Occupied Palestinian Territories: Humanitarian Situation

Roger Gale Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I would also like to thank Dr Mamode and his colleagues for the incredible bravery and compassion that they have shown to those living in desperate circumstances. They have not only shown immense care but worked tirelessly to shed light on the plight of those people, as we saw in his testimony to last week’s meeting of the International Development Committee. Does my hon. Friend agree that the absolute horrors of treating children and adults without the medical basics, such as swab sanitisers or even anaesthetic, cannot continue and there must be safe routes for medical provisions to enter Gaza? Does she also agree that there must be a future with long-term physical and mental health support?

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

Order. Interventions are interventions, not speeches. As the hon. Lady can see, there are quite a lot of Members who wish to participate in this debate. We cannot have speeches under the guise of interventions.

[Patricia Ferguson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to talk about the heroism, frankly, of people like Dr Mamode. I recall that, when showing us a short video from his video diary, he pointed out that the noise in the background was the noise of drones. Medical staff are not exempt from these attacks, nor are civilian people who are there helping with the humanitarian effort. So, we do have to speak about that bravery.

To have someone like Dr Mamode, who has experienced that horror at first hand, who has given up his own time to try to help and who clearly despairs, was something that I do not think any of us who were present will ever forget. For me, it was the cold calculation of using machines to kill children, as though it was some kind of warped video game, that was the most disturbing aspect of Professor Mamode’s presentation, and which made those statistics that I spoke about earlier mean a great deal.

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[Patricia Ferguson]

I think the hon. Member will accept that I have said that there should be sanctions, particularly against Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, but I also think that we have at this point—perhaps we should have done it sooner—to formally accept Palestinian statehood and argue for that.

The city of Glasgow, my home city, has for many years been twinned with Bethlehem. As we approach the season of advent, I recall the image of the Christmas crib created last year by the Evangelical Lutheran church in Bethlehem: instead of the traditional stable, images of Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus were placed among the rubble. That was the reality for most Palestinians then, and of course the situation is so much worse now. In fact, Professor Mamode, whom I mentioned earlier, described the scenes in Gaza as he travelled down from Israel as looking like descriptions he had read of Hiroshima after the explosion of the atomic bomb.

We have to hope, pray, work hard and use everything in our power to try to end this seemingly endless cycle of violence, horror and despair, but it will end only if Governments stand together and advocate for a ceasefire and the release of hostages. A two-state solution, rooted in peace and respect, must follow, and we must also commit to assisting with the rebuilding of Palestine. I thank you, Sir Roger, and all those who are going to speak in the debate. I hope that we see a resolution before too long.

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

Could those who wish to speak in the debate remain standing for a quick headcount? [Interruption.] We are going to put a three-minute time limit on immediately, and that may have to be reduced. I am conscious of the fact that some people have intervened, and I am assuming that those who have intervened do not intend to speak. Priority will be given to those who have not intervened.

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I thank the hon. Member for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson) for securing this crucial debate.

As the Member outlined, the humanitarian situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is beyond dire, and I will not repeat the details of how awful the situation is. Suffice it to say that all we have to do is look at our phones to see Palestinian refugees being bombed, murdered and repeatedly displaced on a daily basis. I want to use my time to concentrate on what this Government are going to do. Their record to date has been abysmal. From the Prime Minister legitimising the right of Israel to impose a siege on the entire population to the Foreign Secretary appearing to be ignorant of the meaning of the word “genocide” and the Government refusing to impose any meaningful sanctions on either arms sales or illegal settlements, this Government’s failure to take action against ethnic cleansing and genocide has made them complicit in those acts.

I draw our Government’s attention to the actions of the Irish Government, and suggest they take a leaf out of their book. At the moment, the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill is making its way through the Irish parliamentary system, where it has received Government and cross-party support. The Bill is not new: it was first introduced in 2018, and there were concerns at the time that its measures might be in breach of EU law. However, the Irish Attorney General has updated his legal advice to refer the Bill to the next stage of the Irish parliamentary process, following the ICJ’s ruling in its advisory opinion in July. As discussed previously in Parliament, the ruling found that Israeli settlements in the west bank and East Jerusalem were in breach of international law. It found that occupation of those territories amounts to long-term annexation, which has undermined the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, and that the occupation must be brought to an immediate end. Therefore, countries can no longer lawfully trade with those settlements.

