leadership can make a big difference. When the new MDGs and the post-2015 agenda are developed, we need to ensure that we allow room for local political leadership to work within the framework, It is about not emasculating that local leadership, but empowering it and the people to whom it is accountable, at federal as well as national level. We must remember, as I have said, that states in countries such as Nigeria can face different challenges.

I will touch on the issue of education. I have had the opportunity to visit the Minna teacher training college in Nigeria. In parts of Nigeria—not all parts, because it is such a diverse country—not enough girls are going to school. In recognition of that fact, with support from Save the Children and other NGOs, girls are being educated to become teachers, because in some rural areas, girls were not going to school because there were not enough female teachers. I met a number of young women at the college, many of them mothers themselves, and in many cases with their babies, who were training as teachers. They were in a separate compound from the rest of the college with barbed wire to protect them so that their fathers, brothers and husbands could be sure that they were safe and in an acceptable environment for a young Muslim woman. Having gained that education themselves, the idea was that they would go back to their villages and then more girls would go to school there.

I then had the privilege of visiting a village school. Parents had formed a committee to run the school, and part of their focus was to ensure that they were aware of any children not in school so that they would get into school, because education is highly prized in Nigeria.

That local school committee had been empowered and it was very interesting to talk to its members. In some ways, it was a bit like talking to a parent teacher association in Hackney, because the parents in Nigeria were equally focused on and proud of their three-year-old who could count, or equally determined that their under-five would receive some support or that their teenage girl would go on to do something. Those are the same sorts of aspirations that the parents I speak to every day in Hackney have for their children, so there is no particular difference.

The hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) made a number of sensible points about jobs, because where do those young people in that village near Minna go on to? One of the really interesting issues in Nigeria, as in other parts of Africa, is agribusiness. I am delighted that our Prime Minister and President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria have signed a bilateral agreement to double trade from its level a couple of years ago by 2015. That is a very big challenge, but it is also a important issue, partly for this country—we need to create jobs and opportunities for our own businesses—and also because there is a very young population in Nigeria that needs work and opportunity. We already have interesting bilateral arrangements for skills development. Highbury college, Portsmouth, has a relationship under which people in Lagos are trained to certain levels of skills.

Agribusiness is an underdeveloped area, certainly in Nigeria and, judging from what the hon. Lady said, also in other parts of Africa. I am not entirely convinced—perhaps the Minister will comment on this—that the British Government have “got it” on the issue. Do we have the skill base to export as a business, in terms of food processing, development and so on? In one state in Nigeria, Zimbabwean farmers were brought in to help to improve the agricultural process and build it up. There are some excellent resources in Nigeria—land, people and produce—that could be developed, yet Nigeria is importing rice and coffee, whereas in the past it was a net exporter of those products. Big improvements could be made through bilateral trade links as well as through aid.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

The hon. Lady is making a very strong case on this issue. Indeed, when I and other colleagues were in Afghanistan, we saw great opportunities for the Afghan people to carry out their own food processing. At the moment, the raw materials go outside that country to be processed in other countries, and then they come back as commodities, which reduces job opportunities and increases prices in Afghanistan.

[Meg Hillier]

Of course, that process it is not very green, either. To go back to my comments about climate change, we should be shortening the food chain when it is sensible to do so.

DFID has done some good since it was established, but we need more joined-up government. The post-2015 agenda must not just be regarded as just DFID’s responsibility. The whole of the Government needs to engage in it—whether the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on agribusiness, or the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

[Bob Stewart]

I am listening carefully to the hon. Lady. It seems to me that DFID almost has to be a mini skills agency for all Departments. Rather than just distributing things, as in the past, and checking that things have happened, DFID now has to illustrate the skills of the whole of the Government, which of course the Minister ably does.

[Meg Hillier]

I will leave it to the Minister to take up that challenge.

Even the Home Office could have a role, because immigration policy has an impact on all sorts of development issues. We want people to come to this country with skills that they can contribute. That is part of the development agenda.

