Department for International Development

Stephen Kerr Excerpts

Monday 1st July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robertson]

Absolutely. The hon. Lady makes an extremely good and useful intervention. As many hon. Members have done, I have seen the disabilities that some children have that prevent them from attending school or from doing very much in life, really. For example, we see children who cannot stand up because their limbs are damaged, and children with cataracts who are blind because they cannot get a simple operation. That situation really is unacceptable. So, if our aid can help reduce such incidents, it really is worth doing. We have to increase aid, and we have to improve so much.

It is a sad fact that we are one of only eight countries that actually meet the aid target. Other countries do give a lot of money, but few actually meet the target, and we need to work with and encourage others to do so. The situation is a bit like reducing emissions in this country, because we produce only 2% of the world’s emissions, but if other countries are not going to play their part, we are not going to get the progress that we need. The situation is exactly the same with aid.

[Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)]

It is appropriate to follow up on the contribution from the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron), because our international aid and development programmes are largely centred in East Kilbride. That is yet more evidence of the strength and vitality of this Union that we enjoy and the blessing that it is across the face of the earth.

[Mr Robertson]

Absolutely. I am sure that Madam Deputy Speaker would not want me to go too far down that road, but it is a good point.

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[Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)]

It is a pleasure and a privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham), who made an impassioned speech. The three points that she mentioned are well received by all of us who understand the importance and gravity that is attached to each of them.

This has been an incredibly interesting debate for me. I stand to speak not because I claim any particular insight, experience or technical knowledge around the subject, but because what we are doing as a country in relation to expenditure on international development —this is an estimates debate after all—is the right thing for us to be doing.

My hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) spoke extremely well in introducing the debate. I was educated by the wonderful speech of the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), so I am grateful to him for his contribution. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) once again shared his long-term expertise and experience with the Chamber. I also enjoyed the speech from the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), and I recognise and respect his experience in this area from long before he came to this place. He reminded us of the Pearson commission, which was quoted by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby. The House of Commons Library briefing states—remember that this was in 1975—that the Pearson commission

“argued that if this target”—

0.7% of gross national income—

“was met by all rich countries and accompanied by appropriate policies, aid would be unnecessary by the end of the 20th Century.”

Oh, if that were only the case. Imagine if we were now celebrating the ending of aid. However, it is needed now as much as it has ever been.

I am grateful to be able to take a few minutes to celebrate the fact that we have had a cross-party debate and that there is uniform support across the House for our commitment, as a United Kingdom, to the 0.7% target. That this target is enshrined in law, and that we have kept the commitment since 2013, is an expression of our national and collective commitment to playing a full part in helping the poorest people on the planet to get out of the extreme poverty that too many of them still experience and on to a path that leads towards a more prosperous future. Ultimately, I believe that will be a path of enterprise and trade.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Like me, the hon. Gentleman took part in the net zero debate last week, and we need to bring that element to international development. If we utilise our spending on renewables to bring forward new technologies, not the old carbon technologies, surely that will result in a much better outcome for these countries, including in enterprise.

[Stephen Kerr]

Indeed, and I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s contribution. We have been discussing many aspects of the various goals that, as a Parliament, we are united in supporting, and climate change is part of that mix.

We have been reminded that the delivery of aid is not an end in itself; it is the means by which we commit to working in partnership with global and local organisations to eradicate the conditions that trap millions of people in extreme poverty. Aid should provide a ladder, and it should be the means by which we give our brothers and sisters in less fortunate circumstances a hand up, not just a handout.

Our objective should lead to actions that ultimately lead to a day when there is no requirement for international aid on the scale that is now needed. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke), who reminded us that the case for international aid needs to be made over and again. It is an easy headline in certain newspapers to be critical of international development, but to assume that everyone agrees with that would be a grave political mistake. We should be deeply proud that the 0.7% budget speaks loudly to the kind of country we are.

We make and keep our commitments in this country, and we are a dependable partner. If our reputation and influence in the world is based on one thing, it is based on trust. That is why the UK is recognised as a global superpower in soft power. The UK has played a principal role in the post-war era in laying the foundations of the rules-based international order. Whatever disparity there may be between the words and actions of other nations, we in the United Kingdom must be true to our word and stand by the poorest people on the planet.

I do not have the expertise and experience of others who have spoken in this debate, but I am keen to add my voice, and I think the voice of the vast majority of my constituents in Stirling, to those in this place who advocate positively for our international aid budget. It is right that the United Kingdom takes deep pride in its contribution in these areas. UK aid has a momentous global impact, but it is also right that we continue to apply all the necessary scrutiny to how our aid budget is spent and what it is being spent on, because it should be evaluated in the context of the essential work it is charged to deliver. We must measure the aid budget in terms of value for money in reaching its strategic objectives. In other words, although we may talk about how money is spent, it is vital that we measure outcomes.

These activities, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield alluded to, cannot be viewed in isolation. It is a fundamental problem of all Governments that Departments tend to work in silos, and the work of the Department for International Development needs to be seen in conjunction with the work of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The Ministry of Defence has been mentioned, but the Department for International Trade has not. There is a vital interplay between aid and our diplomatic influence, between aid and trade, and between aid and global security issues.

