Official Development Assistance and the British Council

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady. This is not an either/or. Money spent there will save money upstream. I know that the Treasury scorecard is very difficult to comprehend and that this is not necessarily how it works, but that relatively small amount of money will save enormous amounts of money at home and will make the world a better place for all of us.

My final point is on the British Council. I am disappointed by the situation that we have arrived at. I know that the Government have put an enormous amount of money into the British Council. The British Council is normally pretty much self-sustaining. Its language schools and language business mean that it pays for about 85% of its costs in normal times—but, as I have said, we are not in normal times. Like so many other organisations, the British Council has not been able to deliver the services that it would have delivered and therefore make the income that can and needs to make. We are talking about money for two years so that it can get back on its feet. The price that we will pay for not meeting that request by the British Council is that we will see the closure of offices around the world, including in the US, Afghanistan and other places.

I said in respect of international aid that other countries will move in; there can be no doubt about the significance of the British Council and its offices, and about the idea of another power moving into those offices where the British Council has been. Yes, the British Council sells language services to the public, but the service it provides to the United Kingdom is about far more than just language services. The British Council is about Britain’s place in the world and is perhaps the most visible part of our soft power that anyone sees in any country they have visited. I was able to travel the world as a Minister at many levels and as a Select Committee member, and the British Council was always present, promoting Britain, British values and British interests. I say to my hon. Friend the Minister: please try to find a way to support the British Council so that we do not have to see the closure of posts. Once we have moved out and those relationships are lost, they will never be regained; someone else will move in and we will be a poorer country for it.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

The time limit is eight minutes. I call Sir Edward Leigh.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)]

Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), I anticipated having three minutes and, somehow, I now have eight minutes. Unlike her, I have since written more notes and now have the difficulty of trying to read my own writing.

I rise to recognise the UK’s global reputation for delivering life-saving aid, to warn of the risks resulting from a reduction to the 0.7% target and to offer ideas for maximising the UK’s support for the world’s most vulnerable through the next decade and beyond. However, I start by paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall), who made the important point that it is about the four aspects of defence, trade, development and diplomacy all working together. Like four wheels on a car, we cannot get to our destination without all four working at the same time.

We need to consider the impact of development on trade, the impact of development on defence and the impact of development on diplomacy, and likewise in reverse. There needs to be a more holistic view of what we can do to be a truly global Britain.

Aid is a British success story. We are recognised as global experts and have achieved incredible results. Since 2015, we have helped 14 million children access education, and we have helped 6 million girls. When leadership was needed to address covid-19 in poorer countries, the UK stepped forward, committing over half a billion pounds and 100 million vaccine doses to the COVAX initiative. We have led the world in tackling violence against women and girls, by launching the preventing sexual violence in conflict initiative—again, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes—and funding innovative new programmes.

Aid spending is also an investment in our global reputation. It establishes us as respected and trusted international partners, which can only help in our mission to secure trade deals that will benefit the constituents of every Member in this House, including mine in Bury South.

With generous and effective aid spending and a global diplomatic presence comes our soft power and soft influence, which places the UK at the heart of critical debates and gives us the legitimacy and ability to guide international action on key global challenges such as climate change. When the UK speaks on such issues, the world listens.

It is with concern, therefore, that we witness the slashing of aid budgets, eroding this proud legacy and, ultimately, costing lives. We have made a commitment to ensuring 12 years of quality education for girls and, as a founding member of the International Parliamentary Network for Education, this is something of which I am immensely proud, yet our aid cuts leave 700,000 girls without access to education.

We have pledged to prevent 20 million people from experiencing catastrophic famine, but we have cut our funding to Yemen, a country on the brink of famine, by nearly 60%.

The cuts are not going unnoticed by our friends or, more importantly, our adversaries. The UN Secretary-General has described the aid cuts as a “death sentence”. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) said that the recruiting sergeants of Hezbollah, al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, ISIS and other armed militia across the globe will be the immediate beneficiaries of the cuts to the UK’s humanitarian programmes. China and Russia are watching, and they will not hesitate to fill the vacuum we are creating and destabilise more regions across the globe.

With an eye on the development of the UK’s new international development strategy, I will finish with three recommendations. First, let us use the strategy to announce a return to spending 0.7% of GNI on aid and to signal to our G7 and G20 allies that Britain can be a force for good and a trusted international partner.

Secondly, let us focus our aid on where it is needed most. The International Rescue Committee’s analysis shows that 20 countries, mostly conflict-afflicted, currently host 85% of the 235 million people in need of humanitarian assistance globally. Maintaining our commitment to spending 50% of ODA in fragile and conflict-afflicted countries provides the greatest opportunity to drive down humanitarian need and ensure value for taxpayers’ money.

Finally, let us unleash the power of integrating diplomacy and development. We are permanent members of the UN Security Council, NATO, the G7, the G20 and Five Eyes. We have a global diplomatic network. In short, we have clout. When we speak, the world rightly listens, but our world-leading diplomacy should lead efforts to reduce suffering, to foster peace in conflicts like Yemen, to remove barriers that deny humanitarian aid to those who need it, and to hold to account those who attack civilians and violate international law.

I am proud of Britain, and I am proud of a global Britain, especially in a post-Brexit world. I am proud of the values we stand for and the progress that we have made through our aid spending, and I am sure I will be proud of what we achieve in future years, too, as soon as we go back to 0.7%. As we recover from covid, the next big thing to focus on is climate change. Again, 0.7% is fundamental to addressing climate change.

