Government Overseas Aid Commitment: Private Investment

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

Let me reiterate that it is this Government who introduced the 0.7%. [Interruption.] We introduced it, and we have kept it. I am sure that Opposition Members have not read the speech that I made today—if they had, they would know that the thrust of it was about levering more in.

What we are trying to do has nothing to do with some doctrine of the purity of aid, or what we should do with public money. It is about changing people’s lives and about saving lives, and this is about our ability to deliver what is needed for us to do that. Because we are capitalising those investment vehicles, we are currently choosing to deal with ODA in one way. We argued for that, and we have agreement to do that. [Interruption.] What I am saying is that in future years, if we want to do more of this—if we want to make our aid budget more sustainable—we should explore these options now. We should do that in consultation with the people whose money we are spending, the British taxpayers, and in consultation with the organisations that are investing their savings and pensions. Otherwise, folks, we are not going to deliver the global goals, which is what we are here to do.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on injecting a big, cold dose of common sense and reality into how international aid might best be delivered. The poor, starving child in Africa who lives in a tin shack and whose parents do not have work does not really care whether it is the private sector or the public sector that delivers that aid, but if the involvement of the private sector means that that child is fed, his family housed and his parents employed, then bring it on.

[Penny Mordaunt]

I agree with my hon. Friend and stand ready to receive other advice from the Opposition Benches about how we might close the £2.5 trillion funding gap—the shadow Home Secretary is not allowed to help with the maths. If we can deliver that through private investment, we can deliver the global goals. We must stop this dogma in the aid sector that anything done by the private sector is a bad thing; it is the only way we can actually deliver the goals.