Global Poverty

Debate between Tony Baldry and Gareth Thomas

Thursday 1st July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Tony Baldry]

I had hoped that we might hear a slightly more consensual speech. I appreciate that the right hon. Gentleman was campaign manager for the late Prime Minister, but perhaps he could now focus on the international development brief. He cannot have it both ways. He cannot say both that the UK is leading by example—and the accountability report published in Canada shows that the UK is way ahead of the other G8 countries on contributions to the 0.7% target at 0.6% for 2010—

[Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

That was the Labour Government!

[Tony Baldry]

But the right hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mr Alexander) cannot have it both ways. He cannot say that we should lead by example, when we are leading by example, and then whinge about how we are doing.

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[Tony Baldry]

I certainly join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to my right hon. Friend for what he did with the project in Rwanda. It reinforces one of the three points that I want to make.

I am conscious that others want to speak. What I would like to say in this debate can be summed up by one paragraph in the Prime Minister’s statement to the House earlier this week on the G8 and G20 summits. He said:

“Even at a time when our countries face difficult budget decisions, it is important that we maintain our commitment to helping the poorest in the world. The UK is maintaining its commitment to increase spending on aid to 0.7% of gross national income. That gives us the opportunity to exercise leadership on behalf of the poorest. At the same time, in order to take the public with us, we also need to ensure that every penny will reach those who need it most. That means transparency and accountability along the lines that we are introducing. It also means that the projects we support must be deliverable, practical and measurable, addressing the causes of poverty and not just alleviating the symptoms.”—[Official Report, 28 June 2010; Vol. 512, c. 566.]

My first point is that it is good to see so many Members in the House this afternoon for a debate on international development. We will all have to recognise, as times get difficult when the spending cuts bite, that we continually need to make the argument that spending on international development is valuable and is in our national interest—in terms of stability, security and a sense of common humanity, and, as the Prime Minister made clear yesterday during Prime Minister’s questions, because it enables us to have our voice heard much more clearly in the world. We are also entitled to look for the support of the non-governmental organisations in making that argument.

Secondly, there has, quite rightly, been a lot of talk this afternoon about Britain meeting the 0.7% target by 2013. We are not far off that already. According to the Muskoka accountability report, published at the end of last week’s G8 summit, the Development Assistance Committee estimates that in the 2010 calendar year the UK’s official development assistance spend will be equivalent to $15.5 billion, or 0.6% of GNI. We are far and away the country that is nearest to meeting that 0.7% target. The nearest to us is France, at 0.46%.

Even with a ring-fenced commitment, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, skilled as he is, will not be able to extract from the Treasury during the lifetime of this Parliament any more than 0.7% of GNI for his Department’s budget. That means that if various NGOs or others think that extra money should be spent on a particular policy area, they will have to demonstrate to us all which parts of existing DFID spending should be reduced. DFID is not a bottomless pit, and the situation will become very competitive. If NGOs or pressure groups argue that a particular area of spending should increase, it will be beholden on them to explain to Ministers, and the rest of us, where they think spending should be reduced.

[Mr Thomas]

Is the hon. Gentleman saying that he does not think any further resources should be made available for climate finance, and that if, as a result of the climate negotiations, further resources are asked of the developed world by developing countries, Britain’s contribution should not go beyond the 10% that the last Government said would come from DFID, and that other cuts in other programmes in DFID should take place?

[Tony Baldry]

It is a bit rich for Opposition Front Benchers, who left this Government with absolutely no money at all and in a situation where this country is the most indebted in the world, to have one chorus, which is “more money”. It does not lie in the hon. Gentleman’s mouth to give the impression that DFID and every other Department should receive further funding from the Treasury. The reality is that most ministerial colleagues face substantial cuts in their departmental budgets and spending lines. DFID is fortunate, because its spending is protected, but it must be clear to everyone, including Opposition Front Benchers, that, if they call for extra spending from the DFID budget in one policy area, they are beholden to explain—[Interruption.] I am answering the hon. Gentleman. They are beholden to explain where DFID spending will be reduced. They and some NGOs cannot just come along and suggest that somehow DFID has a blank cheque, and that, if it does not increase spending on their policy area, it is failing. That is intellectually dishonest.

