Sustainable Development Goals

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Law]

I agree with my hon. Friend. In fact, I visited a local primary school in the past month or two to discuss global leadership, and I was impressed that the children were able to list all 17 goals. Getting the SDGs into the national curriculum across these islands is vital. The next generation will inherit both what we do right and what we do wrong, so now is the time to put this topic front and centre.

It is no secret that the SNP is working towards an independent Scotland, but crucially we want this process because we want to play our part as global citizens, to improve the lives of people at home and abroad, and to aim to be world-leading in everything we do. The Scottish Government’s actions on the sustainable development goals typify that. Not only was First Minister Nicola Sturgeon one of the first national leaders to commit publicly to the SDGs, but Scotland has continued to set the pace for the rest of the UK. The First Minister noted in 2015:

“The national and international dimensions to poverty and inequality are interlinked. Scotland cannot act with credibility overseas, if we are blind to inequality here at home. And our ambitions for a fairer Scotland are undermined, without global action to tackle poverty, promote prosperity and to tackle climate change.”

The UK Government would benefit from listening to those words. Let me outline some evidence of what is being done.

Commenting on the Scottish Government’s attempts to reduce inequalities, the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations noted that

“great efforts are being made to help Scotland progress towards the SDGs.”

It highlighted the introduction of a new advisory council on women and girls as just one example of Scotland’s efforts to reduce inequalities.

Similarly, in the 2018 “Measuring Up” report by UK Stakeholders for Sustainable Development, Scotland’s target to eradicate child poverty in Scotland by 2030 through the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 was praised as “ambitious” and the Child Poverty Action Group’s “The Cost of the School Day” programme featured as a case study for UK best practice. We should just think how that compares with the comments made by the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Professor Philip Alston. He said that the UK’s social safety net has been

“deliberately removed and replaced with a harsh and uncaring ethos”

and that the UK Government have inflicted “great misery” on their people with

“punitive, mean-spirited, and often callous”

austerity policies. How did the UK Government reply? Denial.

The priorities of this Conservative Government have been laid bare by the fact that the only SDG target for which the UK has received a green rating is under goal 8, on decent work and economic growth:

“Strengthen the capacity of domestic financial institutions to encourage and to expand access to banking, insurance and financial services for all.”

That is almost laughable, because I do not think a single Member represents a constituency that has not been affected by local bank closures on the high street. Surely this serves only to demonstrate that the UK Government are focused on boosting the financial services sector while ignoring working people.

As well as work at home, the Scottish Government have been striving to support other countries to achieve the SDGs overseas. It goes without saying that SDG 4, on quality education, is one of the most valuable tools in the fight against global poverty, yet some of the world’s most vulnerable people remain without access to education. The SNP Scottish Government have been working to meet this goal by empowering people in developing nations and giving them the skills and opportunities to improve the lives of themselves and their communities.

We have backed programmes such as the Pakistan scholarship scheme, which has helped to support more than 400 women and more than 1,400 schoolchildren to continue their education. Also, more than 73,000 Malawian children have been helped to stay in school through support given to a feeding programme, while the Livingstone fellowship scheme allows doctors from Zambia and Malawi to come to Scotland for specialist training, which they will take back home for the benefit of their communities. Last week I was pleased to hear the Secretary of State commend Scotland’s partnership with Malawi and the many projects it upholds.

SDG 16, on peace and justice, is one of the UN’s five priority goals this year. As well as welcoming people from developing countries for training, Scotland has been a place of refuge for those fleeing conflict. Scotland, which has less than 10% of the UK’s population, has taken almost 20% of the UK’s intake of Syrian refugees.

The Scottish Government are also playing a role in the Syrian peace process. The SNP has long shown its determination to put women at the heart of government and politics. Recognising this, the UN special envoy to Syria invited the First Minister to provide support in training female peacemakers in negotiation and communication skills. Indeed, since its launch, the programme has trained more than 150 female peacemakers from Syria, Libya, Palestine and other conflict zones around the world. These are clear examples of the Scottish Government’s ambitions being met in Scotland and overseas, and I now turn my focus to the UN’s fifth focus goal for 2019, namely SDG 13 on climate action.

Crucially, many of the sustainable development goals will be rendered unachievable, and existing development gains that have been made will be reversed if we do not tackle climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report of autumn 2018, the UK Committee on Climate Change report of May 2019 and the International Development Committee report of this month all reach the same conclusion: we have too little time to prevent Earth’s temperature from increasing by more than 1.4° without radical solutions and clear political leadership. By way of example, Mongolia and Tibet are already experiencing 2° above pre-industrial levels.

The demonstration by Extinction Rebellion and strikes by young people in our schools serve to focus us on and remind us of how urgent action is needed. There is no doubt that we face a climate emergency. The world will be less safe, resources will be sparse and ecological and demographic crises will be unmanageable. What good is our work on education, inequalities, peace and justice if it is undermined by natural disasters, civil unrest, disease, displacement and mass migration caused by climate change, which pushes 100 million more people into poverty?

