Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill (First sitting)

Richard Graham Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 6th December 2016 Public Bill Committees

[James Duddridge]

That makes an awful lot of sense.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Q Over the years since the inception of the Commonwealth Development Corporation in 1948, the Government’s approach to it has fluctuated considerably. In the 1980s it was doing, on a smaller scale, broadly what Graham and Diana are now doing—direct investment—but then there was pressure to separate out and effectively privatise the private equity or venture capital element of it. With 0.7% of GNI going to DFID, you can take a longer, more strategic approach to the CDC, but the effective tensions, potential tensions, between ODA objectives, taxpayer return on equity and pursuing aid goals but not investing in things that might be done by the private sector otherwise, remain and arguably will be more in the public eye as the CDC expands. How will you balance those, and what is the longer-term strategy, in your view, for the future of the CDC?

Rory Stewart: It is a very good question. You are absolutely right: since 1948, the CDC has been through changes. I think that is because it was a very bold and imaginative move by the Attlee Government. It was a very unusual thing at the time; indeed, it was the first DFI. And from the moment that they were invented, DFIs have had to tread a thin line between two quite different things: a private sector modality—a desire to generate a commercial return—and a public developmental objective. A lot of the shifts you mention are about the pendulum swinging back and forth between these two types of objective.

Looking at the history of CDC, there have been times, in the 1980s for example, when CDC made a lot of very bold, risky investments in high development impact and lost money. It did not succeed in making money. There have been other times, under other leaderships—and this was true in the period criticised by the NAO, in the 2000s—when they went to the other extreme. We had a situation in which, during that period, CDC managed to generate £1.5 billion of profit—profit for the UK taxpayer, profit that is put back into the CDC and reinvested, but they were very high rates of return, largely achieved through the fund of funds strategy.

Now, we are using this piece of primary legislation, this discussion of the Committee and also the UK aid strategy and the CDC strategy being undertaken at the end of this year, to provide a much tighter definition of the key characteristics that take us forward. That is, philosophically, that the DFIs work when you get that balance right. The balance is right where the private sector element gives you the commercial discipline to make sure the investments you are making are genuinely sustainable, that they are going to keep those jobs and deliver revenue to the Government and value for money for the taxpayer. However, that has to be balanced with the public objective, which is the ability to make very patient long-term investment, to take a certain degree of risk and to pursue developmental impact. That is why we have put out this grid where, on the X axis and Y axis, we measure with every single investment how much capital is available, how hard the business environment is, how low the GDP capture is on both axes and whether the sector is likely to create jobs. That is also why we brought in Harvard University last year to review this and why we are now going through a 15-year longitudinal study to try and establish this.

I think we are getting better at this, but your warning, Mr Graham, is a good one and everything we are doing in our strategy, our metrics and our measurement is to ensure that we are not back in a world where this pendulum is swinging back and forwards all the while.

[The Chair]

Just before Mr Graham comes in again, five other colleagues have caught my eye and we must finish this session at 10.30 am, so we are going to have to speed up a little bit.

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[Richard Graham]

Q May I follow up very briefly on three specific points? First, if having private sector expertise in CDC helps it focus on the commercial return element, sustainable investments and so on, which I totally accept, would a partial flotation at some stage not both achieve Richard Fuller’s earlier point—I think it was Richard Fuller who mentioned it—on bringing private money into the CDC, that is, the Government acting as a catalyst to bring money with it, on the one hand, while on the other, assure those people in the private sector that it was not the Government competing against them?

The Centre for Global Development called for the CDC to

“do as much as possible to demonstrate that it’s investing in projects that create jobs and growth which would not otherwise happen.”

Is that an impossible ask?

The last point is on the geographic eligibility. At the moment, you can invest in 63 countries, which is considerably more than the Commonwealth. What about Palestine or the middle east?

Rory Stewart: Okay, here we go.

[The Chair]

As briefly as you can, please.

Rory Stewart: Those were three very complicated questions, but I will try to deal with them very quickly. No. 1, the reason why a partial flotation would be difficult is that the returns we generate are deliberately low. We are only at about 3% return because we want to have a developmental impact. It would also have a significant impact on our governance arrangements, as we are currently a 100% shareholder.

The second question—is it an impossible ask? No, we do not feel it is an impossible ask. It is tough, but if you look at our investments in solar power around Burundi and CAR, that is a really good example of something that is extremely unlikely to have been done by a normal commercial investor. These are high-risk investments, generating a relatively low return. We are only able to do it because we are a DFI with that patient long-term investment policy.

The third question? I am so sorry, Mr Graham.

[Richard Graham]

Q Sixty-three countries at the moment. What about Palestine, for example?

Rory Stewart: This very interesting discussion has gone back and forth. As you are aware, the International Development Committee asked CDC to look strongly at investment to deal with the crisis around Syria and at what we can do to help bring stability to the middle east, for example. At the same time, other members of the IDC tabled amendments to the Bill that would not only take us out of middle-income countries in the middle east but would restrict investment to the countries with which DFID has bilateral programmes. My gut instinct is that that is an issue not for primary legislation but for Departments to address through their strategy in response to a changing world.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q I apologise for my late arrival. I was hosting a general from the British Army. Minister, I want to ask a very specific question about where these figures come from. I want to probe you further on them. You answered a written question from me yesterday—for Hansard, it is 55702—and said that the only capital requests that you received from CDC were for the £735 million. You said that you have not had any others. Can you be clear about whether CDC has requested capital increases to you beyond the £735 million?

