International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Friday 12th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Swayne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and he makes a powerful point.

I have no doubt that this is money well spent and in the taxpayer’s interests. We live in a dangerous and disordered world. We are beset: one need only look at the port of Calais to see how many people come from all sorts of desperate circumstances in desperate countries all over the world, where poverty and injustice and misgovernance have reigned for generations. If we wish to see those movements of population reduced, it is in our interests to invest in good governance and in economic growth in some of those countries.

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

The Minister is making an extremely passionate speech and I agree with much of what he is saying. Does he agree with me that how we behave in the world in this regard is simply not a zero-sum game for this country? This is about getting it right in our diplomacy, in our defence and in our development assistance, and those three things together can make a huge difference in those countries of conflict and instability that he spoke about and act in our own national interest at the same time.

[Mr Swayne]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point, and I believe he is absolutely on the money.

In respect of the growth of international terrorism, we have rightly become concerned in recent weeks over that strange phenomenon of the foreign fighter—the person with prospects, from a good home and with qualifications, who suddenly decides to go abroad and fight for the most extraordinary cause in the most bloodcurdling and violent and disordered way. They follow a long tradition of middle-class terrorists, be it the Baader-Meinhof or the Manson gang or the Red Brigades or the Sendero Luminoso. No doubt they will be the source of many academic treatises and doctoral theses, but undoubtedly the main recruiting ground—the overwhelming recruiting ground for terrorism—is the desperation of poverty, injustice and misgovernance, where young people have no prospect whatsoever but to take up arms and embrace the most desperate ideologies.