I was interested to hear the Secretary of State affirm last week:

“There should be no distinction at all between the work that we do on international development and the work that we do on climate and the emergency.”—[Official Report, 6 June 2019; Vol. 661, c. 256.]

That is commendable, and I am sure he will look to how the Scottish Government have approached the issue, and have become a world leader in their response to climate change. The Scottish Government have rightly called a climate emergency. Scotland has outperformed the UK as a whole and is one of Europe’s leading countries in cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Our target is to cut those by 90% by 2050, compared with the UK’s target of 80%. Also, a publicly owned, not-for-profit energy company to deliver renewable energy will be established as part of the strategy to reduce emissions.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

It might be worth reflecting—the Secretary of State might be interested in this—that the water company in Scotland is in public ownership, and has managed to achieve at least as much success as the privatised system down south, but with all the benefit being retained for the public purse.

[Chris Law]

That is absolutely correct. If you look across these islands, Scottish Water covers all of Scotland, which is one third of the landmass of the UK. Most people sometimes imagine Scotland to be a small periphery; it is actually a huge part. Considering the number of water companies across the UK and their different rates and tariffs, and the fact that people have to measure the amount of water they consume to keep their costs down, it really is a great benefit to us that our water in Scotland is nationalised. Furthermore, Scotland’s ban on diesel cars will begin in 2032—eight years ahead of the UK Government’s—and unlike the UK Government, the SNP does not support fracking, or a return to nuclear energy.

In addition to that progress at home, the Scottish Government have distributed £21 million through the world-leading climate justice fund, which is now supporting projects in Malawi, Zambia and Rwanda. Through that, more than 100,000 people have been provided with training on climate change and water rights issues; over 100,000 trees have been planted; and over 200 village-level committees have been established to support water management, to prevent or mitigate the negative impact of climate change.

Let us be in no doubt: tackling climate change is a universal imperative. The UK Government can take lessons from the Scottish Government, and must recognise the imminent impact that climate change will have on international security and humanitarian access to fundamental resources, both at home and abroad.

In a report that I mentioned earlier on UK aid for combating climate change, produced by the International Development Committee, we concluded that climate change must be placed at the centre of each strategy and funding. Our report urged a minimum spend of £1.76 billion annually, and a halt to funding fossil fuel projects in developing countries unless it was possible to demonstrate that they supported transition to zero emissions by 2050.

Disappointingly, we often heard evidence suggesting that Government Departments were not taking climate change seriously, and that there was not joined-up thinking across Whitehall. When I asked the prosperity fund what proportion of its spend supported the use of fossil fuels, I was told that it could not provide that percentage. Similarly, when I asked whether any assessment had been made of the carbon footprint and potential climate impact of its spend, I was told that it did not have specific indicators on carbon footprint. That was surprising and extremely worrying. Unfortunately, that incoherence and lack of focus appears to be common across Government, with policy in one area often undermining delivery in another. Nothing exemplifies that more than the fact that fossil fuels made up 99.4%, as mentioned by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden), and renewables a mere 0.6%, of UK Export Finance’s energy support for low and middle-income countries; those are the countries most likely to be adversely affected by climate change. There is a long-term tie-in to those countries, because once fossil fuel energy supplies are established, they can go on for decades, fundamentally undermining our goal of reducing CO₂ emissions globally.

Between 2013-14 and 2017-18, in low and middle-income countries, UK Export Finance provided £2,360 million-worth of support for exports in the fossil fuel energy sector, and less than £2 million-worth of support for exports in the renewables sector. It is therefore no surprise that this policy incoherence has impacted on the UK’s ability to deliver the sustainable development goals.

In their “Measuring Up” report last year, the UK Stakeholders for Sustainable Development found that out of 143 relevant SDG targets, the UK’s performance was “inadequate” or “poor” on 76% of them. Astonishingly, that is more than three quarters, for those of us of a certain age who work on the pre-decimal. The UK Stakeholders for Sustainable Development has also stated that there is little evidence of tangible progress from Government Departments, or the Prime Minister, or even within the Cabinet.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to be able to catch your eye in this debate, Mr Deputy Speaker, to make a very brief contribution. I was keen to speak, because in 2015, as a newly elected Member of Parliament, the first debate I secured in Westminster Hall was on the sustainable development goals. The Chair of the International Development Committee, the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), remembers it well. It has been interesting to see how progress has been made over the years. I think that I said at the time, and I am happy to say it again today, that we welcome the role played and the leadership shown by the UK Government at that time in driving forward the successor framework to the millennium development goals. There was real leadership from David Cameron and the coalition Government. That Government, of course, also enshrined the 0.7% target into law. It is just disappointing that all the momentum seemed to evaporate as soon as the ink was dry on the agreement, as though that was the work done. That should have been, and still has to have been, the starting point. That has to be the momentum that takes us forward and keeps us making progress.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is not just a starting point? There was meant to be a 10-year programme for action on the sustainable consumption and production patterns from 2002 onwards. We have had the millennium development goals from 2000 onwards. This should not be a standing start, but a running start where we are already delivering. That is the great shame about where we are. It feels as though we have done a standing start and that we have meandered around a third of the way through.