Rory Stewart: The process is threefold. We will seek permission from Parliament to be able to recapitalise CDC. We want to know whether you are prepared to allow us to give any more money to CDC—£1, £10, £1 billion or £6 billion. We are looking for the option to give it more money. Then we will produce the five-year forward strategy for CDC, which will come together at the end of the year. Then we will produce a business case in the summer to lay out what we believe, in consultation with CDC, its likely requirements are in order to prepare our promissory notes. The final stage is that CDC will make a request on the basis of the projects it has. That is exactly what we have done with the £735 million.

We have discussed the ceiling that we are proposing to you in detail with Graham and Diana. At this early stage, they believe it is a reasonable maximum limit for the amount that they could conceivably need between 2016 and 2021.

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[Alison McGovern]

Q Very briefly, obviously there is a massive need for capital in Africa, and the question is how we should spend UK taxpayers’ money. I would like to come back to you, Tom. As we heard in the previous session, we are asking CDC to take increased risks with quite a lot of increased capital, but we do not yet have its strategy. Do you think that that approach is probably the wrong way round?

Tom McDonald: There is a cart-and-horse problem here, is there not? One of the things that we saw in the 2015 recapitalisation business case was that the Department did go through a thorough process of assessing, in collaboration with CDC, the art of the possible. There are good foundations on which the Department can build.

One of our worries, which we set out in the report, is that CDC has to be comfortable that it can absorb this money in two ways. One is internally: does it have the capacity to grow, still be agile and make decisions in the way it has done in the past? That is its internal operating model, if you like. The other is whether it has access to all the opportunities for investment. Now that it is again in the business of direct investment, that requires a lot more effort from the teams that are putting together these deals. There needs to be a discussion between the two bodies over the remainder of the spending review period, or the Parliament, about whether DFID is clear about what it wants from CDC, where it wants CDC to operate, and the principles on which it wants it to work. From CDC’s perspective, can it cope with the volume of money and can it, in good faith, invest all that in a portfolio of deals that will still allow it to meet its targets?

Gideon Rabinowitz: I have a very quick point to follow up on that. As well as our mission to tackle the injustice of poverty around the world, we are very keen in our work and our engagement with the development community to push for adequate public scrutiny and trust in the work that the British Government and institutions such as CDC do. We think that needs to be central to this debate, so these are really good issues that we are discussing. The absence of this investment strategy is making it a little difficult to get a fuller perspective. There is clearly a dynamic situation around CDC. I have looked at the business case for the last capitalisation last year, which said,

“CDC has previously determined that given investment needs, it could productively deploy up to £1bn of additional capital.”

We heard from this morning’s witnesses that that situation seems to have changed. An additional point was made in the business case that, of the £735 million that DFID allocated to CDC last year, it would need to go beyond that only in 2019. It is a very fluid situation, and the lack of clarity over that investment strategy and how the situation on the ground with CDC is changing poses challenges. It is important to get that clarity.

[Richard Graham]

Q A very quick question for you, Tom—probably a one-word answer. If I got you right earlier, you were calling for a more effective measurement of the quality of jobs generated by CDC. Do we have such a measurement in the UK?

Tom McDonald: A one-word answer would be no.

[Richard Graham]

Q Thank you. Saranel, it is clear that you would not want to see any money going from the taxpayer to CDC that would mean either selling it or closing it down, or possibly both. How would that help DFID achieve its goals of supporting businesses and jobs in the developing world?

Saranel Benjamin: I think we differ in how we see development. However, the fact that CDC is operating without a strategy begs the question of what it is prioritising. Why would one prioritise private education or schools, or private healthcare, in countries where the majority of people are not getting access to that? How does that justify the better use of UK taxpayers’ money? I think the question was raised earlier about whether we are choosing poverty reduction or profit-making.

[Richard Graham]

Q Okay. So you are against specific investments that have been, or might be, made. Are you against investment in businesses full stop?

Saranel Benjamin: I am against using business to conduct development in the global south.

[Richard Graham]

Q So you do not believe that creating jobs through business is a constructive way of meeting development aims?

Saranel Benjamin: I don’t think that that is the only thing that should be done in terms of development, but from CDC’s point of view, that seems to be not just about job creation, but about supporting projects that have absolutely nothing to do with poverty reduction. I cannot see how supporting top-level real estate in Kenya, for example, is about poverty reduction.

[Patrick Grady]

Q I just want to ask any panel member who might want to reflect on the levels of transparency in CDC and the opportunities for parliamentary scrutiny. I particularly want to ask the reps from War on Want and Oxfam how their transparency in reporting requirements from DFID have changed in recent years and whether they have any views on how they should apply to CDC.

Gideon Rabinowitz: Oxfam is a signatory to the international aid transparency initiative, which is the comprehensive aid transparency framework that is applied across the development community. The initiative was started and promoted by the UK Government, who have obviously played an important leveraging role in promoting transparency across the world.

We are ambitious implementers of IRT and in our dialogue with DFID right now, we are being encouraged to look at how we can apply those standards and the standards introduced by the initiative further down our supply chain with our local partners. It will be a challenge, but one that we shall pursue head on. Throughout the chain of delivery partners we work with, we will look at ways we can address those standards.

