Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Peter Kyle Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right. I spoke to the president of the World Bank yesterday and I totally accept his case. One of the reasons that our vision for a truly global Britain will tilt, if you like, to the Indo-Pacific region is the scope for using liberal free trade, not just to benefit the businesses, the workers and the consumers of this country, but to lift living standards around the world. Of course, that could have no greater impact than in Africa, where we will combine a more liberal approach to free trade than, I venture, they would get from the EU—an approach to business investment with integrity, which I think is necessary, given some of the reports we have of Russian and Chinese investment, coupled with our development and our “force for good” agenda, which I think shows the triple whammy of the impact that this new merger can deliver.

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

I was an aid worker both before and after DFID was established, and I can tell the Foreign Secretary that the change in the way that British aid was delivered and the respect that Britain had after DFID was established was absolutely transformational, and that transformation impacted people’s lives directly. The fact that four out of five of the fastest-growing economies in the world are African, and that all 10 of the fastest-growing economies in the world are formerly developing countries, is in no small part thanks to Britain’s leadership. We did that not by being transactional with aid but by recognising that it was in our interests to do the right thing. Will the Foreign Secretary tell us how he will judge the success or failure of the new merged Department? If it does not match the achievements of DFID, will he have a rethink?

[Dominic Raab]

I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman’s experience. He looks too young to have been hanging around the aid world for quite that long. He is right, and that is why the innovations that DFID undertook at the time, which were right for the time, will be banked, kept and safeguarded within the new FCDO. There was a struggle to make the case for change back then, and it is worth being open-minded about the innovations that we can fuse, forge and meld together to get even greater value for money. I pay tribute to the work of DFID’s staff. I think we have an even greater opportunity, coupling our approach to liberal free trade, our development expertise, our diplomatic clout and our approach to conflict stabilisation, to deliver even greater outcomes. The hon. Gentleman’s point about accountability and outcomes is precisely why we are reviewing and reinforcing the work of ICAI.