When the Bill is passed, Ireland will become the first EU country to ban trade with those illegal settlements, which are the main impediment to Palestinian rights to self-determination. The response of successive UK Governments to the issue of illegal settlements is to say that the UK does not recognise them, and that goods originating from the settlements are not entitled to tariff or trade preferences, while at the same time refusing to actually suspend trade in goods and services between the UK and companies operating in the illegal settlements. While I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s introduction of new sanctions on three illegal settler outposts, and four organisations that have supported and sponsored violence against communities, his actions are ineffective and ambiguous. Why just impose sanctions on a handful of settlements? There are at least 144 settlements sanctioned by the Israeli Government, and another 196 outposts.

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

Order. I must ask hon. Members to keep an eye on the clock.

[Melanie Ward (Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson) for securing this important debate.

As we meet today, there is increasing evidence that what is being done to the Palestinians of Gaza will come to be understood as crimes of historic magnitude. Our response to them and our efforts to stop them should be of a gravity that is equal to the moment we are in.

The last time we spoke on the issue in the Chamber, I expressed grave concern that Israel was preventing aid from entering Gaza, and that it might even go as far as preventing the UN from carrying out its duties in the provision of humanitarian assistance. Since then, the Knesset has passed a Bill banning UNRWA from Israeli territory and occupied Palestinian territory, and it has even banned the UN Secretary-General.

I spoke about the situation in the north of Gaza, including at Kamal Adwan hospital, where the Israeli military’s actions were endangering the lives of children in paediatric intensive care. Some of those children were killed after the hospital was besieged and many medical workers were abducted. They must be released. How will the Government help to ensure those responsible are held accountable?

The denial of humanitarian assistance has been accompanied by what Human Rights Watch referred to last week as

“massive, deliberate forced displacement of Palestinian civilians in Gaza”.

Human Rights Watch made it clear that the Israeli authorities are responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said:

“We are facing what could amount to atrocity crimes, including potentially extending to crimes against humanity.”

One person who is similarly clear is the Israeli National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir. In the summer, he said he wanted to “encourage emigration” from Gaza and replace the population with Israeli settlers. I remind the House that forced displacement constitutes a crime against humanity.

Finally, I share the words of my friend Moe, a doctor and aid worker in Gaza. He is Palestinian. Last night he said:

“I’ve started to feel like the world has forgotten about us. It’s been over a year now and it feels as though no one is paying attention anymore, as there is no change at any level. I’m still displaced here in Khanyounis...The situation is getting more dire. At times, it really starts to feel like this is the ‘new normal’ we’re going to have to endure for years to come. Death and destruction might never end. I have been once to the North, where my home is, and I think only that day I understood what this war is about—it is about the Land.”

Therefore, I ask the Minister what fresh action the Government are taking to pressure Israel into complying with the ICJ’s multiple binding orders? In light of Ben-Gvir’s many statements of intent, and as part of a wider package of measures, will the Government now announce sanctions against both Ben-Gvir and Smotrich?

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

Order. We must keep an eye on the clock. [Interruption.]

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

Order. Will Members stand again, please? One or two people who were standing are not now.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

Order. I have been informed that three Members who have spoken in the debate wish to attend a meeting with the Foreign Secretary at 4 o’clock. Of course, the Divisions were not entirely foreseeable, and they have extended the debate, which will now end at 4.25 pm. I will permit this, but Members need to understand that, had there not been Divisions, the debate would have ended at 4 o’clock. Colleagues know that. Unless you are thinking of travelling by TARDIS, it is not possible to get from here to Committee Room 7 without a minute.

In future, when you plan your diaries, please make sure that if you intend to speak in a debate, you have the opportunity to do the Front-Bench spokespeople the courtesy of attending the wind-ups. With that proviso, Members who need to leave may leave at three minutes to 4.

COP29 and International Climate Finance

Roger Gale Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2024 Westminster Hall

[Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered COP29 and international climate finance.

Thank you very much for calling me to speak—do I refer to you as Mr Speaker?

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

Sir Roger.

[Ellie Chowns]

Thank you, Sir Roger—I am still learning the ropes. I thank the Minister for coming to respond to the debate. It is my pleasure to introduce this debate on international climate finance, and I particularly appreciate the presence of so many colleagues, given that it is an extraordinarily busy day when, with the Budget, we are discussing domestic finance. I may have one or two words to say on that in a moment.

This debate is particularly important, because we are in the run-up to COP29—the conference of the parties—in Baku. It is supposed to be the finance COP, because it is crucial that we mobilise the necessary finance to tackle the global climate crisis. My purpose in securing this debate is to encourage the Government to put a bit more flesh on the warm words that we have heard so far. I recognise those warm words: for example, the Foreign Secretary saying that he wanted to put climate change “at the centre” of foreign policy—that is welcome—and the commitments from the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero on domestic investment. However, there is still much more to do.