One of the questions we think it would be really useful for the Committee to think about is, how—whatever is agreed through the legislation—can we help to ratchet up the level of transparency of CDC? It has made progress, but the last time it was assessed against IRT standards, it scored “poor”. We have not seen a fundamental change in the level of information that is currently reporting, so it has some catching up to do. We hope this legislation can help.

Saranel Benjamin: That is a really good question, because while listening to everybody talking, I was thinking that when we have to apply to DFID for funding, there is absolutely no way we would get funding if we just went and said, “Can I have £500,000 and I will give you the strategy later?” That would never happen for the development sector.

Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill (Second sitting)

Richard Graham Excerpts

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 6th December 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Stephen Doughty]

Absolutely, and that gets to the nub of the issue. The Minister has been a veteran of many debates in this House and in Committee, so he knows full well the format in which debate takes place on amendments. Amendments are tabled to discuss the fundamental issues and the matters around them. Therefore, given the faux outrage at me for suggesting £3 billion versus £6 billion, he needs to explain—he has not done yet—his rationale for £6 billion and £12 billion, which I have yet to hear.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

I am curious, partly because the hon. Gentleman’s amendment proposes an absolute sum of money, but more because everything he has said so far suggests that he is almost as close to the lady from War on Want in disapproving strongly about the activities of the CDC and the ability of Government to allow it to access more capital if it makes the right case for doing so. Therefore, I suggest the emphasis is slightly on him to try to demonstrate to members of the Committee why he has decided that £3 billion is the appropriate figure. I imagine that he was influenced this morning by hearing Sir Paul say that we need to get on with investing more in business in order to provide the jobs that Africa in particular so badly needs. I leave it to him to point out that that is what he thinks.

[Stephen Doughty]

The hon. Gentleman clearly did not listen to what I said either on Second Reading or in Committee this morning. He knows full well that I do not support the views of War on Want on the role of business and private capital in supporting developments, jobs and job creation. I made it clear that I did not support that part of its views. What I did support was the suggestion that the CDC is being given a different set of rules to play by from other development finance institutions and indeed other routes on which we can put our valuable aid money, for which we should demand the highest levels of scrutiny, transparency and effectiveness, and coherence with the rest of our programme.

I do not want to stray too far from the terms of the amendment, but in the new clauses we will discuss some of those issues of coherence. Without additional safeguards and caveats on where that money is spent, the transparency arrangements, the business case that should be presented and so on, whatever number we put in, whether it is £1 million less that the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East suggests, the £3 billion less that I suggest or indeed any other figure, or a proportion as suggested by SNP Members, we could see multiple distortive effects. For example, the value of investments currently going into middle-income countries is still significantly higher than into lower-income countries. The value of investments going into Africa has gone down and the value of investments going into south Asia—mostly to India, a country to which we were supposed to end giving aid—has in fact gone up. The reality is, if we boost the CDC’s budget further without any change in that overall strategy, we will see a multiplication of that effect.

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[Rory Stewart]

This is an important principle—we should be focused on poverty reduction and the particular aspect of poverty reduction through job creation and economic development. I absolutely agree, and that is central to the mission of the CDC and its investment policy, but we are circling around a bigger issue: where is the appropriate place for this to happen?

I think that the only disagreement between myself and the hon. Member for Glasgow North is that this is a straightforward Bill, which is designed to lift the cap. We believe that the appropriate place to determine spending decisions and exactly how strategy works is through the normal departmental process. That would be true for our investments in the World Bank and in Unicef, money we would give to Oxfam or Save the Children, or anybody. We have procedures and processes to do that, which do not happen through primary legislation. We will continue to present that five-year strategy in December for the hon. Member for Glasgow North and other right hon. Members to interrogate. We will continue to present the business cases. We will be held absolutely accountable in law. In 2015 we passed a law that we would spend 0.7% on overseas development assistance as defined by the OECD. The money we are giving is governed by that legislation, which commits us legally to make sure that that money is driven precisely in the directions that the hon. Member has raised.

The hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth continues to raise many different issues. I am struggling to work out in which sequence to answer them, because many of them are things I thought the hon. Gentleman was attempting to raise in later amendments. I hope that we are not going to keep hearing again and again about the same caseloads.

[Richard Graham]

It seems to me that the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth has raised interesting points about individual investments by the CDC. He is concerned about where the geographic spend is. The figures probably suggest that it has been 48% in Africa over the last few years, but there is an interesting question there, on which the Minister might want to comment: if one invests in a business that is, for the sake of argument, based in Mumbai but investing in east Africa, is that geographically described as an Indian investment or an east African investment? The hon. Member then had questions about sectoral investment. There are interesting questions there, because if someone is building hospitals, they are also in construction, and therefore there are jobs for people building the hospital. Is that classified as an investment in health, in construction, or both?

[The Chair]

Order. This is an intervention. If the hon. Gentleman wants to speak longer, he needs to indicate—

[Richard Graham]

I will bring it to an end almost immediately. It struck me that the Minister might want to confirm that the CDC can be held to account directly before the Select Committee and that that is the place to ask specific questions on specific investments and their sectoral and geographic emphasis, rather than in this Bill Committee.

[The Chair]

I think it is for me to decide where the best place for the questions is, and I have allowed them.