These results will come only if we retain our aid spending. Restoring the budget is not just the right thing to do morally, it is the right thing to do for the UK’s national interest. Let us return to 0.7% and return to doing what we do best.

I close by saying that Britain keeps its promises; let us do so again. In this House we often say anecdotally that it is country, constituency and then party. This may not be the popular thing in the country, in my constituency or in my party, but it is the right thing to do.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

We now come to the wind-up speeches and, by video link, Chris Law.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Duddridge]

I am not going to give way yet, but I will come back to the hon. Gentleman if there is time.

Our fifth priority was science and technology. The sixth one was open societies and conflict resolution, which drives some of these problems. All too often we spend our money on problems that could have been solved early on. The final priority is economic development and growing GDP per capita in the developing world so that they pay tax and get functioning systems as we would have. In that light, we are supporting the continental free trade area, which will drive growth in countries, and we are expanding our diplomatic network.

My hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee, mentioned Niger, Chad and Djibouti, all of which I will be hoping to visit in the near future, and a number of people mentioned the large number of multilateral bodies we are and will continue to be pre-eminent in.

The British Council is the second leg of this debate. We are strongly committed to the British Council. We have allocated more than £600 million since the pandemic to secure its future, which includes a 27% increase on funding this year. I know hon. Members wanted more, but in the context of an aid cut the British Council has done incredibly well out of the settlement, because of the value people see in it—we have seen that across the board.

Let me address some more specific comments. My right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) talked about the linkages. One thing an integrated Department allows is for us to look at the linkages between modern slavery and girls’ education, which is the example she chose. She criticised us for operating in silos, but, again, bringing together the Departments has helped. A number of Members expressed concerns about a loss of expertise; actually, changes to the total operating costs ratio—a bit of a technicality—mean that we can do more in-house, which should help.

An hon. Member asked about our staff in Abercrombie House; we will be increasing the number of staff in Abercrombie House and in Scotland.

My hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling criticised us for making admirals ambassadors and honourable consuls captains. I get his point, but we are not merging with the Ministry of Defence. I could talk about some of the best people in my team—for example, the director general, Africa was an economist, focused on aid, was an ambassador and is now back here doing a cross-Whitehall job. I could go on with many examples of people across Whitehall.

The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) asked us to support the special drawing rights. I have spoken to the right hon. Gentleman about the matter and I have said openly that we are lobbying for that at World Bank-IMF meetings. We support the recycling of SDRs to the developing world. The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned IDA replenishment, which we support and are working on.

The hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran), who is no longer in her place, mentioned funding for a specific project and felt there would be adverse effects if it was cancelled because of a new variant. I would very much like more information on that from her.

My right hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) is an ex-Minister and clearly understands the dynamics of having to make difficult decisions, particularly in respect of balancing aid issues with education and law and order. He asked about the logistics of COVAX; I would love to draw on his resource, but we are also working with Africa CDC.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford) offered an equally passionate but slightly different view from that expressed by the hon. Member for Rotherham, but it was good to see them both get praise.

My hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) made a very thoughtful speech that challenged everyone.

As ever, my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) made very good points. Given his penchant for publicity and flair, I have no doubt that he will be on the front page of the Southend Echo tomorrow, not me.

The least said about the speech by my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley) the better, really; certain things should stay in private.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) made a deeply thoughtful speech that he said was from the defence perspective but actually ranged much more widely beyond that.

I heard an impressive speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford), whom I have not heard speak before. He went from 10 minutes to eight minutes to three minutes and back to eight minutes.

I heard my first speech from an Alba Member of Parliament. I noted down initially that the speech from the hon. Member for East Lothian (Kenny MacAskill) was kind, thoughtful and well informed; by the end I put “ranting”. But it was all the better for it and when in future I see his name on the annunciator, I am going to rush into the Chamber.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Let us have the final word from Sarah Champion.

[Sarah Champion]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker; it is always wonderful to have the last word.

I thank everybody for their passionate contributions to this debate. This is truly a cross-party issue and I hope the Government are listening very clearly to the loud plea that we are making.

This debate is not actually about 0.7%; it is about how we see ourselves and how we present Britain to the world. I am proud that we have a strong history of development in this country and it pains me that, piece by piece, that is crumbling away with the decisions the Government are making. It is not the Government who are facing the repercussions—although one could look at the results of recent by-elections—but the very poorest in the world. We should not be doing this.

We need to provide clarity. We need clarity for the NGOs that have received FCDO funding in the past. Contrary to what the Minister said, they are being told by webinars and by junior Ministers, and they are being given a week to wrap up their projects. Many of the examples are on the public record, so I am more than happy to share them with the Minister, because it is shocking.

This House needs clarity on what the Government’s priorities really are, because we understand the seven priorities but unfortunately the Government keep going against them. As many Members have argued passionately, we need the Government to understand that defence, diplomacy, development and trade are all interlinked, and that weakening development weakens all those things.

I end by saying that there are threats to this country, unfortunately, but a threat such as terrorism is resolved not by bullets but by full tummies and economic potential. That is what concerns me: by weakening development we are weakening this country’s security.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

As a former member of the International Development Committee, may I say that it was some of the most valuable work that I have done over my 29 years as a Member of Parliament? I have really enjoyed the debate this evening.

We will have the Dispatch Boxes cleaned during the Adjournment debate to save a bit of time. I know the Minister will not touch the Dispatch Box until then.

Question deferred (Standing Order No. 54).