Official Development Assistance

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I think the current Prime Minister, and certainly this Foreign Secretary, gets a little fed up with hearing Britain being done down. I have to say to the hon. Lady that, despite the coronavirus pandemic and the fiscal conditions we face, we are none the less putting in £10 billion, which, on 2019 figures, has us as the second-largest overseas development aid contributor. When I speak to our interlocutors abroad, from Asia to Africa, and when I speak to our multilateral partners, from Dr Tedros to António Guterres, they do not share this self-flagellating defeatism or this will to do Britain down. They understand that we make an unparalleled contribution in the world as a force for good. We shall continue to do so.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

We now know that because of the Government’s choices the economic price facing the country is higher, that the manifesto commitments the Conservatives made last December can no longer be trusted, and that when the Government talk about hard choices what they really mean are real-terms pay cuts for key public sector workers such as teachers, teaching assistants, police and firefighters, and cuts to support for the world’s poorest. Can the Foreign Secretary at least tell us what he thinks the public will be more concerned about: aid that goes to the world’s poorest which actually saves us money in the longer term, or the gross waste of public money through billions of pounds of poor Government contracts and barrels full of public money handed over to Tory donors?

[Dominic Raab]

I think that’s Twitter lined up for later on in the afternoon. The hon. Gentleman asks what the public expects. I think they ask us in a sober way to look at all the choices. We have done that.