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[Stephen Doughty]

The new clauses are all probing and designed to get further into this issue of the CDC’s disjoint from DFID’s overall focus, whether that is the disjoint from the Department’s bilateral programme, from its focus on individual countries, or from its focus on income and countries considered to be least developed or low income. Again, I mention the Minister’s interesting comments about India; I would be interested to know if he would consider looking at the broader issue.

The three new clauses look separately at the respective issues. The first one would amend the Bill to require that the CDC’s new money was only invested in countries where DFID has a bilateral programme. New clause 4 would set out a very specific list as to where CDC was able to invest. I know that it already has a list, but I think that it should be shorter and I have suggested some countries that could be removed from it. I am sure we can have a debate about that.

New clause 5 suggests that any new disbursements should be focused on those countries defined as least developed or low income, rather than on middle-income countries where the significant proportion of the CDC spending does appear to be going.

The disjoint is very clear on the bilateral front. DFID currently invests in 35 countries. We are not sure where that is going because we do not have any detail on the bilateral aid review—perhaps the Minister could enlighten us as to whether that list is likely to increase, decrease or change in some way—but the CDC is in 63 countries. When we look at where other aid is being spent through other Government Departments, that number gets even higher. This is a worrying trend.

Library briefings for this Bill go into quite a bit of detail, particularly with regard to new clause 5, on relative investment by income group between 2010 and 2013. I am referring to page 5 of the Commons briefing for those who have it with them. It reflects that there has been an improvement in the situation, and it says that there is

“an increased emphasis on the poorest countries brought about by the new investment policy between 2010 and 2013. The share of new investments in the very poorest least developed countries (LDCs) increased from 4% to 12%, and from less than 1% to 4% in other low income countries (LICs). The share decreased in both lower middle income (LMICs) and upper middle income countries (UMICs).”

I did try to get the data on the two most recent years but I understand that the OECD has not given its full analysis of which countries fall into those categories and, conscious of some of the points made earlier, that information would be very helpful. I hope for, and would expect that there has been, a further trend in the direction highlighted. Again, it would be helpful for the Minister and the Department’s statisticians to set this out for us. However, there is still a huge distortive effect. The share of new investments even just up to 12% in the least developed countries—12% of the CDC’s investments by income group—is not a lot. I am not saying that investments in the middle-income countries are not going to the poorest people, because in some of those cases they clearly are, but when we delve into the detail, as we have done in the case of India, the picture is not clear and the majority of the investments, as of today, still go to the richer states rather than the poorest.

South Africa is another concerning example. The situation with South Africa and whether the CDC is allowed to invest is a complex one, but I asked the Minister in a written question whether or not there was an analysis of investment by state and I was told that the CDC does not assess its South African investments by state. We are not even able to understand whether the CDC’s investments are going into poorer or richer parts of South Africa. We get an answer by portfolios and by sectors, but that is concerning to me.

[Richard Graham]

It looks as if new clauses 3, 4 and 5 offer three different options on the way in which the CDC could spend money geographically. They do so first by limiting its list of eligible countries to those where bilateral aid is already happening; secondly, by limiting that list to a new schedule to the Bill in new clause 4—schedule 2A—that the hon. Gentleman has tabled, which looks to be of about 43 countries and gives no particular explanation as to how those were chosen or why they differ; and thirdly new clause 5 uses other multilateral definitions. Which option is the hon. Gentleman advocating? All three contradict each other to some extent.

[Stephen Doughty]

Indeed, but—the hon. Gentleman will be familiar with the flow of debate in Committee—the tabling of probing amendments to discuss and debate different suggestions is very much the way in which we scrutinise, suggest alternatives and allow debate in the House. Personally, I think the latter option in new clause 5—some sort of measure based around ensuring that the CDC more closely focuses on the LDCs and LICs—would allow the CDC to have a little bit more flexibility than by restricting it to the bilateral programme.

That option would recognise some legacy investments—for example, those that have been mentioned in which money being spent in one country might actually benefit another. Perhaps some of the partnerships between India and Africa, which are very interesting, are such examples. I do not want to completely rule those out; there are some legitimate reasons for them. I want to see a much tighter focus on the poorest countries than appears to be the case at the moment. It is difficult to see where things are without the data for the last year, but we can see where they were a couple of years ago.

If we look at the trend in the last few years, in terms of new investments by region, another briefing helpfully provided by the House of Commons Library shows that the share of the total percentage of investments going to Africa has actually declined since 2012, while the share going to south Asia—which I would imagine, were we to delve into the detail, is going to India—has gone up. That concerns me, not least given what Professor Collier said, and what other Members who I know support the CDC getting more money have said. Those are the facts and statistics provided by the neutral House of Commons Library; they are there. It will be much more helpful to see where those trends are going and where the focus is, and then to be assured that Ministers were going to bear down in terms of setting caveats for the CDC—whether those are over specific countries where DFID has synergies with its bilateral programme, or, indeed, an overall focus on poverty eradication.

I am intrigued to hear that the CDC plans to expand its network of offices. At a time when we are talking about one UN and bringing UN agencies together in one office, and about an enhanced in-country co-operation between DFID and the Foreign Office, it seems slightly odd that the CDC could open new offices in locations where we do not maintain a bilateral programme and where there are not necessarily those synergies. I think that Ministers ought to look much more carefully at that, to ensure that there is coherence between what the CDC is doing and what the rest of Government are doing.

