UK-EU: International Development

Paul Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 21st March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Dr Paul Williams (Stockton South) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the UK’s future relationship with the EU on international development.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. I thank the Minister for being here to respond to the debate, and hon. Members from across the House who have joined me for this important discussion.

This is the first Westminster Hall debate that I have secured, and I am proud to have done so on such a key issue. The UK’s future international development work will play a pivotal role in the lives of millions of the world’s poorest people. We cannot allow Brexit to undo the good work that we have achieved through overseas aid.

Before my election to the House, I ran a hospital and a community health programme in Uganda, on the edge of the Bwindi impenetrable forest, for almost five years. It offered HIV, malaria, and maternal and child health services to local communities. I have seen at first hand the difference that development programmes can make. We should be incredibly proud of the work that the UK and the EU do to save lives and end poverty around the world. We should also be proud of our continued commitment to spend 0.7% of national income on overseas aid.

I called for this debate because we are at a crucial crossroads in the discussions about Brexit. In the next six months, the second phase of talks must agree what our future relationship with the EU will look like. Just as crucially, at the same time, the EU’s multi-annual financial framework—its budget—for 2021 to 2027 is under discussion.

Many questions remain unanswered. So much is still unknown and so little time remains. It is therefore right that this House should have a serious say in what the UK is trying to achieve, as well as on our negotiating position to get there. We have had very few opportunities so far to do that, so I welcome today’s debate.

I will talk about four key points: first, the impact of this vital work, and the many lives we already save and improve; secondly, the importance of working together with the EU to achieve greater efficiency and to add value to what we do; thirdly, the recognition that the UK is a world leader on development—we punch well above our weight and it is important to continue to provide that leadership; fourthly, the acknowledgement that other options and partnerships simply will not match up to what we can already offer. There is much at stake. Our future relationship with the EU on international development matters.

First, and perhaps most critically, the impact of this work is such that the lives of the world’s poorest and most marginalised populations depend on our getting it right. We must get the greatest impact and value for money out of every pound of the UK’s aid budget. If we do not, we will deliver fewer life-saving vaccinations, put fewer girls in schools and save fewer refugees from sexual violence.

In 2016, £1.5 billion—11% of our total official development assistance budget—was delivered through the EU budget and the European development fund. After decades of working with the EU, we know that it is one of the most effective delivery channels for spending taxpayers’ money to help the world’s poorest. Hon. Members do not need to take my word for that: in the Government’s multilateral aid review, the European Commission’s development and humanitarian programmes were assessed as “very good” in terms of matching UK development objectives, and “good” in terms of their organisational strengths. When the Ebola crisis happened, with leadership from the Department for International Development, member states worked together. By pooling resources, they could provide a much more effective response on the ground.

Secondly, partnership working with the EU allows DFID to improve where and how it works, and to help more of the world’s poorest. It has been said that every £1 of aid the UK spends through EU institutions is matched by £6 from other member states. The EU has operations in 120 of the world’s countries. Our partnership enables our aid budget to reach and respond in a far higher number of countries than we could ever achieve by working alone—often in places that other partnerships simply do not reach.

Anybody who, like me, has worked in international development or humanitarian response will say how important co-ordination on the ground is in responding to an emerging situation. The EU is a crucial in-country co-ordination mechanism for European donors to quickly share information and make decisions, so we must find a way to keep a seat at that table. By pooling resources and expertise with the EU and with European donors, DFID can tackle, at scale, much bigger crises than it could by itself.

Thirdly, our financial commitments to EU development and humanitarian programmes grant the UK enormous access and influence over international development globally. In 2016, EU nations spent more than €75 billion on official development assistance, but that figure could and should be higher. The UK and others led the way by spending 0.7% of gross national income on development assistance, but many countries do not. We must persuade those who are still falling short to raise their game, but we can do so only if they listen to us.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

I am loth to interrupt my hon. Friend’s passionate speech, but he mentioned 2016 and I wondered if he had seen the International Development Committee’s report of that year. It points out that the Government should

“consider the ramifications of the UK’s exit on the laws and regulations designed to curb corruption both here and overseas”.

Anti-corruption was not one of his four pillars, but the report said that it should not be de-prioritised. Yet when the Government’s anti-corruption strategy came out in December, there was no mention of this. Is he as disturbed as I am by that gaping hole?

[Dr Williams]

I did not choose to talk about corruption, but my hon. Friend raises an important point. To ensure that our aid is spent effectively, and, perhaps more importantly, to maintain public confidence in the fact that we give 0.7% of national income to official development assistance, we have to work in any way we can, and with many partnerships, to root out corruption.

DFID is widely perceived as one of the top aid agencies, which raises the standard of aid effectiveness and transparency in Europe and around the world. It has a seat in Cabinet and it is supported by deep technical expertise. Many European partners do not have that, which means that it is often able to set the standard, raise the bar, and promote important principles, such as poverty reduction and the untying of aid.