Thirdly, we all agree that between now and 2015 it is important that we meet, in so far as it is humanly possible, the millennium development goals. I hope that as many Members as possible will read the accountability report that was published following the G8 summit, because NGOs such as Oxfam, which the shadow Secretary of State prayed in aid, would do well to start working out how they engage with other G8 countries to ensure that they meet the obligations that the UK has already met. Some of the amounts that are being spent are pitiful. Russia spends just 0.07% of GNI on overseas development, the United States spends 0.19% and even Japan spends only 0.18%. If the other G8 member states spent anything like as much as we in the United Kingdom spend on official development assistance, as agreed by the Development Assistance Committee, the volume of money going into international development would increase substantially.

The Prime Minister reported to the House on Monday, and I hope that the NGO community joins him in making it clear that we need not just accountability and transparency at DFID, which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has guaranteed, but to ensure that all G8 member states live up to the commitments that they made at Gleneagles. Otherwise, come 2015, we will all be frustrated by the lack of progress. It cannot be made by the United Kingdom on its own, and if people think that it can they will be disappointed. The United Kingdom is effectively at its 0.7% target, and there will be a finite amount of money available to DFID, however committed we all are to international development.

I hope that the NGO community, including organisations such as Bond, and all the various NGOs that subscribe to and are members of Bond, will see that there is a need for them to start focusing outwards and engaging other countries in meeting their 0.7% target. The same could apply equally to climate change. Copenhagen did not fail because of what the UK Government did or did not do; it was a disappointment largely because the international community had not engaged sufficiently with China on that country’s aspirations and concerns.

If we are going to meet the millennium development goals, we will have to ensure that the other countries which promised so much at Gleneagles and have so far delivered so little live up to and deliver on their promises. In that way, I hope that by the time we get to 2015 we will see that as many of the millennium development goals as possible have been met.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome this early opportunity to debate global poverty, but with the UN’s poverty summit so close, this debate could and should have been on the Second Reading of Labour’s 0.7 % legislation. As I reviewed the speeches of the Secretary of State and the Minister in preparation for this debate, I saw many of the themes and examples that recent Ministers have used, so I certainly warmly welcome many of the concerns highlighted by the Secretary of State. However, recent events and the debate have revealed both the lack of action at a key moment by the coalition Government and a lack of strategy for the Department’s future work. That should alarm hon. Members and those outside the House who see the declaration in 2000 that gave birth to the millennium development goals as a direct challenge to our generation to help the world’s poorest.

We heard three excellent maiden speeches, the first of which was from the hon. Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey). The pupils of class P at Hayfield school can indeed be proud of their work in support of the 1GOAL campaign, and indeed for influencing their Member of Parliament to speak up on their behalf. She rightly raised the continuing plight of 72 million children who are still denied the opportunity of an education.

The hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) also made an excellent maiden speech. It takes a certain talent to work Led Zeppelin and Robbie Williams into a speech on global poverty, but he did so with some panache. He also raised the important issue of access to medicines and the need for continuing work on that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) made a particularly impressive maiden speech, deploying humour about one particular election moment to make a nevertheless important point about the views of many of his and, I suspect, all our constituents. As someone who has the honour to chair the Co-operative party outside this House, and having attended the Co-operative Congress in Plymouth only last weekend, I warmly welcomed my hon. Friend’s reference to the contribution of the Rochdale pioneers to this country. In the context of this debate, I welcomed his reminder about the profound challenges facing the Palestinians, and his call for all of us to do more to help them was particularly timely.