I will leave to one side comments on the detail of some of the sectoral arrangements in some of the locations. I conclude by appealing to the Minister to give us a bit more detail and a bit more assurance on what sort of caveats and guidance will be given—not micromanagement but clear guidance about what kind of shift Ministers expect in return for a new investment, particularly if it is a large one. For example, would they expect the CDC to stop investing completely in middle-income countries over the next three or four years? That seems to be incongruous with what the Department itself has said; the Government have made a big deal of ending aid to India, China, South Africa and other locations, yet we see aid to those locations increasing through this CDC route. That seems to be a difficult argument to make.

We all struggle with making the argument for international development to our constituents. At the moment, there is a good degree of cross-party consensus in the House about the importance of international development and aid, but I have difficulty explaining why we should be supporting some of the poorest people in the world to my constituents; I have real difficulty explaining why aid money should be used to fund a private hospital in India. We all need to take care to ensure that we are robustly focusing our aid, our effort and our limited taxpayer funding on the poorest and on the countries that align most closely with our existing development programmes, where we have an added advantage.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Graham Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I think we need a range of settings for A-levels and post-16 study. I would say this: there are a lot of secondary schools that would like to have a sixth form. I think there are great benefits, in particular for 11-year-olds going to secondary school who can look to the top of the school and see what girls and boys are achieving at 16, 17 and 18: what A-level choices they are making and what futures they are thinking of. For many people it is very inspiring to go a school with a sixth form, but let us encourage both. Let us have the choice. This is why the academisation of schools is so important, because it gives schools the ability to make these choices for our children.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Q7. In National Apprenticeship Week, I am sure the Prime Minister will join me in thanking employers who have created 6,500 apprenticeships in Gloucester since 2010, the Gloucester Citizen for its support, and all the apprentices themselves, including my first apprentice Laura Pearsall, who is now Gloucester’s youngest ever city councillor. Looking forward, will my right hon. Friend do all he can to hasten the introduction of associate nurses, who will be higher apprentices? They will make a huge difference to the NHS and our health sector more broadly.

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right. The south-west has delivered more than 280,000 apprenticeship starts since 2010, so it is absolutely pulling its weight—and well done to his constituents for doing that. He is also right about the introduction of associate nurses. We are working with Health Education England to offer another route into nursing, which I think will see an expansion of our NHS.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Graham Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2015 Commons Chamber

The Prime Minister was asked—

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 16 December.

[The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)]

I am sure the whole House will join me in wishing Major Tim Peake well as he begins his six-month stay at the international space station. We all watched his exciting take-off yesterday and as he is the first Briton to visit the international space station it signals a landmark in this country’s involvement in space exploration. I am proud that the Government took the decision to fund it, and we wish him the best of luck.

This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others, and in addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.

[Richard Graham]

May I welcome today’s fall in unemployment to 5.2%, the lowest level in almost 10 years?

Stalking is a horrible crime. Dr Eleanor Aston, a GP in Gloucester and resident of Cheltenham, was harassed for several years by a stalker who slashed her tyres, hacked her water pipe, cut off her gas supply and put foul items in her letterbox. She and her family suffered dreadfully. The judge, in sentencing, said that if he could have given more than the maximum of five years, he certainly would have done. My hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) has raised the issue of sentencing guidelines with the Justice Secretary. Will the Prime Minister today give his support for greater flexibility and longer sentencing where it is clear that a stalker is a real menace?

[The Prime Minister]

First, let me say how much I agree with my hon. Friend that stalking is a dreadful crime. That is why we have introduced two new stalking offences during this Parliament. I will certainly make sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham has his meeting with my right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary. I cannot comment on the individual case without looking at it in more detail, but we are taking the action necessary and we will continue to do so.

On unemployment, I am sure that the whole House will want to welcome the fact that there are half a million more people in work in our country in the last year alone. We have had wages growing above inflation every month for a year and the claimant count is at its lowest level since 1975. I am sure that will have a welcome right across the House.

Humanitarian Crisis in the Mediterranean and Europe

Richard Graham Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

We should be clear. The hon. Gentleman says that we cannot let these countries alone help the refugees. Britain has provided more—not just in money, but in aid in helping displaced people live—than Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, France, Italy, Finland, Belgium and Ireland together, and they are nine of the 10 EU countries in the top 20 donors in the world. Should he not accept that we should all be proud of what we have done so far and that we can build on it as well, as the Prime Minister has announced?

[Angus Robertson]

I am disappointed in the hon. Gentleman. I do not know whether he has just come in, but obviously he has not been listening to a word I have said. I said from the beginning of this opening speech that I am not interested in a bidding war or a discordant note across the Chamber about the things we agree on, and I paid tribute—including following another prompting—to the Government for their effort, and I will continue to do so. I hope that the hon. Gentleman listens to what I am saying. We should ask ourselves, individually and collectively: “Are we doing everything we can?”

In May the European Commission announced emergency resettlement mechanisms that would encompass 40,000 refugees, and today it announced a second emergency mechanism that will involve the relocation of 120,000 refugees from Hungary, Greece and Italy. The Commission called on member states to come to a Commission meeting on 13 September and take a share of that 120,000. Jean-Claude Juncker of the Commission said he wanted “everyone on board”, which I imagine includes the United Kingdom—I certainly hope it does, because the door should not be closed on refugees. He said that action is needed, and action is being undertaken by the United Kingdom. We welcome that—let me say that again—and we ask what more we can do.

