Official Development Assistance and the British Council

Sarah Owen Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

One year is temporary; that is the pledge that has been made. I think that is a perfectly reasonable commitment to hold Ministers to. It could be that there is something else around the corner that can be interpreted as force majeure, as set out in the International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Act 2015, but in the absence of that my belief is that this, as a temporary measure—one year—is acceptable. I do not like it—I loathe it and I accept my responsibility for some of the consequences—but it seems to me to be reasonable.

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that this temporary cut will have lifelong consequences and life-ending consequences for the people we have it for?

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), although I respectfully disagree on some issues, particularly the focus on polling. On an issue this serious, leadership is about doing what is right not just what is popular. There are political points in my speech, because this is a political issue.

Poverty is a political choice, and cutting aid to the world’s poorest at this time is a very poor political choice. The last Labour Government’s commitment to the world’s poorest is one of our proudest achievements. On this side of the House, we have more that unites us than divides us, and this is something on which we can say we are truly united.

What we have is a divided Government who cannot decide whether charity begins at home or they want to build a global Britain. It is a totally incoherent position. I completely agree that we should be doing more to look after the poorest in our own country, so let us never forget that this is the Government who were so embarrassed by their record of increasing child poverty in our own country that they once tried to abolish its very definition in law.

Those pushing this cut tell us that charity begins at home, so why are they content with over 7,000 children living in poverty in Luton North? If charity really begins at home, why was the Conservative party, during the pandemic, okay with sending a single cheese slice, a few bits of ham and a couple of slices of bread and calling it a week’s worth of food for a child? And if charity really begins at home, why are we allowing as many as 3,500 veterans in Britain today, people who fought for our country, to go without a home? Is that really looking after our own?

Let us never forget what looking after our own has looked like under the Conservatives over the past 11 years. Let us never let the Tories forget that that is their record when they say they want to cut aid to the most vulnerable people in our world.

The Government are not just on morally dangerous ground, they have seriously misjudged the British people on this issue. When people in Luton North, and I am sure in all our constituencies, saw that children were going without food, laptops or school uniforms during the covid crisis, they clubbed together. We do not turn our backs on people in their hour of need. The patronising attitude, frankly, of Ministers cutting aid because they think it is popular in Labour heartlands or goes down well with certain media outlets, is completely mismatched with my experience of people in our country. I see people banding together to raise money and giving to people and causes both in our own communities and when disasters happen on the other side of the world.

I wholeheartedly agree with Gordon Brown when he says that the decision to gut the UK aid budget is a life or death situation for so many people across the world. Our collective aim should be to end the wars, the climate change, the poverty and the tyranny that leave people across the world poorer and in search of safety, but when we see the Government failing on our global commitments, taking a step back and lowering our standing on the world stage, our collective aims grow so much more difficult to achieve. Until we have a Prime Minister with a sense of moral and collective responsibility, and until we have a Government who truly live up to the promise of a global Britain—where we are all proud of taking our obligations and responsibilities seriously and standing tall on the world stage again—the least we can do is give our fair share of international aid.

If we are to end the cycle of dangerous new variants entering this country, we need to provide the support and the vaccines to the world’s most vulnerable. None of us is protected until we all are. That applies not just during the pandemic and to vaccines, but to general health, too: sanitation, safety and education, particularly for women and girls. As a country that wants to stand proud at home and abroad, we have a moral obligation to the world’s poorest. We should leave this global pandemic even more connected and even more committed to seeing every corner of this world safe and thriving, not less.