Despite the key role we play in the EU’s international development, we would be naive to think that we could achieve just as much by going it alone. To withdraw from EU development and humanitarian programmes would be a mistake. Large proportions of the money we invest on the ground to help the world’s poorest would be likely to be swallowed up by the creation of costly administrative systems to distribute those funds outside existing structures.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I am the Prime Minister’s trade envoy to Nigeria. The aims of our aid programmes and of the EU’s in that country are quite well aligned. How does the hon. Gentleman see that continuing? What happens when, as in central and eastern Europe, those aims diverge? The EU’s efforts in that area fell behind.

[Dr Williams]

I hope the Minister will tell us how we will continue to have influence and form partnerships that are in our interest. By working together on the ground, we can ensure that our aid spend is doubly effective.

[Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing his first Westminster Hall debate on this very important subject. Does he agree that the scale and size of the UK’s contribution to international aid helps to mitigate some of his concerns? The big part that the UK plays in international aid will give us an important role on the world stage.

[Dr Williams]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising that issue. Together with our EU partners, we are the world’s largest donor, but if we are alone we will fall down the pecking order. At least some of our influence comes from working with EU partners, but I concede that our role and our leadership as a stand-alone player are still very important.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making very good progress. Does he agree that it is not just money that is important to our influence in the EU? In the final stages of the sustainable development goal negotiations, there were four actors around the table: the EU, the US, the G77 and the co-chairs. Is there not a risk that if we do not come to an agreement with the EU, we will lose a seat in some of the informal negotiations that shape development policy?

[Dr Williams]

I thank my hon. Friend for that wise intervention. Yes, there is a risk that we will lose much of our influence if we do not get this right.

My final point is that we need to think seriously about what kind of country we want to become. The Select Committee on Foreign Affairs recently warned that the rhetoric of “global Britain” risks becoming nothing more than a slogan. Just a fortnight ago, DFID signed a controversial new humanitarian partnership with Saudi Arabia, despite what it is doing to put 8.4 million people in Yemen at risk of famine. When we form the wrong alliances, it could spell disaster for development. Some may say that we could form aid partnerships with nations such as the United States, but that would put our existing work at risk, especially in the light of the President’s Executive order that brings back the so-called global gag rule. We could find our ongoing progress on sexual health and reproductive rights held back by others’ beliefs.

Our partnership with the EU must surely be one of our top priorities. Given what is at stake and the risks of getting it wrong, we cannot afford to treat our humanitarian partnership as a bargaining chip in Brexit negotiations. The impact of our contributions on millions of lives and the amplification that they give to DFID are far too important to sacrifice in Brexit negotiations. I hope that today we will have a chance to put party politics aside and restate what I believe is a widespread commitment to moving forward with an ambitious and substantive partnership with the EU on international development.

To move forward, we need to fully understand the Government’s position, so I hope the Minister will paint a clearer picture of it today. In September, the Government published an ambiguous Brexit position paper, “Foreign policy, defence and development”, that made a commitment to an ambitious international development partnership with the EU. Six months on, however, the details are still lacking. Just weeks ago, DFID published a new paper that suggested that the UK will seek flexible engagement with different funds. It says that we will continue to seek influence and a seat at the table wherever we can—hardly a clear or compelling vision. Surely the public, our EU partners, non-governmental organisations and developing nations deserve more clarity than that.

I ask the Minister to provide some clarity by answering the following questions. What EU funds do the Government want to contribute to? Will the Government continue making contributions to the central EU budget, or only to ring-fenced funds outside it? Will they actively push for the European development fund to remain independent, ring-fenced and outside the scope of the central EU budget? I understand that that is far from certain. What influence would we need to secure from the EU in order to consider the negotiations to have been successful? What exact plans is DFID making for a no-deal scenario?

Tamsyn Barton, the chief executive of the UK international development network, Bond—British Overseas NGOs for Development—has already warned that DFID runs the risk that the EU will see it as cherry-picking. The Government’s new paper also urges so-called creative thinking. I hope that our negotiations in this important area of humanitarianism will not suffer from the same negotiating weaknesses that we have seen elsewhere.

I hope that this debate will be just the beginning of a meaningful discussion on the future of the UK-EU international development partnership. Questions remain about how Parliament will have a say on this crucial topic in the future and about how we will exercise real scrutiny over the Government’s position. The UK has collaborated with the EU for decades, with shared goals and values, to eliminate hunger, poverty, disease and inequality and to tackle conflict and crisis at scale. That partnership is too important to risk. We must now get on with the business of making sure that we preserve it once we leave the European Union.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Williams]

I thank the Minister for that thorough response and for giving us some more assurance. It is important that we continue to have parliamentary scrutiny as we develop our future relationship with the EU, and I hope that this is not our final opportunity for such discussions.

I thank the hon. Member for Gordon (Colin Clark), my hon. Friends the Members for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) and for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle), the hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law) and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) for their contributions to the debate. We must continue to find a way to partner with some of the key funds, as the Minister hopes, and we must continue to exert our influence. We are global leaders in international development and we cannot let Brexit affect the world’s poorest.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the UK’s future relationship with the EU on international development.