Our motion recognises the funding that the Government have committed to humanitarian initiatives to provide sanctuary for refugees in camps across the middle east, as that makes a real difference to people’s lives. It calls for a greater international effort through the United Nations to secure the position of displaced people, and recognises that the Government have committed—again, I stress that we welcome this—to accepting 20,000 vulnerable people from camps in Syria over the next five years. We are calling for additional action, and we hope that, in the spirit in which the motion has been drafted, Government Members will find themselves able to agree. We have called for a Government report to be laid before the House by 12 October 2015 when Parliament returns from the conference recess—that point was made during Prime Minister’s questions by the acting leader of the Labour party, and it seems entirely reasonable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justine Greening]

The Disasters Emergency Committee is a fantastic way of enabling some of the most incredible NGOs, which often happen to be UK NGOs, to come together and work effectively to raise funding. I would certainly support such a move if the DEC chose to do that. In the past it has done so. At Christmas 2013 we match-funded part of a DEC appeal in order to ensure its success, and we will continue to look at how we can use that as a mechanism to share the priorities of the British people, which we are already mirroring in the amount of effort we are putting into the Syrian crisis.

The point I was making was that in the end we need a broader international response. It is worth saying that the UN appeal this year was in the region of $8 billion. The hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) commented on the amount that Germany is spending on refugees who are in Germany, which, as he said, is around $6 billion. We can start to see that we need to think carefully about effective funding of the UN appeal. We have been part of a sustained lobbying effort, particularly on the part of myself and the Prime Minister, to press other countries to follow that lead. We have helped to raise around $6.9 billion for the Syrian crisis over the past two years. Last year we co-hosted a ministerial meeting at the UN General Assembly which alone raised $1 billion.

We have to understand that these humanitarian emergencies do not clear themselves up over one or two years. That is part of a funding problem that needs to be fixed. The length of time that people spend as refugees is rising. In 1980 people could expect to spend perhaps nine years as refugees. Now they may expect to spend 20 years, so a child born in the Zaatari camp now will grow to adulthood away from home. We need a step change in the way that the international community supports refugees.

[Richard Graham]

rose—

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

rose—

[Justine Greening]

I will give way first to my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham).

[Richard Graham]

The UK has a good track record in providing match-funding for good causes to help people in disaster zones. Would she consider arranging for match-funding for a new vehicle which would be available to everybody in the UK who wants to donate specifically to help Syrian refugees settle in this country?

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend has put an interesting and brand new idea on the table. I am sure it will not be the only proposal that we hear in the debate today. I will take all of them back and look carefully at the art of the possible to see what we can do and how we can knit together, as we already do in many other humanitarian responses, the amazing generosity of the British people with the work that the UK Government are doing, often with NGOs, to provide the support that we seek to give.

We need a step change in the way that the international community supports refugees. We must recognise that the existing model for crisis funding supports short-term need but not protracted displacement. What that means in practice is that we see food, life-saving medical support and shelter understandably prioritised. What is left out of that UN work when it is only half-funded is education for children, work on helping to provide skills for young men so that they have the prospect of a successful livelihood ahead of them, and the work needed by host communities, which may see their populations double. The UK is focused on providing a lot of support in that vein. The problem is that it cannot be done at scale when UN appeals are as underfunded as the present one is. That, I am sorry to say, is symptomatic of other appeals for which the UN does not have appropriate funding.

We must look down the line at the challenges that we will face. Even today, we heard the President of the European Commission talking about the need for stepped-up EU activity to address the wider root causes of the refugee crisis by fighting poverty, improving governance and helping to support sustainable growth.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me to talk about an issue that defines this summer and probably a longer period.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) on tabling a motion on this humanitarian issue, which is vital not just to all of us here, but to many of our constituents. I would argue that the underlying issue is broader than that laid out in his motion. Why are there so many failing states in the middle east and north Africa? How can we help to prevent those states from reaching the chaos where so many millions of people are displaced, mostly outside their own country? What is it that states such as Jordan and Morocco have that makes them so much more successful? How can a region take ownership both of its people, as Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey are doing so spectacularly with help from the west, and of its stability and security? Those are critical questions, but I recognise that they are for another day and I hope that it comes soon.

The hon. Member for Moray introduced his motion with moving reference to his own story about the arrival of his mother in this country, which helps to explain his commitment to helping other refugees. There is much to agree with in his motion. It recognises the Government’s huge contribution to the camps for refugees from Syria and the commitment to take on 20,000 vulnerable Syrian refugees from those camps. It calls for a “full and proper role” for the UK in providing sanctuary.

However, the motion is very short of detail in some ways and divisive in one critical way. It calls for

“a greater international effort through the United Nations to secure the position of such displaced people”,

but what does that mean? The hon. Gentleman did not shed any light on what he expects the United Nations to do. Does it encompass the proposal from my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) for safe havens inside Syria? Is the hon. Gentleman thinking of no-fly zones? He said nothing about what he wants from the United Nations. I offer the thought that perhaps the most successful intervention by the United Nations in a state that had been through civil war was in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was run by the United Nations for a period of years before being successfully returned under democratic elections. We need to look at that more closely in the longer term.

The line that reveals the divisiveness of the motion is that which calls for the Government to report on

“how that number can be increased”.

