Sustainable Development Goals

Tom Clarke Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

I welcome the debate and have no difficulty in supporting the motion moved by my right hon. and hon. Friends. I think the House is in danger of being a bit hard on itself. Some very good points have been made already. I have to say, as somebody who has been very interested in international development since I came to the House, I have heard debates that I have found much, much more disturbing than today’s one.

It is right for the Opposition to use the time available to debate these issues. The Government could be encouraged to give more time to them, if only because it would give an airing to the Secretary of State and her ministerial colleagues—that cannot be a bad thing. I want to see more debates of this kind. I cannot join the criticism of my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) that, after seven weeks in her role, she has not been abroad. My heavens, it is a difficult enough issue to master! For heaven’s sake, let us give the House a bit more time to focus on the issues before us.

I welcome, in the spirit of the debate, the Government’s achievement of the 0.7% of GNI target. I have said that previously, and I have made no secret of my view that DFID is one of the better Government Departments. However, I believe it is perfectly reasonable for the motion to invite the Government to put before the House a commitment to that target in legislation. That has not happened, and because it has not happened we were able to debate an excellent Bill promoted and guided through Parliament by the right hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Michael Moore). He knows—I served on the Committee and am one of the Bill’s sponsors—that the Bill had my full support. I also supported the excellent Bill promoted by the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), who is not in his place. I have to say to the Secretary of State—I hope this will not be seen as unduly controversial—that it is not enough to say we have had debates initiated by Back Benchers—through them introducing, rightly, good Bills—without accepting that the Government, too, have a responsibility to introduce transparency on these matters by encouraging debates in the House.

The Bill from the right hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk was debated in another place last Friday. I read the debate, which I thought was excellent. It was the kind of discussion I would like to see, and have heard, in this House. I pay tribute, in particular, to the speeches of Baroness Royall, Baroness Williams, Lord Judd, who has great experience with Oxfam, and Baroness Chalker. I shadowed Baroness Chalker, although it was a bit difficult because she was in the House of Lords as the Minister in the Department. Our ability to discuss these matters has improved tremendously, but there is still room for improvement, as the need for today’s motion suggests.

I would like to pay tribute to my constituents, who have given me great support on the international development issues I have raised over the years. In particular, I pay tribute to Charles Fawcet, a retired teacher, for his work in Malawi, which I shall visit in a few weeks with him. It would be churlish of me not to thank DFID, particularly its office in East Kilbride, and the Secretary of State for the support they have given to Charles and his team as they have built up relationships between my town of Coatbridge and the people of Malawi. I hope to see some of that work when I am there.

I recognise that not everything I am saying is popular. I received some awful e-mails after the Third Reading of the Bill introduced by the right hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk. One came from a man in Harrogate who challenged me to defend our giving money to India. I urge the Government to take a role in development education. Does this man really believe—it might comfort Conservative Members that he plans to vote for UKIP—that the starving children and the people dying of tuberculosis whom I saw when I last visited India had the slightest input into the decision of their Government to send rockets into space? Of course, they did not, and they should not be punished for their own poverty.

I am proud of the efforts of the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund and the Catholic Agency For Overseas Development—I am chair of the all-party parliamentary friends of CAFOD group—but a lot more has to be done, particularly on climate change. It is right that we address this challenge, and I am glad we are doing that in this debate.

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[Michael Moore (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith). I welcome the fact that the Opposition have brought forward this debate, if not the particular motion. This is an important subject, and I agree with them that it is regrettable that there is not more opportunity in Government time to debate these important matters. However, I really regret the tone in which the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) chose to introduce the debate. She disregarded the consensus that has existed on this subject over a number of years, and I am really surprised that she did so; it was like a hackneyed replay of the playbook that we saw before the last general election.

When the draft Bill to enshrine the spending of 0.7% of our GDP on the United Nations target for official development assistance was introduced, it was clear that it was intended to create a dividing line between the then Labour Government and the Conservative Opposition. I give credit to my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) for the rather nifty piece of footwork that he employed in committing the Opposition to supporting it. It was easy for me, as the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, to make that commitment. The Bill therefore had cross-party support.

In the past, I have credited the Labour Government with the fact that they started the debate and set the track for us to follow in getting to the 0.7% target. However, there was no hint today of Labour acknowledging that leadership and welcoming everyone else into the fold; it was Labour, Labour, Labour and nothing else. I think that people outside this place will judge us harshly if this hard-won consensus cannot be seen to hold. They would have gained no impression at all from the hon. Member for Wakefield that we had even reached the 0.7% target under the coalition, on the back of the work that the previous Labour Government did.

I set all that out on Second Reading of my private Member’s Bill and on every subsequent occasion. It was my great good fortune to come second in the ballot and to introduce that piece of legislation. Until today, I also regarded it as my great good fortune to have such clear cross-party support, rather than the point scoring that we have now seen. If Labour had wanted to claim leadership on this, it had the chance in government to bring such legislation forward, but it did not actually do it, so Labour Members should not criticise the coalition for not having done it in Government time.