I will give the Minister advance notice of the topics on which I would love her response. At COP29, we are looking for the international community to agree a new collective quantified goal for climate finance in the trillions of dollars, not the billions. That is the scale of the challenge that we face. Do the Government recognise that, and are they prepared to play their part in leading from the front to ensure that there is collective commitment to the goal?

International climate finance needs to tackle mitigation, as well as the urgent need to invest to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. It needs to tackle adaptation, because an enormous amount of global warming is already built into the climate system through historical emissions. It also needs to tackle loss and damage: the costs that are already being borne particularly by the most vulnerable in the poorest countries, and are due to the historical debt that early industrialising countries built up through our burning of fossil fuels.

Syria

Roger Gale Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

On the resettlement of vulnerable individuals, we have taken about half our commitment to date—just over 10,000 individuals. I fully appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s urging us to do all we can to ensure people are safe. We have chosen to prioritise those who are extremely vulnerable and in need of a particular health treatment, or those who are vulnerable for some other reason, but we are supporting millions of refugees. We are the major contributor to that, taking care not just of people’s basic needs, but of education. I recently visited some of the education facilities in countries in the region, and Britain should be very proud of what we are doing to assist people. I visited a school that is particularly focused on children who have disabilities and have been injured in the shelling in Syria. UK aid is doing great work. We are helping not just a few thousand individuals in the UK but millions in the region.

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

In her opening statement, my right hon. Friend referred to the “barbaric attack in Douma on innocent civilians, including young children”. Last week, in the margins of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Mr Slutsky, who is Mr Putin’s spokesman on earth, whined that the Russians only faced obligations, not rights. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Russian Federation has absolutely no right either to use or promote the use of chemical weapons and that if the Russians want to be accepted in the civilised world, they should join the UK and others in seeking a political solution, rather than exacerbating the suffering?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I could not agree more. There is a very good reason why these weapons have been outlawed: they cause immense suffering. This regime is choosing not only to bomb its own people, but to exterminate them in the most cruel ways imaginable. Any nation that facilitates that should be ashamed of itself. I do not think the Russian people would approve of that kind of behaviour, and the Russian Government should look to their conscience and to the security of their own people, because by breaking these international norms they are putting their own people in danger, too.

Oral Answers to Questions

Roger Gale Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Let me thank the hon. Gentleman for making the point that there were people with a deep sense of patriotism on both sides of the argument. I also agree that it is time for people and our country to come together. What is more, he is right that we now have to work very hard on the alternatives. Of course, they were discussed and debated in the referendum campaign, but they were hypothetical alternatives; they are now real alternatives, and one of the roles for the Government in the next few months is to set out the different blueprints—the Canada blueprint, the Swiss blueprint, the Norway blueprint and any other blueprints—and to look at the costs and benefits. That way, people can make a reasoned assessment, now that this is a real choice, rather than a hypothetical one.

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

I know that all Kent’s Members of Parliament will wish to be associated with my right hon. Friend’s tribute to the memory of Paddy Mayhew. He was a scholar, a gentleman and a great friend to his younger colleagues.

There are hundreds and thousands of expat United Kingdom citizens living around Europe who did not vote in the referendum. Many are elderly and frail and live on UK pensions and benefits. Will my right hon. Friend seek to ensure that his successor defends their interests?

[The Prime Minister]

Let me add to my hon. Friend’s comments about Sir Patrick Mayhew. He was a wonderful man and a great public servant, and I know he meant a lot to my hon. Friend and many others.

On the issue of British citizens living overseas, we should reassure people that until Britain leaves the EU, there will be absolutely no change in their status. In the coming weeks, this unit at the heart of Whitehall can go through these issues very methodically and work out what might need to change in all the different scenarios in order to give these people certainty about their future. It is obviously very important that we do that.

Humanitarian Crisis: Greece

Roger Gale Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

I am very pleased to hear my right hon. Friend recognise that we are talking about refugees, not migrants, that the two are different, and that we are dealing with men, women and children who are fleeing war zones. This country has a proud and honourable tradition, which is being honoured now in our seeking to assist, but the European Union response has been chaotic. The hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) is right: using rubber bullets and tear gas against children and women is not the answer. When will my right hon. Friend and her colleagues in our Cabinet seek to convene a European meeting to produce a proper and holistic response?

[Justine Greening]

For many months, we have pressed for the comprehensive approach that, as my hon. Friend says, is required. The crisis has not emerged just in the last few weeks. There is an EU-Turkey summit next week, which will give us a good chance to see a more structured response from the European Union. However, throughout the process, the UK approach has steadily emerged as the most sensible. First, it deals with root causes. It helps people where they are in the region, and considers some of the reasons for their loss of hope about staying there, such as lack of jobs and the inability to get their children back into school. Where people need to relocate, we are enabling them to do so safely and securely.