That comes only two days after the Prime Minister’s announcement that our country would take 20,000 refugees. The hon. Member for Moray denied that this was a bidding war, but that is exactly what it looks and feels like. A cry goes up, “Something must be done.” A Labour leadership candidate agrees and says, “Yes, we should take 10,000.” The Prime Minister agrees and announces the framework and terms for taking 20,000 refugees, but the SNP, on its Opposition day, asks how that number can be increased, without mentioning a figure—neither the hon. Member for Moray, nor anybody else speaking for his party today has done so. We can be sure that if the Government did come back to raise the figure, whatever it was raised to would not be enough, and the SNP and others would ask how we could increase it further.

[Hywel Williams]

If it is a bidding war, how did the Government reach a figure of 20,000, rather than 20,001 or 19,999? I did ask the Secretary of State that precise question earlier—I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was in his place then—and she was unable to give me a proper answer.

[Richard Graham]

I am not sure whether there was a question in there, Madam Deputy Speaker, although there may be one for the Government to offer on. The important thing I was going to say is that we should not get obsessed with a particular figure. We have heard moving speeches this afternoon from Members echoing what I believe to be the core point of the motion, which we all share: the requirement on the nation and on all of us to respond with compassion to an international disaster.

Several Members, most movingly my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), in an echo of what the hon. Member for Moray said, have told us that they are from immigrant families. I was working on aid projects in Africa almost 30 years ago, helping displaced people from neighbouring countries around there, and I was in Hong Kong when its Government, on behalf of the British Government, were trying to deal with the Vietnamese boat people. It is incredibly easy for people to be critical of situations involving refugees if they are not dealing with it themselves and do not have the responsibility at the time. We should recognise that, as many Members have said. This nation does have a strong record, and we should be pulling together and doing our best to help people in the ways that we can.

On that note, I thought the most discordant speech heard in this Chamber for a long while—it was almost a disgraceful speech—was that by the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron). He seems to have entirely forgotten that his party, when in coalition government with my party, was responsible for bringing together this considerable increase in our commitment to international development, which has led to our being able to provide huge sums in funding and help hundreds of thousands of people, if not more than 1 million, in the refugee camps just outside Syria. It was extraordinary that all he could bring himself to say was that this Government “react with dogs” and barbed wire, in a reference to Calais. He made no reference to what is being achieved for the refugees from Syria. Unfortunately, a number of Members have descended into making party political points, especially the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter), who sounded the most extraordinary, tribal note, referring to a “rush to arms”, which is not even the subject of this debate. Instead of doing that, we should be focusing today on what we all share and what we can achieve together.

On that note, I wish to make a practical suggestion that I believe would make a real difference to this nation’s handling of the refugee crisis. I touched on it earlier in an intervention on my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. The most practical thing we can do is encourage the leading charities and non-governmental organisations, perhaps in that meeting on Friday with the Government, to come together to create a new Syrian refugee fund, perhaps administered by Save the Children in particular, although others should be involved. Such a fund would allow so many of our generous constituents around the whole country to contribute, and it should be matched pound for pound by the Government. That would enable a significant fund to be available to help the refugees when they come to this country. It could be disbursed through local government authorities or it could be done directly, but all these are issues that should be resolved. We have done this before. We did it successfully in response to the typhoon in the Philippines about 18 months ago, when many people in our constituencies contributed. St Peter’s school in my constituency raised funds and gave a lot of time towards doing so. Such an approach helps the people of Britain to realise that the Government share their sympathy and compassion, and will match what they give pound for pound. That is a practical suggestion that would help us.

Some hon. Members have intimated that we should do almost everything that Germany is doing. It seems to me extraordinary that we should feel obliged to get into some form of bidding war with Germany, of all nations. We should surely recognise that Germany is dealing not only with today’s humanitarian crisis—[Interruption.] The SNP would do well to listen—but with her own modern history. We should respect and admire that but not see German commitments as a competitive challenge.

We should recognise that each country can contribute differently. For example, the role of the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean in saving more than 6,000 people who might otherwise have drowned is not something that many countries in the European Union could emulate, and certainly not Germany. We should recognise that we can all make our own separate and different contribution to the crisis. We should pull together; make sure that we get on with implementing what has already been announced by the Prime Minister, and not try to split hairs about numbers of refugees; encourage the charities to create the fund in which the Government will match what individuals donate; locally capture significant offers of help through the asylum and refugee offices in our own counties; and make it happen.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Graham Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is very important that the Government talk intensively to the leaders of the steel industry, Tata in particular, about what we can do to try to make sure that we safeguard the growth and the jobs that there have been in the steel industry over previous years. We have started those discussions—we have had discussions, for instance, about the steps we are taking for high energy-intensive industries and the help that we can give—but at the heart of a successful steel industry is always going to be a successful economy and a successful construction industry, which is why we should stick to the long-term economic plan.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Q9. Today, Tidal Lagoon Power, headquartered in Gloucester, announces that China Harbour Engineering is the preferred bidder for a £300 million investment in the world’s first ever tidal lagoon, in Swansea bay. There will be high UK content in the supply chain and there is a commitment to pursue tidal projects together in Asia. This confirms our ability both to attract Chinese investment and to create new export opportunities. Does my right hon. Friend share my hope that the Energy Secretary will soon agree the development consent order needed and also agree soon on the pricing of power from this exciting example of British innovation and engineering?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right to raise this specific case, and also the general case of wanting to attract Chinese investment to Britain. We have seen something like a 73% increase, between 2010 and 2013, and that is partly because this Government have pursued Chinese investment and attracted it to Britain. On the specific case of the Swansea tidal lagoon, it is obviously subject to a planning decision, but I think tidal power has significant potential. I have seen some of the plans for myself and I hope this is something we can make progress on; and obviously, attracting investment to this country to help make it happen is a win-win for both countries.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Graham Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I do not have that precise information but I am happy to write to the hon. Gentleman. As I said in response to an earlier question, that programme is in place to help Syrian refugees who particularly need to take advantage of it. The most important thing is to get broad international support to help the 3.8 million refugees who are now in the region and need assistance.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

