Official Development Assistance and the British Council

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Champion]

I absolutely support my hon. Friend’s calls for that border crossing to be reopened. It is a time-limited ask, and the International Development Committee wrote to the Foreign Secretary over two weeks ago asking for that very thing—to open those borders and keep them open so that aid can get in to help those desperate people—and we still have not received a reply.

In Vietnam, teams clearing land mines are being made redundant, as there is no funding for their project. In the Central African Republic, a project fighting the worst forms of child labour will be forced to close early. How does it make sense to invest in these transformative projects over years and then cut the funding at the very point they are about to realise their goals? It is a waste for those communities and a waste for the UK taxpayer, who has been funding it.

This debate also considers the role of the British Council, an organisation that has experienced huge challenges as a result of the pandemic. Unable to offer its normal range of paid-for educational services, budgets have been squeezed dramatically, impacting upon other programmes and leading to office closures around the world. Indeed, from next week, the British Council is starting the redundancy process for between 15% and 20% of its jobs.

The British Council is one of the best examples of soft power that I know, and the Government are standing by and letting it crumble. That is set against a growth in cultural institutes from other states—namely China’s Confucius Institutes—that are creeping across the planet. That is not exactly the action of an outward-looking, global-focused Great Britain, is it?

The Government say they are proud of the UK’s aid spending, but hiding figures and failing to respond to my Committee’s questions are not the actions of a Government who are proud. They seem like the actions of a Government who are trying to cover up their shocking reductions in funding and the devastating results: the girls who will not go to school, the children who will not be vaccinated and the families who will not have access to clean water. Once again, I ask the Minister for three things: to publish the individual country allocations for this financial year; to provide immediate clarity to organisations implementing UK aid programmes on their funding allocations for this financial year; and, most fundamental of all, for the Government to detail the steps that they will take to return to spending 0.7% of GNI on ODA.

Finally, I want to say thank you to all the FCDO staff and all the aid workers around the world who do an amazing job in the most difficult of circumstances. We stand with them and will continue fighting for the resources that they need to be able to do their job: tackling poverty and inequality around the world. That is the right thing to do; morally it is the right thing to do, but it is also the right thing to do for Britain’s interests.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

There will be a seven-minute time limit on Back-Bench contributions, with the clock in the Chamber and on the screen for those participating virtually.