DFID-FCO Merger Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Stephen Timms
Main Page: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)Department Debates - View all Stephen Timms's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Dominic Raab
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the fantastic job she did. It is hard to believe but we do believe we can do even better by integrating, through this merger, the aid and foreign policy functions. She asked three specific questions; it is a yes on all three counts. Indeed, one of the first things I did yesterday was speak to Professor Paul Collier, one of a number of experts in the field, to look at how we can maximise our aid effort alongside our foreign policy, our trade and our wider international security objectives.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
For 20 years, since the success of the Jubilee 2000 campaign, there has been a consensus across the House about the importance of international development, and I commend the Churches in particular for delivering and establishing that consensus. I deeply regret that this downgrade is bringing it to an end. Does the Foreign Secretary recognise how many people in the UK profoundly disagree with his claim and believe there is a profound difference between focusing on doing good in the world—tackling poverty and dealing with the climate crisis—and what he and his colleagues regard as our own national interests?
Dominic Raab
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. He is one of those Members of this House I always listen to with great care and interest, and he has a track record on these issues as well as on financial issues and many others. I made this point in my opening remarks that we have to be careful about this artificial dividing line between what serves our moral sense of duty and what serves a harder, grittier perception of the national interest. I think that that is an artificial dividing line. I believe in a sense of moral self-interest, an enlightened self-interest, and if he looks at what we are doing on vaccines at the Gavi summit, he will see that that will crystallise the opportunity for us to do things that serve the people of this country, by securing a vaccine, while helping the most vulnerable in the world.