5. What the cost has been of the UK’s contribution to the response to the Ebola outbreak to date.

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Justine Greening)]

The UK has committed £325 million to tackling the Ebola crisis. The UK is leading the international response to the crisis in Sierra Leone by diagnosing and isolating Ebola cases more quickly, trebling the number of treatment beds, supporting burial teams, and assisting in the research for a vaccine.

[Richard Graham]

Will my right hon. Friend reassure the House that at the recent London conference, Britain was able to persuade other Governments to contribute financially? Does she agree that we should be proud of the hugely positive contribution made by Great Britain through DFID’s budget—symbolised by Nurse Cafferkey and others with medical and other expertise—to resolving the Ebola outbreak?

[Justine Greening]

Yes; the international effort has involved not only financial assistance from a host of countries, but assistance in kind from countries such as Australia which is helping to set up Ebola treatment centres. I pay tribute to the work done across the Government, not just in my Department. As my hon. Friend says, vital work has been done by Public Health England, NHS workers and our amazing Ministry of Defence and soldiers who have done an incredible job. Without their efforts none of this would have been possible, and thanks to them we are now turning the corner.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Graham Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

We are working very closely with other UN agencies, but also with the US and France. The UK is very much leading the efforts to respond to Ebola in Sierra Leone, with the US leading in Liberia and France in Guinea, but we continue to encourage other international partners to join those efforts.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Justine Greening)]

After visiting Zambia in July to see its work in tackling child marriage, my Department led the successful Girl Summit and #YouthForChange event with the aim of helping to end female genital mutilation and child early and forced marriage in a generation. My Department has also been focused on the UK’s response to the humanitarian crisis in Iraq, Gaza and Syria, and the spread of the Ebola virus in west Africa.

[Richard Graham]

I have heard young constituents talk about the National Citizen Service programme and its transformational effect on their lives, and I believe that the International Citizen Service proposals will have an equally transformational impact on people who might otherwise never have such an opportunity. Will the Secretary of State tell us more about how this programme will evolve, and how we can spread the word about its opportunities to people?

[Justine Greening]

More than 5,600 UK volunteers aged between 18 and 25 have now taken part in the International Citizen Service. It is a fantastic scheme giving young people wonderful opportunities, and we plan to expand it and grow those places.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Graham Excerpts

Wednesday 9th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Gentleman is right to raise those issues, and I assure him that we are raising them with the Qatari authorities. I will also do that.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating Green Fuels Ltd on its successful entry into the Indonesian market, boosting British exports and reducing Indonesian carbon emissions through a strong partnership between DFID and UK Trade & Investment on the ground?

[Justine Greening]

I congratulate the company in my hon. Friend’s constituency. He has been a tireless advocate for the role that such businesses, including this one, can play in combating climate change. It is fantastic to see that work get off the ground in Indonesia.

Typhoon Haiyan

Richard Graham Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

We are working with so many that it is difficult to give a complete list. Save the Children, Plan International, Christian Aid—a range of fantastic NGOs are now involved in the effort. One of the things that we are rapidly setting up is women-friendly and child-friendly spaces so that women and children at risk have safe spaces to go to. I heard reports today when I spoke with our DFID team on the ground of children being offered for sex trade sale to aid workers in Tacloban, which of course is absolutely disgusting and unacceptable. It is why we are right and working so hard to minimise the risks to vulnerable people.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for co-ordinating so successfully the fast and wide-ranging response of our Government to this enormous disaster, which is especially sad for those of us who have lived in the Philippines and travelled in this part of the Visayas. I also share the feelings expressed by several hon. Members about the generosity of the British people to the tragedy. I highlight the response in my constituency led by Raymond Padilla in the Gloucestershire Filipino Association, the headmaster and staff of St Peter’s high school, including Dan Hudson, who has organised a 24-hour basketball session this weekend, both the Anglican and Catholic Churches, Gloucester Rotary and many others, including the Philippine Community Fund, which was founded by my constituent Jane Walker. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, as the emphasis in due course moves from saving lives to rebuilding communities, there will be an opportunity for DFID to highlight specific needs for goods or equipment to which our wide-ranging civic society organisations could respond?

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Although the focus has initially been on providing life-saving support, going forward that will gradually evolve into the reconstruction effort, including people’s longer and medium-term needs. The Government of the Philippines are working on shaping what that response needs to be, and the UN is there to support them. I shall be interested to hear from my hon. Friend what he thinks his local community could do. I pay tribute to them for all the work they have already done. It is outstanding, and it is a tribute to the generosity and selflessness of people in this country that they respond so generously.