I, for one, welcome the Secretary of State’s introduction to the voluntary national review of the progress we are making towards the global goals, which was mentioned a few minutes ago. In that introduction, he pointed out that the UK played a key role in the creation of the global goals, which are aimed at making the world a fairer, healthier, safer and more prosperous place for everyone, everywhere by 2030, and that the Government are responsible for achieving the goals here in the UK, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire, and for contributing to the goals in developing countries.

In his introduction, the Secretary of State described the goals as neatly fitting into five Ps: people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnership. He said those five Ps cover the most pressing issues of our time.

I am privileged to have seen some of the impact of the work being done with the money devoted to international development by this House. During a trip to Kenya last summer with Malaria No More, the hon. Members for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) and for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd), my hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Outwood (Andrea Jenkyns) and I stood on the frontline in the global fight against malaria. We visited outlying hospitals that lack even what we might consider the most basic essentials, but what they did not lack was love and compassion.

We saw mothers nursing their very poorly small children, including babies. It was a moving scene that will stay with me for the rest of my life. It did not half give us a real-world perspective of the challenges that we face, and that we obsess about in this place. It is not possible to experience what we experienced in Kenya in that one trip without leaving with two overwhelming resolves: first, never to lose sight of our need always to count our blessings; and secondly, strongly linked to that, a firm determination to do everything in our power to make sure the fight against malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis is consistently brought back to the forefront of our collective consciousness whenever and however possible.

A child dies every two minutes from malaria, and the global fight against malaria has stalled. That was part of the case for the sixth replenishment of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, and the case for investment has never been more compelling. It was with no small sense of emotion that I heard the Government’s announcement at the weekend that we have committed £1.4 billion to the Global Fund over the next three years to provide life-saving therapies and treatments to more than 3.3 million people with HIV, to provide TB treatment and care for 2.3 million people, to provide 120,000 people with treatment for multi-drug-resistant TB, to distribute 92 million mosquito nets to protect children and families from malaria, and to strengthen health systems and promote global health security.

I feel grateful and proud to say that the UK has answered the call to action, by uplifting our commitment to the Global Fund by the 15% that was asked for. The richest nations on Earth should make the same commitment, and they should keep that commitment. Two million lives will be saved because of the UK Government’s announcement.

Behind these statements and commitments, I can still clearly see the dedicated community health volunteers, doctors, nurses and families we met in Kenya—the real people we need to help. Seeing the impact that the UK has made on this challenge gives me a sense of pride. Not only are the teams of specialist medics, logisticians, geographers, academics and many more mostly comprised of British subjects, but the money committed by the UK is a major contributor to the accomplishment of this work. It is also a field in which innovation is happening because of the work of UK aid and its partners. Since 2002, the Global Fund has helped save more than 27 million lives and reduced deaths from the killer infectious diseases of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria by more than a third in the countries in which it invests.

We must not be in any doubt about what other countries are doing in international development. China has its belt and road initiative—BRI—which is about much more than just building roads; it is about building all kinds of infrastructure around the world. China is doing this to gain essential access and influence in some of the countries that most need help. The Chinese model for international aid, the BRI, uses Chinese labour and Chinese finance for these projects, many of which are done on the basis of commercial or sub-commercial loans. UK aid works alongside local communities to develop aid projects and pursues proper development. I would hope that the Minister might add something in her wind-up on what we will do in response to the BRI and explain our strategy for meeting its challenge, particularly in Africa.

[Jim Shannon]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s concerns about China’s reasons for doing this. Many of us feel that China has an insatiable demand upon the resources of every country it is involved with and that its real reason for doing this is to get its hands on the assets of those countries, particularly the mineral assets, whereas we are not doing that—we are here to help.

[Stephen Kerr]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that, as he makes the point I was coming to.

I would like to talk briefly about one value we share in this place, a fundamentally British value: religious tolerance. It must become a major goal intertwined with our aid programme. According to DFID’s figures in 2013, 21 out of 35 armed conflicts around the world had a “religious element”. Let us be clear that religion has a hugely positive effect in the world. It guards against extremism, runs schools and hospitals, fights against authoritarianism and gives people a spiritual life. But when faith becomes a tool for division and sectarianism, it becomes a destructive force and, like any other form of division, such as nationalism, racism or tribalism, is simply an expression of human bigotry which lays blame for our problems in the hands of those who are different from ourselves. This is why religious tolerance must be our watchword in this area. Ensuring freedom of religion and belief is our duty as a country under article 18 of the universal declaration of human rights. Therefore, I ask the Minister to take the opportunity to update us on the status of UK aid in relation to guarantees that we should be seeking on this fundamental human right of freedom of religion or belief.

In conclusion, in sharing our values around the world, whether that be democracy, the role of women, religious tolerance or LGBT rights, we should be proud to use our aid programme to promote those values in every corner of the globe. That means having tough but honest conversations, but by doing this we will help to free the world from ignorance and bigotry, as well as poverty.

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[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)]

I thank all those who have made such huge and valuable contributions today.