We are working with UNHCR and other agencies on the ground to identify the most vulnerable people affected by this crisis in the region, and we are relocating those who need relocation in a sensible, managed way. That is much better for those people because they do not have to put their lives in the hands of people smugglers, and it is significantly better for the countries that people go to, because it enables them—as in the UK—to work with local authorities and communities, and ensure that they are prepared to take in refugees who are being relocated, and that the right services and provisions are in place when they arrive.

Oral Answers to Questions

Roger Gale Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We need to see a continued improvement in social care, and we need to continue to help pensioners. Pensioner poverty is at an all-time low because this party has kept its promises to uprate the basic state pension, to support pensioners’ benefits and to make sure that people have dignity in their old age.

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

When my right hon. Friend speaks to President Hollande in the immediate future, will he make it plain that he expects the port of Calais to be kept open, now and in the future, for lawful travel in both directions?

Oral Answers to Questions

Roger Gale Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Swayne]

Our £7.4 million programme with the International Labour Organisation is training some 575 factory inspectors and carrying out, with our funding, some 1,800 factory investigations for electrical, fire and structural problems. We are driving forward that agenda.

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

I think we can probably agree that, as a result of recent events, working conditions in Vanuatu are rather challenging. Will my right hon. Friend take this oblique opportunity to indicate what we are doing to assist?

[Mr Swayne]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced up to £2 million of aid to Vanuatu, principally through UN agencies and our rapid response facility.

Tax (Developing Countries)

Roger Gale Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

The Select Committee on International Development is extremely grateful for the opportunity to debate two of our reports. The first is on tax in developing countries, and the second is on Afghanistan. We think both issues are important, although they are obviously completely different in their scope.

The Committee has long recognised that when British taxpayers put substantial resources into supporting developing countries, it is important that those countries raise their own tax base so that we are effectively working in partnership to develop their economies and services. Of course we recognise that the tax base in poor countries is inevitably low, and that the last thing that many people on very low incomes need is to be harried for tax. Nevertheless, almost every country has a variety of ways in which money can legitimately and properly be raised from different aspects of its economy. I will first mention the internal issues affecting developing countries and the role that the UK Government can play in addressing them. Members of our Committee often hear, as a mark of frustration that in many developing countries, willingness to pay tax in the sector of the population who have the capacity to do so is rather low. It is difficult to set a good example if Presidents, Prime Ministers, MPs and leading business people make little or, in some cases, absolutely no contribution to their own Exchequer. Before we consider the international dimension, it is worth putting on record that the Committee says, right at the start, that we should ensure that people who can pay tax in their home countries do so. Performance is variable; I am not suggesting that all countries are the same or equally bad.

Of course, many non-governmental organisations and campaigners focus on tax paid by national and international corporations. I will certainly come to that, and it is extremely important, but equality of treatment seems relevant. If we are to say, as we should and must, that national and international corporations operating in developing countries should pay their full share of tax, it is helpful if, for example, the local directors of those companies also pay their share of tax, and that the approach is seen to be equitable.

Having said that, I want to consider the issues affecting the tax paid by corporations operating internationally, and to make it clear to the House that although we examined tax in developing countries worldwide, we took Zambia as our case study because we felt that it had a growing and diverse tax base, with which we could perhaps test what could be achieved. We had a good visit to Zambia, which I will discuss a little later.

We made numerous recommendations in our report. The Government did not readily accept all of them, but they did accept some, and there are some that we hope they will work on. Indeed, developments in our own domestic circumstances in recent weeks have sharpened the debate and perhaps given the British Government pause to think that some of our recommendations are just as relevant to the UK as to poorer developing countries.

We recommended that the Government introduce legislation, similar to the American Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, that would require tax authorities automatically to exchange information regarding UK citizens and corporations. The Government did not accept that, saying that there were difficulties—although the US seems to have managed it—but I think that more recently they have softened their line a little.

A number of our recommendations were designed to improve information exchange and transparency. The problem for all tax authorities is that if they do not have basic information about what individuals or companies are earning, it is pretty difficult to tax them fairly or at all. The classic practice for international companies is to move their earnings around to where they can secure the lowest taxation impact, or none. A lot of that might be legitimate, in that international corporations have international transactions that are not really attributable anywhere, although they should be taxed somewhere.

However, when serious, very identifiable economic activity is plainly taking place in an economic jurisdiction but little or no tax is being paid, something is obviously not right. When we engaged with the Zambian authorities, particularly about the taxation of their minerals and especially their copper industry, we got into the nitty-gritty of that. The copper industry in Zambia has operated for about 70 years. It dates back to colonial times and has been under different ownership; at one point it was owned by the state Government of Zambia, who frankly did not make a very good fist of it and ended up losing money on the copper mines. The timing was not good, and the operational management was probably not good either, so the mines were subsequently returned to private ownership.