On that controversial note, I shall conclude my remarks. I once again congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for York Central on securing this debate, and I wish the Prime Minister the best of luck in his negotiations.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady. I thank the hon. Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley) and the Backbench Business Committee for finding time for this debate, which is timely given where we are with the high-level panel.

I start by reflecting on some of the positive stuff that has happened, partly through the millennium development goals. According to the World Bank, the poverty target will be met, with the population share of extremely poor people in developing countries falling from 29% in the baseline year 1990 to 12% in 2015. The target of halving the proportion of people without access to improved water sources has been met, and parity between girls and boys has been achieved in primary education.

In other spheres, life expectancy in Africa has risen by a tenth over the past decade, and there has been remarkable progress on child mortality, which The Economist recently called

“the best story in development”.

That story has barely been recognised. Real income per person has increased by more than 30% over the same period. Secondary school enrolment grew by almost half between 2000 and 2008, and the average number of children per mother is projected to fall from about 5 in 2008 to 3.9 in 2020.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) rightly pointed out that the simplicity and focus of the millennium development goals has been instrumental in helping to forge a shared vision and in mobilising the world around those goals. Obviously, in formulating the next set of objectives, the world collectively needs to learn from that, but I am afraid it will be quite a challenge when we consider all the different bids that people have made for things that should be focused on. Of course, I will add my own bid in a moment.

The panel has already made great progress on the key points, such as poverty reduction, inclusive growth and sustainable development. The panel is clearly right that the first objective must be to finish the job on the existing millennium development goals, including on income, poverty, education—my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) talked about education—and health, which the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) addressed in detail. And there is equality for girls and women, which we know is fundamental to so many other things. The new agenda must address the underlying causes of poverty, such as strong institutions and the rule of law, which the panel refers to as

“the building blocks for sustained prosperity”.

In all such discussions the different levels of aspiration are often conflated. At the top level are the ultimate aspirations, such as eradicating acute poverty, getting rid of preventable child and maternal mortality, ensuring personal safety for all and the self-fulfilment and realisation of the potential of entire populations.

A level down are the fundamentals of a good, effective society and economy, which are the things that facilitate those ultimate aspirations. In that group are the creation of liberal democracy, the rule of law, a market economy and social security. A further level down are the deliverable programmes, which build towards those fundamentals of a good, effective society and economy. Those programmes include land reform and agricultural productivity—to which my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford alluded—access to micro-finance, roads and bicycles. There are also the fundamentals of infrastructure, health care and immunisation, and essential goods. Critically, of course, that includes education and entry-level jobs.

In the current millennium development goals, and in most of the material I have seen from NGOs and others—I am not an expert on this, unlike so many of the Select Committee members who are here—those different levels of aspiration get grouped together. People need ideas for where they are going at each level, but in a sense, it is mentally useful to separate the levels and know where the real focal point is. I suggest that the real focal point should be at the middle level—in other words, the essentials of building a good, effective society and economy. When the Prime Minister talks about the golden thread of development, I think he is talking about the middle level. We need to do that in parallel with programmes that are focused on the essentials of life, which are health, education and nutrition.

We are talking about human life, and it is difficult to talk in such terms, but one of the great things about the involvement of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett is that they bring an analytical approach to finding the things on which the limited amount of money we have to spend can have the most effect.

The danger is that, most of the time, debates such as this are between people who agree on the most important aspects of the subject. I am sure that everyone in Westminster Hall today agrees that although charity might begin at home, it certainly does not end there. We have a shared humanity and a moral obligation to the poorest people in the world. However bad things might ever be in Britain, they will not be as bad as they are in Bangladesh or Burundi. The second thing that everyone participating in this debate probably believes is that official development assistance plays a key part in addressing the entrenched problems of poor parts of the world, but it is clearly not true that everyone else believes in those two things, too.