[Patrick Grady]

I absolutely agree. There was a lot of talk about what lessons we could learn from the millennium development goals framework. First, it had to be a continuous, ongoing learning iterative process. It cannot just be about trying to reinvent the wheel every single time. We probably have the most thoughtful ministerial team in DFID since I have been here, but I am just not convinced how long they will last and whether they will have the opportunity to drive the process forward. I will perhaps say a bit more about that before the end.

At the time the sustainable development goals were being developed, we repeatedly made the point that, unlike the MDGs, they would be truly global. We had to have a truly global system for how to tackle the challenges affecting every country in the world, including our own. Not everything in our garden is rosy, as every single speaker, including the Minister, has said. That is the importance of the framework: to hold us to account. We report so we can show where progress is being made and where the gaps still lie. Poverty is unacceptable wherever it is found and we all have to be held to account. If we are genuine about trying to show leadership in this part of the world, it is not just about helping other countries to meet those goals but ensuring we are making every effort to meet them all ourselves and, in terms of accountability, being willing and able to report on them.

On the Scottish Government, Nicola Sturgeon was one of the first Government leaders anywhere in the world to say that her Government would commit fully to the SDGs and play their part in implementing them both at home and abroad. Since the SNP became the Scottish Government in 2007, all their work has been measured against a national performance framework. Since the SDGs have come into force, that framework has been revised so that it is aligned with all the different aspects of the sustainable development goals and that they are reflected in the indicators and the outcomes of that framework. The Scottish Government are showing leadership, and I encourage UK Ministers to look at the framework and the difference it might make across the whole of Government policy.

As other Members have said, the biggest challenge at home and abroad to meeting the sustainable development goals is climate change. Indeed, the changing climate threatens to reverse the progress that has been made over the period of the millennium development goals. I welcome the focus that the new Secretary of State is bringing to the importance of climate change, but tackling climate change and achieving climate justice needs to go beyond, and be additional to, the work that is being done. It is not simply about repurposing some of DFID’s funds and priorities to tackle climate change instead of other things. It has to be both/and; otherwise, we will not make the progress that we need.

That is why I give the example, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee West (Chris Law), of the Scottish Government’s climate justice fund, which is additional to the Scottish Government’s international development fund and is deliberately not handled by the International Development Minister, or at least that was the case when it was set up. It was looked at from a holistic perspective to help people in developing countries to adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change, because, as others have said, the concept of climate justice recognises that those who are worst affected are often those who are being hit first and hardest but who have done the least to cause the changing climate that we are all experiencing.

The other aspect that is very important is tackling governance and making sure that civil society and national Government frameworks are as strong as they can be. In saying this, I declare a couple of interests: I am the SNP Member on the board of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy and I am chair of the all-party group on Malawi. Malawi has just gone through pretty successful, very peaceful elections, but they have demonstrated some of the challenges that come with governance in developing democracies. More women have now been elected to the Malawian Parliament, which is fantastic, but as I said to the Secretary of State in DFID questions last week, some of the very capable incumbents found themselves losing their seats. That is democracy—we all put ourselves forward in elections and we have to go into them with open eyes and expect that we may not be re-elected—but there is a tendency throughout developing democracies for one-term elections. People seem to find that once they have been elected, they have real difficulty getting re-elected. We perhaps have to look at some of the structures and causes behind the scenes, when individual candidates seem to get targeted because they are not pliable or are not signing up with the overall majority. The civil society links that help to strengthen that are hugely important as well, so I pay tribute, as the Secretary of State has done, to the work of the Scotland Malawi Partnership.

The civil society grassroots links in Scotland are hugely important. Many of the projects there that have partner and twin organisations in Malawi are just as dedicated to tackling poverty at home in Scotland. Many are church or faith-based groups and they work with poor people in their communities, as well as trying to support people living in poverty in Malawi. When DFID is looking at its options, I hope that it can find different ways to support networks such as the Scotland Malawi Partnership.

Finally, underpinning all that is the 0.7% target, which was calculated at a time when if all the developed countries reached that target, there would be enough money to reach the goals. I do not know when anyone last tried to do that kind of calculation to figure out whether that is still the case, but if everybody did meet the 0.7%, that would leverage far more resources than are currently available for development. It is hugely commendable that there is a cross-party, cross-society consensus in support of that target.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Is the hon. Gentleman therefore concerned, as I am, that a number of the prospective Conservative Prime Ministers are talking about slashing it and that the lead candidate is even talking about abolishing the whole Department for International Development? We must say no to that and that we will not let that happen.

[Patrick Grady]

The hon. Gentleman could have been reading the notes that I have in front of me. He is absolutely right. That might play well to certain parts of their gallery, but it will not play well in the country as a whole. Conservative Members should remember that just before the launch of the very ill-fated Tory manifesto of 2017, there were rumours that the 0.7% would disappear, but that was objected to by civil society, by all the different parties and by their party in Scotland, because there is some semblance of a recognition of that commitment’s importance. That is the message that needs to go from this debate. Toying with the target and with DFID being a stand-alone Department may play well with certain Conservative Back Benchers, but it will not play well in the country as a whole. The Conservative party will mess with that at its peril.