That has been a good thing for Zambia. Copper prices have risen, the tax base has risen and taxes are being paid, which is making a significant contribution, but there is a degree of frustration and unhappiness. The Zambian authorities feel that the full amount of tax that could or should be paid on the basis of the economic activity within Zambia is not being paid, mostly due to the practice of transfer pricing. Exploring the debate reinforced our view that transparency of information is key to getting the tax base right.

If I give an example of the extreme view, it is easy to understand the issue. If a company had a very large productive mine—an obviously profitable commodity—in a developing country but paid a substantial amount of tax, albeit on a low rate on earnings, in the Cayman Islands, most people would understand that the Cayman Islands is not rich in the minerals on which the company was being taxed and that that was therefore an inappropriate redistribution of the accounts. It becomes more complicated, of course, when companies have many operating bases and lots of different activities, but the principle is nevertheless the same. We are trying to ensure that companies pay a fair tax on the activities that they conduct in any given geographical area to the Government of that country. That is corporation or related tax.

Zambia has gone through numerous different ways of doing things. It had an excess profits tax and a variable corporation tax. We discovered that the problem with all those approaches was that the licences under which different mines operated had been issued at different times by different Governments on different terms, all allowing companies to claim tax breaks, loss offsetting and so on, which enabled them to pay little or no tax. The resolution to that situation, which has not been entirely popular with the industry but which we understand and broadly support, has been to move to a system of royalties, set at 6% of turnover based on the company’s declared tonnages, knowledge of the ore quality and the prices set per day on the London Metal Exchange. The net result of that for those companies that complain is that it is something that is easy for the Zambian authorities to administer. It might be rough justice, but companies must come up with a credible alternative, which they have not done, if they argue that there is a better way of doing it. It looks as though that is likely to lead to a steadily rising revenue base for Zambia. I conclude from that that, on the whole, Zambia emerges as a pretty good case study.

On the copper belt and copper production, we had an extremely good exchange with Ministers and civil servants in Lusaka about the rest of the tax base. There is a ready recognition that, as Zambia’s economy grows, it should not be totally reliant on copper for its public finances; it wants instead to expand the tax base. It was looking for advice and help on how to do that. In other words, what can they tax efficiently, fairly and not counter-productively and how far down the earnings scale is it sensible to go? Clearly, it is neither administratively sensible nor economically wise to tax people at the very bottom. That made us realise that there was scope for the UK Government to do a lot more in partnership with developing countries to enable them to improve their revenue-collecting capacity. I can quote examples—good and bad—where that is happening. I have already mentioned Zambia. We have evidence that similar success has been achieved in Tanzania where the dependence on UK and other forms of development assistance is falling as a proportion of its overall budget because its tax base is rising. It is absolutely true of Rwanda, which is spectacularly successful in this area.

Interestingly, the head of the revenue authority in Burundi, who was previously in Rwanda and who is a British national with a strong Irish connection, has demonstrated a singular capacity to raise the revenue base in Burundi, which is a very poor country. For the Minister’s benefit, let me say in passing that it remains stubbornly the view of the Committee that Burundi should continue to receive UK aid. Whether or not the decision to close down the programme was misjudged, the case for continuing it is strong, and we will continue to make it.

The Committee took evidence this morning on Pakistan, where the position is depressingly unsuccessful. I should probably first mention Afghanistan, which we will be debating later. Thanks largely, but not exclusively, to the support of the UK Government, the tax base in Afghanistan has risen from almost nothing—3%—to 11% in the last few years, and the potential to raise it further is clearly evident. I can promise my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham), who was a bit disgruntled because she did not hear a lot of the presentation we were given, that the content was good in that it showed how much the revenue base had risen, how much more potential there was and how valuable the UK Government support was. All that was achieved by officials working inside the Ministry to help get a handle on the figures.

The revenue collection in Pakistan is under 10%, which is awful for a well established country. Although it is classified as a lower-middle income country, it is, none the less, a middle income country. Bluntly, the figures are such because the leaders of Pakistan do not believe that taxes are a club they wish to join. Some 80% of MPs and the President pay nothing, so the will to collect tax is almost non-existent. Obviously, the Committee must deliberate further, and we will take more evidence from the Secretary of State next week and then produce a report. We are likely to say that Pakistan cannot go on expecting to receive unconditionally the bounty of the international community while not addressing the issue. That is simply not morally acceptable, economically sensible or fair. I can predict that we will come out with something fairly hard on that issue.