Doubters ask three questions that have to be addressed. First, why do this at all? Secondly, why do it through their taxes? Thirdly, why have this 0.7% target, why now and why should this country be in the lead? There are answers to all of those questions, but if we are to carry people with us through the agenda, they are not questions to which we can assume an answer; we have to take the questions head on.

On the question of why do it at all, to some extent the agenda is just something that we feel, rather than something we can argue, debate or explain. However, we need to spend more time explaining to the public some of the successes in development. In the public street and the pub, the conversation is often about the hopelessness of Africa and the idea that however much money we throw at the problems, things will not materially improve. However, that is clearly not true, given some of the statistics that I and other Members have given. I would also argue—this is perhaps slightly more controversial—that we can tie our explanation a little more to the national interests of this country, the United States, France, Germany, the European Union and all wealthy nations, and I will return to that in a moment.

The second thing someone might say is, “Okay, you’ve persuaded me that we should spend money on helping the poorest people in the world. That’s fine, but go and do that with your own money. Why do it out of general taxation?” Answering that question is a harder sell, not least because the British public are extraordinarily generous off their own bat. We have to explain that official development assistance can do things that private charity cannot, particularly by leveraging what other countries do. From the point of view of the recipient nations, there is also the predictability and long-term nature of such development and aid.

The most fundamental issue, however, is the free rider problem, which we do not talk about enough. If the 0.7% target was working perfectly and everyone was meeting it, it would be precisely the vehicle to help us get around the free rider problem. The free rider problem is this: if I, as a country, spend a load of money helping poor countries to develop their economies and societies, that will benefit the world to some extent, but I will never notice the benefit that I get as a nation; but if everybody does the same, I will get a big benefit. As long as everyone else is pulling their weight, therefore, it is perfectly rational to spend quite a lot of money on overseas development; but if I am going to be the only one spending a lot and nobody else is going to, it is not. That is why I said that if the 0.7% target works well, it is in everybody’s interests. However, we need to demonstrate to the public that even though most countries have not, sadly, reached that target, they are making progress towards it. While it is right for us to be proud of our leadership position and of reaching that target first, some of our constituents would, in many ways, rather prefer that we were joint first and that there was more progress from others.

[Meg Hillier]

We should be proud of what we have achieved in leading the way. Will the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that many of our constituents provide a lot of money through remittances, which are often under-counted? Those remittances are very much an example of charity beginning at home.

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Lady makes an extremely good point. Another reason why I am particularly proud about Britain being in the lead on this is that it gives our Prime Minister and our Government extra authority in international discussions. That gives this country more influence over what happens in terms of world policy on overseas development.

Key to all this is the need to emphasise the ways in which foreign aid is in our interests too. When I say “our”, I mean not just the United Kingdom, but all wealthy nations, although this happens to be the British Parliament, so we will focus on ourselves. To maintain support for what the Government do on overseas development, at least a subset of the goals focused on after 2015 should talk about the world’s shared interests. Of course it is right that the headline focus must be on the poorest people and the poorest nations, but there is some value in explaining these other issues to people and showing the progress being made on things that will also benefit people in the wealthier parts of the world.

There are four groups of key development deliverables—things that happen as developing nations get somewhat less poor and, eventually, a little richer. Things happen that benefit them, but there is also a direct benefit to the rest of the world. The first area is the most obvious: economic growth, specialisation and trade. As long as those things happen in a properly inclusive way, they will benefit the country itself through rising incomes. However, that also grows the world economy, leading to a higher world GDP and new export markets for countries such as ours.

The proof of that is that, over the past five years, 28% of the growth in UK exports came from countries classed as low and middle-income, excluding countries such as India, large parts of whose population are very poor. Government projections show that, over the next 10 years, today’s major aid recipients will contribute about £3 trillion to the global economy, accounting for 11% of global growth. If we look at a bar chart showing where global growth comes from today compared with in the 1990s, we see that the pattern has changed substantially, from being focused on richer countries in the 1990s to being focused on middle and lower-income countries today. Eventually, of course, low-income countries become middle-income countries and then contribute even more to the world economy.

