Post-2015 Development Agenda

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady. I will be as brief as possible so that we can hear from the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley), who I congratulate on securing the debate.

The millennium development goals have provided huge momentum in addressing some of the most pressing challenges facing developing countries. As many hon. Members have said, admirable progress has been made. There has been a significant reduction in extreme poverty and infant mortality, and there is access to primary education for children. There are improvements in the living conditions of slum dwellers, as well as major advances in the fight against disease, which was highlighted by the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) and my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier).

While progress has been made, most of the current MDGs sadly will not be met. We know that, despite the achievements, inequalities between and within countries have continued to grow. There needs to be renewed focus on inequality as well as poverty, as hon. Members have highlighted. Critically, we need to ensure that we redouble our efforts on tackling issues affecting women, such as violence against women, as has been highlighted by the One Billion Rising campaign, which has cross-party support. We also need to focus on the continued plight of people in conflict-affected and fragile states, as the hon. Members for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) and for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) mentioned. There has been a failure to meet the goals in those countries, and it is critical that we focus on them as we move forward to build on the MDGs, if we are to see progress.

I want to highlight some of the points mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for York Central, including the achievements under the previous Labour Government. I am pleased that the current Government have stuck to the 0.7% of GDP commitment, and we support them in increasing the aid budget to that amount. I am glad to hear that the target will be met this year.

My hon. Friend mentioned the important international leadership role played by former Prime Ministers Tony Blair and my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown). The current Prime Minister also has an important role to play. My hon. Friend the Member for York Central highlighted the fact that this is a great opportunity for Britain to lead the way, as it has done in the past, and to show the world that we are with developing countries and some of the poorest people in the world through the tough times, as we were in the good economic times when we made great strides to reduce poverty in those countries.

Between 1990 and 2005, the poverty rate fell from 46% to 27%, which represented 400 million people lifted out of extreme poverty. We know that recent economic difficulties have affected people in developing countries, as millions have fallen back below the poverty line. We have an important role to play by continuing our focus and being resolute in working with the international community to ensure that countries do not give in to pressure from sections of the media by reneging on the promise to increase aid to some of the poorest countries in the world.

We face huge challenges, particularly in relation to how economic development is taking place in middle-income countries. As hon. Members have mentioned, such development is, of course, vital to lifting people out of poverty, as we have seen in countries such as China. The right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) highlighted the importance of economic trade and growth for lifting people out of poverty but, on its own, that is not enough, as we see in countries such as India. We need to ensure that our aid effort supports the poorest in middle-income countries. We need a clear narrative that is sharply targeting our aid efforts to lift people out of poverty in middle-income countries. We should work with those countries’ Governments, as well as those in the poorest and fragile countries.

I welcome the “Enough food for everyone IF” campaign, which has cross-party support, that highlights the fact that almost 1 billion people still go hungry in the 21st century. That is why it is so important that the international community looks at post-2015 development goals. We need to recognise that much more has to be achieved if we are to protect people in the poorest countries.

We must also address climate change and the need for sustainable development goals. As the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) and others pointed out, it is important that the sustainable development goals are closely linked to the millennium development goals and that they sit together, because as we look to the future, climate change and development will become ever more interconnected. We need to ensure that the goals are working in sync to address future challenges. Urbanisation is a major issue around the world, and we need to ensure that there is a continued focus on that.

I quickly want to pick up on several points that have been made. Economic opportunities are vital, particularly with regard to jobs and growth, and the point has been made about ensuring that people have opportunities when there is growth. The hon. Member for Stafford highlighted the importance of the private sector. We welcome the private sector’s role in generating self-sufficiency, and trade and job opportunities, but that has to be done transparently. We need to ensure that taxpayers’ money is spent appropriately. Just as we would expect transparency in the way in which NGOs spend British taxpayers’ money, we need to ensure that the same happens when we release funding through the private sector. The roles of the private sector and foreign direct investment will be vital, as we see in many countries. Good governance will be critical, and such issues need to be at the centre of debates as we move forward the post-2015 agenda.

Countries such as Brazil highlight important examples of how economic growth has gone hand in hand with social development and Government intervention. We need to ensure that lessons are learned from countries in which poverty alleviation has been achieved alongside economic growth. I hope that that the UK Government will prioritise ensuring that we stand up for social justice and responsible trade and capitalism, and that we take a strong line against companies that are evading or avoiding tax. I welcome the commitment of the Government—and particularly the Prime Minister and the Chancellor—to take action to tackle tax avoidance, and I hope that there will be substantial attempts to change how poor business practices are denying tax revenue to developing countries, as well as our own country. While we welcome the statements that have been made, people will rightly say that they want action, not rhetoric, so I hope that that will happen.

In conclusion—I am sticking to the time that the Minister has informally suggested I should take, and I look forward to hearing his answers—I hope that the post-2015 framework will genuinely be about partnership between developing and developed countries, and between civil society organisations and Government. I also hope that civil society organisations, charities and NGOs will, as they rightly should, play an important role in keeping the pressure up on our Government—as the IF campaign and others are doing—as well as on other international agencies, multilateral agencies and other Governments.

Labour has called for a new social contract without borders. That is rooted in three key elements, one of which is social justice. That is about tackling inequality as well as poverty, and about having a strong focus on human rights. I hope that the Government will emphasise that, not only in developing countries, but at the European level, and through how we practise empowerment, human rights and women’s rights in our country. We have a lot to learn, as well as a lot of expertise to share. In that spirit, I hope that we will work together with our partners in developing countries to come up with a new framework about not only inclusive growth, human rights, empowerment and tackling poverty, but good governance and tackling corruption. That applies not only in developing countries, as we would expect that when we give money to those countries, but to the way in which companies behave. It is also important that there is transparency around how NGOs operate, as is ensuring that power relationships are firmly based on empowering the citizens we seek to help, not the institutions that are meant to help. Sometimes that debate tends to be missed, and there is too often a tendency to do development to people rather than with people. We need to learn that important lesson from our previous experience.

I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response. We will, of course, support the Government in areas in which we will be able to work together on this important agenda. As my hon. Friend the Member for York Central stated at the start of his speech, this is a unique opportunity for the Prime Minister to lead the way on tackling global poverty and inequality. It is vital that he uses his influence on other international leaders, as his predecessors did, to ensure that we genuinely achieve the aim of ending poverty over the coming decades so that we can, in the years to come, be proud of the fact that both this and the previous Government took the lead in the international community on ending global poverty and inequality.