My point is that collection can be improved, and where that is done, it makes a difference. Where it is not being done, it needs to be done. Much more transparency is needed and information should be published on a country-by-country basis. I urge the Prime Minister, through my hon. Friend the Minister, whom I am delighted to see in her position and whose response I look forward to hearing, to look into the matter. What has happened in the UK in the past few months has possibly sharpened the focus of the Government. We will be chairing the G8 and, in that context, we are told that taxation will be a central issue. However, I suggest to the Government that while it is understandable that such an issue is driven by a degree of public anger against companies such as Amazon and Starbucks—Starbucks has been shamed into changing its stance on this—it should be recognised that if it is a problem for us, it is a much bigger problem for very poor countries, which might have a very limited amount of economic activity that is controlled and owned by overseas companies. I urge the Government to ensure that in the process of trying to raise the commitment to get an international agreement on tax, the interests of poor and developing countries are given special attention.

It has been recognised that, at a time of recession when Governments are clearly struggling with deficits, the knowledge that tax, which could or should accrue to a country’s Exchequer, is not doing so perhaps causes more anger than it would in normal times. Of course it is right that companies that are operating within our jurisdiction should pay their fair share of taxes. Perhaps it is because we are hurting that developing countries will benefit from a policy initiative that might not otherwise have taken off. We should try to get an international agreement that all countries will ensure a standard of accounting that makes all the relevant information clearly available in the public domain, so that revenue authorities can fairly assess where tax should accrue and where it is liable.

In Zambia, we were told that quite a lot of information is available, but it is not quite as easily available to the ordinary Zambian. It is very easily available to any sophisticated westerner with a credit card, but a person with no access to computers or to credit and who does not understand the system has a very small chance of finding such information even though it is available to them. We need to improve that and make information more accessible.

We hope the Government will take on board our recommendations and think about them a little more. We agree, I think, on the capacity to do more. We have suggested that the Government consider a more proactive partnership with our own Revenue and Customs. Where appropriate, of course it should be collecting our taxes, but, where we can, we should second people or support the Revenue to work alongside revenue authorities in developing countries to build up their capacity for tax. It is in the interests of donors, the people in the country, and the international community to ensure that that happens. We hope and understand that the Government are actively considering that matter, but it would be good to hear from the Minister what progress is being made.

The issue of tax has clearly caught the imagination of some of the NGOs, who are making 2013 a big year for tax justice. I am not here to be the mouthpiece of Christian Aid or the NGO consortium, but I am happy to record their views. As it happens, a number of our constituents were visited by the Christian Aid bus over the summer. It certainly rolled up in my constituency—I wonder why! I had a good meeting with both local activists and senior NGO members, who very much welcomed our report. Perhaps not surprisingly, they focused very sharply on the corporate issues that I have been discussing. However, I said that they should not just target the international economic players; it was really important that they also joined the campaign to ensure that rich elites in developing countries accept their responsibilities, because the interconnection between the two is inescapable.

Christian Aid has said that it wants to tackle the issue, that it wants the Government to tackle the issue and that it wants to shine a light on it. It highlights information that may or may not be true, but the figures that are given are huge. It says that as much as £13 trillion of potential taxes are locked up and “hidden in tax havens”. Whether that is true or not—£13 trillion is an awful lot of money, so even if the true figure is half or just a fraction of that, it is significant.

Again, I do not put too much credence on the figures per se, but Christian Aid also talks about a figure of $160 billion annually that developing countries are losing in tax, which is far, far more than the entire flow of overseas development assistance to those countries. I am not suggesting that to solve that problem we can cut the development budget, but clearly there is not much point in handing out development aid if we are not getting access to the resources that should be credited to the countries concerned, which are entitled to them.

To conclude on this report on tax, I will talk about two simple things—certainly one of them is simple and the other is not as difficult as it perhaps has appeared before—that the Government could and should do. Actually, the Government are doing the first thing, and I just want to hear that they are doing more of it. That is making raising the tax base one of the key components of our bilateral programmes, particularly where we are engaged in-country, and putting real resource alongside the Governments with whom, we are working, both to get those Governments to show the political will to raise taxes and to give them the capacity—through revenue collection—to secure the revenue. The second thing is to be prepared to take a lead, I guess, and for the UK to be more transparent and to demonstrate, by example, that we can be more open. Certainly, we must also encourage international agreement to get as much transparency as possible.