The second area is population. We talk a lot these days about food security, about oil and energy more generally and about the resulting strains. While a growing world population is only one of the pressures on food—people who move into the middle classes and who have higher incomes tend to demand different sorts of food—the sheer number of people has an obvious effect on the demand for world resources. It is clearly in the interests of all of us that world population is at a sustainable level.

There are obvious ways in which aspects of development programmes directly impact on population, and the accessibility of family planning is one. Less obvious—this relates to child mortality—is the fact that the more likely a mum is to see her children grow into adulthood, the less likely she is to have more children. Another clear, although even more indirect, relationship relates to the fact that, as nations get richer, mothers tend towards having two children in the very long term, and it has been said many times that development is the best contraceptive. Regardless of one’s view of family planning programmes per se, the overall effort on international development contributes to having a sustainable world population.

The third area is self-sufficiency against disasters and in defence. Ultimately, that means countries making fewer emergency calls on the wealthier parts of the world. We hope that those countries will eventually be able to contribute to the security and defence of the world. The fourth area relates to making places safer, with fewer opportunities for radicalisation, less lawlessness and, ultimately, we hope, fewer wars for countries such as ours to have to intervene in.

My argument is that, somewhere in the 2015 goals, the world—this is not just down to our country—should find space to demonstrate to donor nations how the development and progress I have described is in their interests too. I am proud that this country is a world leader on development, and I hope we will remain one. However, we need to carry others with us, so we should see development goals not only as ends in themselves but, in the way we use them and demonstrate progress, as means to those ends.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 31st October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Lynne Featherstone]

The right hon. Gentleman raises a really important point. Whatever the military action, our responsibility is to ensure that humanitarian aid is delivered as fast as possible.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

3. What recent assessment she has made of the humanitarian situation in Syria.

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

6. What recent assessment she has made of the humanitarian situation in Syria.

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Justine Greening)]

The humanitarian situation in Syria is deteriorating rapidly: 2.5 million people are already in need and more than 350,000 have fled to neighbouring countries. The UK has already provided £39.5 million of funding for essential food, heating and shelter to help people to cope with the coming winter. I am assessing with other agencies how we can ensure that we are well prepared if the situation deteriorates further, as many people suspect it will.

[Meg Hillier]

I thank the Secretary of State for her answer. With access to large parts of Syria becoming increasingly difficult and challenging, what work is she doing with the international community to ensure that people in those areas can receive the aid that they need?

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. Approximately half the support that we provide has been for refugees, and half to help people inside Syria. I have had discussions with the International Committee of the Red Cross and the World Food Programme, the key providers of aid within Syria, and we are working with them to ensure that they can do their job efficiently. Clearly, they are neutral and dispassionate in regard to the politics, and it is vital that we use them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. He speaks from great experience, as his parents have helped to foster around 90 children over the past few decades, which I think is a magnificent example. As I said in my party conference speech, we really need to attack every aspect of this issue. It is a national scandal that there are 3,660 children under the age of one in the care system, but last year only 60 were adopted. We have got to do a lot better. Part of it is about bureaucracy and part of it is about culture, but a lot of it is about encouraging good foster parents and adoptive parents to come forward and giving them security in the knowledge that the process will not be as bad as it is now. Thorough-going reform is required. My hon. Friend the Minister with responsibility for children is leading this work and I am confident that we can make some real breakthroughs in this area.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q12. On 11 August the Prime Minister told the House that there would be a report to Parliament on cross-Government activity relating to gangs. Where is that report and when will we see it?

[The Prime Minister]

We are working intensively right across Whitehall on the gang issue, because I think that in the past, frankly, this was something that was dealt with in the Home Office and there was not the same input from other Departments, so we are doing exactly that, and when we are ready to make a report to Parliament we will do so.