Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebatePreet Kaur Gill
Main Page: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)Department Debates - View all Preet Kaur Gill's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(3 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberI warmly welcome the spirit of my hon. Friend’s question, although I think we need to be realistic about what China is going to be willing to sign up to. Therefore, for our part, we work very closely with UK businesses. It is very important—a hallmark of global Britain—that our businesses conduct themselves with integrity. We were the first country to produce a national action plan on the UN guiding principles on business and human rights, and the first country, with the Modern Slavery Act 2015, to ask businesses to report on their supply chains and how they could be affected. We are very proud of our international leadership in this area.
Our existing 0.7% aid commitment sends
“a strong signal that the UK is a reliable partner for long-term economic, social, environmental and educational advancement across the globe”,
and this is “cheaper than fighting wars”—not my words but those of the CBI and the former Chief of the Defence Staff, General Lord David Richards. Does the Secretary of State agree that rowing back on our promise to the world’s poorest people would jeopardise our soft power status ahead of the year when the UK will host the G7 and COP26, and will he recommit to his manifesto pledge, made exactly a year ago today, to spend 0.7% of GNI on aid?
ODA and our aid budget will remain at the absolute centre of the work we do as a force for good. I am afraid that we will have to wait for the spending review to hear what the Chancellor has to say on that.