I mentioned the subject of minerals earlier when I discussed Zambia. There was one particular issue that was raised with us that the Government did not reply to directly in responding to our report, which is membership of the extractive industries transparency initiative. The EITI was actually a UK Government idea; effectively, it was Tony Blair’s idea. It is a good idea, and the initiative has been signed up to by many countries, including developing countries, but it has not been signed up to by the UK. We understand that the argument against our signing is that it was not considered that the UK was mineral-rich. Well, I represent a constituency in the north-east of Scotland and I think that we are quite mineral-rich still, actually. Mineral extraction may not be a huge proportion of our GDP, but in absolute terms minerals are not an insignificant resource for us. However, that is almost beside the point, Mr Gale—Sir Roger. I beg your pardon. It happens to me all the time, and it happens to you, too.

I ask the Government to seriously consider signing up to the initiative, because it would demonstrate that we are serious about the issue, too. If the argument against our signing is that we do not have a huge mineral base, then it should not be very difficult for us to comply. As I say, however, the Government kind of avoided answering that particular question on the EITI. I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Minister is in a capacity to commit the Government to do something; if she is not, I hope that she will report our Committee’s view that signing up would be a good step for the Government to take.

With that, Sir Roger, I must say that I am grateful to the House for letting us have this opportunity to debate the issue. I genuinely commend the report. I think that it is about a very important part of what our development relationship with countries should be. We have made good progress, but there is a lot more that we can do.

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

Thank you very much, Sir Malcolm. I think it is one-all—I owe you an apology as well.

I also apologise to Members for the fact that I had not really grasped the implications of there being two debates this afternoon with no time separation between them. I now propose to deal with that issue, and to explain what I think we will try to achieve.

There is no time limit on this first debate, but obviously there is a limit on the totality of time available in Westminster Hall today; the sitting must end at 4.30 pm. So it really is up to hon. Members to decide how they wish to split that time. I propose to call Mr Burden, Mrs Latham, Mr Stunell and Mr Lefroy, and then the Opposition Front Bencher and the Minister. I will then allow, as I think is traditional, a couple of minutes at the end if the Chair of the Committee wishes to wrap up the first part of the debate. However, we will treat this as two separate debates.

I suggest at this stage that although we do not know how we will run for time, the Opposition Front Bencher and the Minister might consider taking about 10 minutes each, if that is adequate.

I hope that is clear.

Overseas Voluntary Sector

Roger Gale Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

I start by thanking you, Mr Bone, for enabling me to make a speech this morning rather than my being in the Chair. I know that that has been inconvenient for you, but it is very kind and much appreciated.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) on his good fortune in securing the debate. I suspect there will be some repetition this morning. My right hon. Friend the Minister will be aware that many hon. Members on both sides of the House hugely appreciate the fact that, even at a time of austerity, the Government have found it possible not only to protect DFID’s budget, but to enhance it. That is not particularly fashionable electorally. We all have constituents who say, “Why are you wasting that money over there when we ought to be spending it here?” However, I think we all agree that it is a mark of a civilised society that the relatively rich do their utmost to help the very poor. It is also money well spent in terms of international security and even business investment. We appreciate that.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The hon. Gentleman talks about the need for society to consider people in other countries, which is what we all look towards doing. I am sure that, before the election, he, like many other hon. Members in the Chamber, was approached by Christian Aid and other organisations regarding ensuring that the moneys needed overseas would continue to be provided. I understand that the Government have given a commitment to that. However, this debate is about VSO—overseas volunteers. Clearly, they are part of society as well, and many people want to contribute and do something. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we must do more than, possibly, what the Government are doing and go along with what the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) has proposed this morning?

[Mr Gale]

If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me for a few moments, he will discover that we are not poles apart. When I go on to talk about VSO, he will understand that I think that a very good way of making a significant and practical contribution.

I need to declare two interests. First, I am a trustee of an organisation called the Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad. SPANA is probably the leading charity worldwide in saving and caring for working animals. There are very significant parts of the world, and societies, where working animals are people’s livelihood. Following disasters such as floods, earthquakes and famine, if those animals are allowed to die, people die, and I have never seen any point—brutal though this may seem—in saving a child’s life today only to see it die of starvation tomorrow. If we are to invest money well, we must ensure that the long term and the mid-term are catered for, as well as the very short term. I mention that not because SPANA receives money from the Government. It does not; nor does it wish to. What it does want from the Minister’s Department is greater recognition, a greater opportunity to play its part in helping in places where there is poverty and disaster and, if possible, a seat at the Disasters Emergency Committee table, because there is no such representation in that body. I ask my right hon. Friend to take that thought away with him.

My second interest to declare is that I am one of the growing band of parliamentary graduates of the Voluntary Service Overseas scheme. The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar is one such, and others are present. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Mr Amess), if he is able to catch your eye, Mr Bone, will want to make an equivalent contribution.