On the point about Labour MPs delivering on this, I must say that they were here in numbers during the passage of my Bill. I am grateful to every last one of them who was here in the Chamber and who voted on all its different stages. Six people voted against it on Second Reading. Seven voted against the money resolution and five voted against it on Third Reading. Any one of the parties on this side delivered more votes than was required. Labour Members were critical of closure motions, but please let us recognise that the passage of the Bill in this place was a joint enterprise.

[Mr Tom Clarke]

The right hon. Gentleman knows that I supported his Bill all the way. If I may say so, he seems unusually proactive this afternoon, but perhaps if he calms down he will acknowledge that the fact that some people—albeit a minority—tried to talk out his Bill on Third Reading shows that there is a case for more development education, starting in this House.

[Michael Moore]

I apologise for surprising the right hon. Gentleman with my tone. I do not want to say that the Opposition started it, but there really is a different kind of tone to the debate today. I thank him for his contribution to the Bill, and for his own track record as a Minister and in piloting the earlier legislation through. He is right to draw attention to the nay-sayers, who I must point out opposed the Bill from both sides of the Chamber—

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[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley), who chairs the Environmental Audit Committee, referred to the report we have produced on the sustainable development goals. Given the nature of business during the next few months, it will probably not even receive a Government reply and it certainly will not get much time for debate, so I would like to highlight a few of the report’s recommendations, to which the Minister and the shadow Minister might respond.

We strongly took the view that it was important that there were stand-alone climate change goals in the new sustainable development goals. I know they are currently there and I hope that the Government and the Opposition will confirm that they will recognise the importance of maintaining those in the final package.

In terms of specific recommendations, we emphasised the importance of phasing out the subsidies to carbon intensive energy sources in developing countries. There is no point in our having tight emissions targets if we then encourage activities that produce increasing carbon emissions anywhere in the world, and certainly in developing countries. We emphasise the importance of ensuring there are the highest standards of environmental protection in trade deals. Only today, the Committee took evidence on the new Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership proposals and the need to ensure that they do not jeopardise environmental standards, both within the European Union and the United States, and in the consequential effects on developing countries.

We emphasise the importance of the UK leading efforts to improve air quality in cities. We know that in the UK, the numbers dying from poor air quality are much greater than originally realised, and that is even more of an issue in developing countries, with urbanisation continuing to develop in many parts of the world. Once again, I hope that is an issue on which the Government will take a lead.

We emphasise the importance of—the phrase we use may not be the most elegant but nevertheless it highlights what we want to say—decoupling economic growth from an increase in natural resource use. I hasten to add that we are not against economic growth, but we want to get away from the idea that economic growth has to be accompanied by increasing resource use, and increasing climate emissions as well.

We recommended an annual report on the impact of the international climate fund. That is an important initiative, but it has to be done properly to ensure, apart from anything else, that we do not waste the money when it is going to the most effective uses.

It is important to establish marine protected areas in the UK overseas territories. The only marine protected area that has been established so far is in the Indian ocean territories, and that is more to do with the Chagos islanders and other issues than with having a marine protected area in that part of the world.

There is a very important recommendation on engaging young people in the UK with the renewed sustainable development goals and supporting activities that raise awareness about sustainable development. I am concerned about the future of the international citizen service—an initiative initially promoted by the previous Government that has been much promoted by the current Government. I hope the Minister can give a commitment that the UK will continue to support the international citizen service after this year, when it is due to terminate. That is important. We all know from our work in our constituencies that the genuine interest among schoolchildren and other young people underpins the commitment across the Chamber and across the country to supporting our international development goals.

[Mr Tom Clarke]

Given the discussions about whether there ought to be debates on this, does my hon. Friend agree that it is vital that we have a debate before the Paris conference in order to give strength to our representations?

[Mark Lazarowicz]

Absolutely. Public debate, engagement and support strengthen the hand of any Government in international negotiations such as those later this year.

Last week, I was fortunate to visit Leith Walk primary school in my constituency, where the students and their teachers had been involved in the important and valuable send my sister to school initiative. I am sure that we all have in our constituencies the same experience of young people being very committed to taking action on these issues. I hope that the Government will continue to support that through the continuation of the international citizen service.

It is important to be non-partisan on this issue, as far as possible, and to ensure that we have the widest consensus among political forces in this Chamber and outside. At the same time, it is also right to criticise and challenge a Government where there are failings. That is why I intervened on one of my colleagues about refugees from Syria and, bluntly, the Government’s failure to live up to what was promised just over a year ago. I know that is not the direct responsibility of the International Development Secretary, but the failure of the Home Secretary and her Ministers to live up to what we promised is a blot on our otherwise good record in supporting refugees and international development. I recognise that the Secretary of State cannot today suddenly reverse the Government’s record to date on supporting Syrian refugees, but I hope that she will have a word with her ministerial colleagues to ensure that we now live up to the Government’s commitments, which I believed at the time were made in good faith and which were supported across the House. I would like a change in our actions to be consistent with the policy that the Government followed just over a year ago.