As we heard from the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), who is my esteemed colleague on the International Development Committee, from the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr), and not least from my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), who is not in his place at the moment, back in 1970 the UN General Assembly adopted the 0.7% GNI aid target for donor countries to contribute to overseas development assistance. The original proposal envisaged that the target would be met by 1980 at the latest, and that the need for such aid would no longer be required by the end of the century. Sadly, as we know, that was not to be the case: only a handful of countries have ever met and maintained that level of aid spending. The UK is one of those countries, having first endorsed the target in 1974, having met it for the first time in 2013, and having enshrined it in law in 2015. The UK has taken great strides ever since, as we have heard from many great examples, not least from the hon. Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup).

I reiterate the obvious: the Scottish National party’s support for the 0.7% spending commitment is absolutely resolute and clear. Although a number of questions have been asked today about how the money is spent, what concerns me the most is the legally binding commitment, which seems highly likely to come under threat. All Members present are here for one reason, which is to support 0.7% spending on aid, but that is not the case for every Member in this House, as I shall come to later. It is imperative that we use this opportunity to defend the 0.7% target vigorously; to highlight the need for the spending to be part of a focused strategy, aligned with Departments across Government to achieve the sustainable development goals; and to stress that we cannot allow the commitment to be put in jeopardy by the hard right of the Conservative party and to be compounded by the desire for a disastrous Brexit.

The SNP has always been clear that development spending must be focused on helping the poorest and most vulnerable, and on alleviating global poverty. In addition to maintaining the 0.7% ODA spending commitment, we want the entirety of that amount to be spent by the Department for International Development, not spread among other Departments. The proportion of aid spending in other Departments has been steadily increasing over recent years. Currently, some 27.5% of ODA funds is spent in other Departments, such as the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence—a 9.2% increase since 2016. This is worrying, because other Departments do not report their aid spending with the same level of detail and do not necessarily have poverty reduction as their main focus. A recent National Audit Office report concluded that aid spending outside DFID was not transparent enough.

Let me give just one example of how spending in other Departments brings the system into disrepute. The International Development Committee heard that in 2016 some £46.9 million of UK ODA allocated funds had been spent by the Foreign Office on diplomatic activities in China. That is absurd; such abuse of funds must end. Similarly, the Select Committee’s subsequent report found that aid delivered through the cross-Government prosperity fund was

“insufficiently focused on the poorest”.

This appears to be common in other instances of ODA funds being spread across several Departments. For example, just last month the Independent Commission for Aid Impact’s report on the current state of UK aid suggested that the UK needed

“a stronger strategic direction for its conflict-reduction work, and a more integrated approach across humanitarian, peacebuilding, development and international influencing efforts, especially in protracted crises.”

At the same time, the estimates show that DFID’s allocation from the cross-Government conflict stability and security fund will see a reduction of 45% from last year. The current situation is clearly not working. How on earth can we expect to meet the objectives of strengthening peace, responding to crises and helping the world’s most vulnerable when the Department that is meant to be responsible is not taking the lead and being held to account on ODA spending?

DFID’s strategic ability to deliver on its aims is further threatened and undermined by the Brexit shambles that is unfolding. Public money has already been taken away from Departments and public services to prepare the country for the disastrous prospect of leaving the EU, and the Department for International Development has been unable to avoid this. DFID has already sent more than 50 staff to other Government Departments in preparation for a no-deal Brexit, and could deploy another 170, according to a letter to the International Development Committee from the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), in March. It has since been reported that officials at DFID were told that up to 600 of just 3,000—that is, 20% of their numbers—may have to be redeployed to Departments that are suffering from staff shortages because of their Brexit workloads.

It is unacceptable that public money that is committed to vital priorities that the UK has subscribed to under international agreements is already being used to pay DFID staff to manage the chaos of a hard Tory Brexit. Let us not forget that this money saves people’s lives and alleviates the worst aspects of poverty, vulnerability and chaos in some of the most hard-pressed countries in the world.

In two weeks, the UK will present its voluntary national review of the sustainable development goals to the UN at the high-level political forum on sustainable development. At a time when we should be using our aid funding and resources to ensure high-quality education around the world, reduce inequality and tackle the climate emergency, it beggars belief that the UK Government are wasting resources attempting to manage and mitigate the needless damage of Brexit. It is something we simply cannot allow to happen, so I am pleased to have added my name on behalf of the SNP in support of the amendment, tabled by the right hon. Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett) and the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), that would have stopped the mobilisation of departmental spending to facilitate a no-deal Brexit.

Worryingly, it is not just Brexit that threatens the UK’s international development work. The commitment to 0.7% ODA spending is under threat from the right wing of the Tory party, which believes that aid spending should be slashed, and would heartlessly endanger the lives of hundreds of thousands of people around the world.

[Stephen Kerr]

The hon. Gentleman misjudges the whole debate with the speech he is delivering. How would it help the world’s poorest people to block any further spending on international development, as that amendment would suggest? Both candidates for the leadership of my party are committed to honouring the 0.7% target, so the hon. Gentleman is presenting a wholly spurious argument and ruining the tone of the debate.

[Chris Law]

The hon. Gentleman is misinformed: the amendment was not about blocking spending on development. Furthermore, I shall develop the point—