I had the good fortune to spend a fortnight in Ghana in 2009 with the Ghana Federation of the Disabled. My task was to seek to promote good governance within the disability community in Ghana. That organisation is facing considerable change internally, following the passing of laws designed to assist the disabled. It is a moot point whether they will do so. As we all know, Mr Bone, passing laws is one thing; implementation is just as important. Part of the task was to prepare a paper designed to offer a template for future work by other parliamentary colleagues and by the organisation itself, and establishing relationships with Members of Parliament on the all-party disability group basis that we understand here, but that Ghanaians have no experience of. As an aside, I think it incredibly valuable for parliamentarians to have the opportunity to go overseas to contribute, but also to learn.

Hon. Members’ experiences overseas have been mentioned. I, too, had a mosquito net and a fan. My fan was called Ed—Ed was a cockroach. Ed and I became great friends over my fortnight in Ghana. The existence was basic and the funding was basic. I am told that VSO volunteers generally receive no more than £200 a month. Even in these days of austerity, most people in this building are accustomed to living on a little more than that. The great thing about such a scheme is that we get out of the city, out of the big hotel, into where the action really is and see life as it is, and perhaps make a modest contribution.

When I arrived in Ghana, I had the good fortune to be coming in on the back of an intake of 30 VSO volunteers just in that one country. They were people from all walks of life. That needs to be underscored. There is an impression that VSO is a gap-year experience or an immediately postgraduate experience, when people have the opportunity to volunteer before they take on marriage, children and other responsibilities and can no longer do that. That is patently not the case. Those 30 volunteers were people from all walks of life and various countries.

I recall an oil engineer and his wife from Australia. Within a fortnight, that couple had made a decision—he had given up his job; they had let their house—and two weeks after taking the decision, they were in Ghana, ready to go out to the west of the country to set up a communications system in the form of a very basic local newspaper. They were people in their mid to late 50s. I recall the former head teacher of a special needs school from the north of England who had taken early retirement to go to the north of Ghana to engage, not surprisingly, in special needs education there. I recall a relatively young civil servant from Leeds, who had given up a secure, pensionable, well paid job to go out to that country to assist in the way she felt she could.

There were young, middle-aged and quite elderly people—I put myself in that category, I suppose—who were all trying to do the same thing. The point has been made, and we ought to underscore it, regarding the present Government, that that is really the big society. That is the global big society. That is what it is all about. That is what I believe the Prime Minister wants to promote and what I know the Department would like to promote. The beauty of it, and it really is a beauty, is not only that the people participating through VSO make a significant contribution—we flit in and out, but most of the people who do that make at least a two-year commitment and some carry on for much longer than that—but that when they come home, they become super-engaged in civic society here because of the experiences they have had overseas, because of the privation. Malaria has been mentioned. A young lady who had been in the north of Ghana came back to the flat I was staying in, with typhoid. Things are rough, but because of that, when the volunteers come home, they bring a huge amount back with them that then makes a significant contribution to our society.

On the current financial situation, I stand to be corrected, but I think I am right in saying that VSO receives roughly 51% of its funding from DFID—my miserable maths suggests to me that some 49% comes from elsewhere. I say to the Minister that if there is to be a 40% cap, realistically that ought to be a 40% cap based on the income worldwide, because a huge contribution is made by industries, organisations and people from around the globe. It would distort the picture a little, in terms of value for money, if the 40% cap were based solely on income in the United Kingdom. I am sure that none of us wants that to happen. I shall explain why it is of such concern.

[Mr MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent point. Does he agree that the £18 million, which I suggested was the value in the marketplace of the wages of people such as the oil engineer from the antipodes who gave up his time to work for VSO, should be part of that equation?

[Mr Gale]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We are talking about 250,000 national volunteers spread over 20 countries. It is incredibly good value for money. We have heard, and I am sure will hear again, about the low costs.

VSO is hugely cognisant of the fact that we live in an age of austerity and is hellbent on cuttings its costs by up to 30%, as quickly as possible. That will not be easy. It is easy to say that one should cut head office costs and get the money to the front line. We all want to see the money being spent at the sharp end. However, in organisations that require the preparation and paperwork that are inevitable with visas and travel documents, and in looking after people, there has to be a head office operation. VSO has recognised that, as with any head office operation, there must be room for savings. It will do its best to ensure that all the money that DFID gives, from whatever pocket of funds, is used to the best possible advantage.

In conclusion, VSO gets huge bang for the buck. It is immensely valuable, not only worldwide but back here in the United Kingdom. In so far as is possible, even at this time, the Department should do its utmost to maintain the funding to ensure that current projects and planned future projects are possible.