Foreign Aid Expenditure

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2016 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mike Gapes (in the Chair)]

Order. As there is so much interest in the debate, I will have to reduce the time limit on speeches to three minutes, and I will call the Scottish National party spokesperson, the Opposition spokesperson and the Minister from 7 o’clock, so I would be grateful if hon. Members could restrain themselves from intervening; then more of them may be able to speak.

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[Ian Austin]

Are the public so stupid?

[Mike Gapes (in the Chair)]

Order. Mr Austin, please.

[Patricia Gibson]

No, but there are some sections of the right-wing media where, if I read the football scores there, I would need to check them. I would not believe everything that I read in certain sections of the right-wing media.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mike Gapes (in the Chair)]

Order. I am afraid that I will have to reduce the time for speeches to two minutes and even then I cannot guarantee that everyone will get in.

--- Later in debate ---

On resuming—

[Mike Gapes (in the Chair)]

Order. The sitting is resumed and the debate may continue until 7.54 pm. I call Diane Abbott.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) on introducing this important debate.

I emphasise that it is possible passionately to support our commitment to spend 0.7% of GDP on aid and yet feel very strongly about accountability and transparency, as I do. It is not only a question of the accountability and transparency of the Department for International Development, although I appreciate that it is doing a lot of work on that. It is about accountability and transparency in the big non-governmental organisations, which do excellent work but have more to do on transparency, and it is about the accountability and transparency of the UN institutions, which are often the least transparent actors in development.

I feel strongly about accountability and transparency not just on behalf of the Daily Mail readers in Hackney North but because my family and those of many of my constituents come from the global south. I assure Members that people who live in the global south feel as strongly about accountability, transparency, good governance and minimising corruption as any Daily Mail reader. That is the context in which I wish to make my remarks.

We have spoken a lot about aid, but development is not only about aid. It is worth reminding the House that Africa loses $58 billion more in flows out of Africa than it receives in aid. Aid spending is dwarfed by the financial flows out of countries in Africa. Every year, the continent receives around $30 billion in aid, but it loses $192 billion—more than six times as much as it receives in aid—in debt repayments, lost tax revenue, tax transfers, multinational profits and other financial flows.

When we discuss this subject, we should not think that aid is the only instrument of development. Aid is important, and I defend the 0.7% contribution, but there are other important issues for the developing world. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) pointed out, the value of remittances to some countries of the global south are even more important than aid. The value of those remittances is that they go directly to communities, with no top- slicing through bureaucracy. In the event of humanitarian disaster, it is often remittances that get to the affected communities faster than any aid.

As the Labour party spokesperson on international development, I have been privileged to have been able to make a number of visits to all parts of the world in the past few months and see for myself how DFID money is spent. I went to Uganda with the International HIV/AIDS Alliance to see some really impressive projects focused on women and young people with HIV. I went to Ghana with ActionAid, where I saw how important women’s health projects were funded. I have also been to Somaliland, where I saw evidence of the drought that is sweeping across eastern and southern Africa. Anyone who says our money is being thrown away should see, as I saw, the starving peoples who have lost their livelihoods because their livestock has perished. They are dependent on the aid funds that come from overseas.