Official Development Assistance

Naz Shah Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the enormous expertise and experience she brings to the House from the development sphere. I can confirm that it will be temporary and, as I have already said, it is done as a matter of necessity and with regret. She asks what steps we will take. The most important thing is that we will need to see the impact of the virus on the economy and then on the public finances. We have come through what is effectively a second wave. We need to shore up against that. The measures the Government have announced aim to do that.

We are hopeful about a vaccine for next year, but we have to be cautious because we are not there yet. I am afraid there is an inherent degree of uncertainty about the situation, which is why we are in the position of not being able to rely just on the limited derogation written into the legislation which allows an ex post facto, if you like, derogation, having inadvertently missed the target. That is not the position we are in. We will, as I said, do it as soon as the fiscal conditions allow.

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

From actively breaking international law in a “very specific and limited” way to breaking commitments on international aid, does the Foreign Secretary not realise how his Government are slowly weaning Britain from its role as a world leader, day by day making us more irrelevant on the world stage? Every former living Prime Minister can see why this move is morally wrong and politically unwise. Why can the current Prime Minister and his Government not see it?

[Dominic Raab]

I think the current Prime Minister, and certainly this Foreign Secretary, gets a little fed up with hearing Britain being done down. I have to say to the hon. Lady that, despite the coronavirus pandemic and the fiscal conditions we face, we are none the less putting in £10 billion, which, on 2019 figures, has us as the second-largest overseas development aid contributor. When I speak to our interlocutors abroad, from Asia to Africa, and when I speak to our multilateral partners, from Dr Tedros to António Guterres, they do not share this self-flagellating defeatism or this will to do Britain down. They understand that we make an unparalleled contribution in the world as a force for good. We shall continue to do so.