We heard a strong speech from the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) who, having worked for Oxfam and helped organise the Gleneagles rally five years ago, has real authority on these issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Ann McKechin) crucially reminded us of the importance of the decent work agenda and the continuing need to champion labour standards. Together with my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Anas Sarwar), whose election to the International Development Committee I welcome, she raised the important need for progress on tax issues, which, as she rightly reminded us, Christian Aid does so much to champion so well.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) reminded us that we all need to continue to buy Fairtrade goods—a point also raised by the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood). She also referred to the need for democracy and a strong civil society as basic pre-requisites for development progress, making a particularly acute point about the role of trade unions in civil society, which was heard, I noted, in absolute silence by Government Members.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark) and the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood) made strong cases for continuing investment in developing countries. In the case of the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon, her argument was spoilt only by two mild reproaches to my right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mr Alexander), which I suspect were designed more to please those on her Front Bench rather than made because she took them particularly seriously. I was tempted to put a membership form for the Labour party in the post to her, so good was her speech.

The Secretary of State highlighted the particular challenges of unsafe abortion. It would have been helpful if he had mentioned the last US Republican Administration, who bear a particularly heavy responsibility for the fact that more progress was not made more quickly in their eight years to provide proper facilities for women to have an abortion. The previous Government strongly supported investment in health care to tackle this issue directly and funded international bodies such as the United Nations Population Fund and the International Planned Parenthood Federation, which remain pivotal to further progress.

I also welcome the Secretary of State’s interest in the broader issue of maternal mortality. We committed to scale up support for maternal and newborn health to help save the lives of 6 million mothers and babies by 2015; so if the right hon. Gentleman intends to continue our work in this area, I certainly welcome that commitment.

I worry about the growing number of aid sceptics in the Conservative party. The honest speech of the hon. Member for Orpington (Joseph Johnson) was an interesting example of that. I wonder whether that is the reason why the Secretary of State will not or cannot announce a timetable for introducing legislation to put the 0.7% contribution goal on our statute book yet.

The Secretary of State made important points about the case for development, which I welcome. There is a moral case for not standing by in countries such as Zimbabwe and Burma, where the Governments are failing to help their peoples, as well as for helping Governments in countries such as Zambia, Malawi and Ghana, who want to do the right thing by their people, to build up their economies, health systems and school systems.

The right hon. Gentleman also made the crucial point that there is a strong self-interest for Britain in championing the needs of developing countries, perhaps most acutely at the moment in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a point touched on by the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) in the final Back-Bench speech of the debate.

What is now needed is action to back up those fine sentiments from the Secretary of State. The hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) and my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central were right when they made it clear that other countries must meet their commitments on aid. It is for exactly that reason that the failure to fight at the G8 for meaningful language on the Gleneagles commitments is a deeply worrying sign of the extent to which the Government are really willing to champion the needs of the world’s poorest. A supposedly new initiative on maternal health, with no extra money behind it, is frankly a dismal return from the Prime Minister’s first international outing. Indeed, his failure to fight for the world’s poorest does not augur well for any effort the new Government are intending to put in to make a success of the UN review of progress to meet the millennium development goals in September. If the Secretary of State cannot get his own leader, or even No. 10 staff, to press for the world’s poorest at meetings of the richest nations in the world, it suggests that his influence at the heart of Government is not particularly high. Coming so soon after the Gracious Speech, which talks not of legislation on the target of aid being 0.7% of GNI but of a mere parliamentary mention, challenging scrutiny of his performance is what the right hon. Gentleman must now expect from Opposition Members.

[Tony Baldry]

The hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mr Alexander) have played on this point. The hon. Gentleman makes assertions about the Prime Minister not doing enough in Canada, but what is his evidence? I can only assume that he was not in the House for the Prime Minister’s statement on Monday, when he made it very clear that he had stressed the importance of transparency and accountability, and of meeting the MDG targets. What my right hon. Friend said to the House bears no relation to the travesty of the facts being put forward by the Opposition today.

[Mr Thomas]

With all due respect to the hon. Gentleman, the fact that this G8 communiqué was the first in five years not to include any mention of the Gleneagles commitments and that organisations as significant as Oxfam—which he has praised in the past—damned the communiqué and the actions of the Government for failing to get such language included should be a gentle reminder to him of why we are concerned about the Government’s performance.