0.7% Official Development Assistance Target

Theresa May Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Theresa May (Maidenhead) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting permission for this debate.

I oppose the cut from 0.7% in international development funding for three reasons. First, I stood at the election on a manifesto that said:

“We will proudly maintain our commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of GNI on development”.

Now, the Government will say, as the Chief Secretary has today, that covid has changed the circumstances, but the Government are also taking pride in and responsibility for the fact that our economy will bounce back this year, and covid has also changed the circumstances for the poorest people around the world. For many of them there will be no bounce back, because for some of them it will simply be too late. So I urge the Government to stand by their word and stand by our manifesto commitment on international development funding.

My second reason is the impact, which I have just alluded to, that the cut will have on the poorest people around the world. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), in his thought-provoking and forceful speech, gave us some examples of the impact the cut will have—the damage it will cause to lives; the lives that will be lost. I want to mention just one particular area of interest to me: modern slavery. As one example, the global fund to end modern slavery is having its funding cut by 80%. That means that programmes will be lost, including programmes to work to end the commercial sexual exploitation of children, with all the damaging and devastating impact on young lives that the loss of that programme will have. The global fund will try to restore that money from elsewhere, including from other Governments. The United Kingdom has been the world leader in tackling modern slavery. Now we see organisations having to go cap in hand to other Governments to make up for the shortfall caused by the UK’s decision to cut international development spending.

Aid spending is not just about people in countries far away. Tackling modern slavery has an impact here on the streets of the United Kingdom. Supporting economic development elsewhere will help to cut the number of people who feel they have to migrate to the UK in order to look for work, and cutting ODA spending has an impact on other Departments. I recall in the Home Office that we used ODA spending to fund some of the work we did with refugees. If we cut that funding, either the work will not be done or the Home Office will have to find that money from other parts of its budget.

The third reason I oppose the cut is the impact on the UK’s standing in the world. People have respected us for our commitment to 0.7%; now, as we have heard, we are the only country in the G7 that is cutting aid at this time. People do not listen to the UK because we are the UK; they listen to us because of what we do and how we put our values into practice. Our commitment to that 0.7% has, for example, enabled us to argue the case for different definitions of ODA spending. Cutting this spending will have an impact on our standing.

Will we suddenly see countries cutting us off? No. Will we suddenly be kicked off international tables? No. But the damage it does to our reputation means that it will be far harder for us as a country to argue for the change that we want internationally—and that is across the board, including at COP26 and in respect of our setting out and putting into place the ambitions of the Integrated Review, which does not even mention modern slavery as one of the Government’s development priorities. I only hope that modern slavery is still on the G7 agenda, as it has been in the past.

The cut from 0.7% will have a devastating impact on the poorest in the world and it will damage the UK. I urge the Government to reinstate the 0.7% target: it is what they promised, it will show that we act according to our values and it will save lives.