Tag: 2021

Hilary Benn – 2021 Speech on Foreign Aid Cuts

The speech made by Hilary Benn, the Labour MP for Leeds Central, in the House of Commons on 13 July 2021.

Since Ministers announced that the UK was going to be the only G7 country to cut its aid this year, despite all the other countries facing the same fiscal pressures, there is not one Member of this House who is not now aware of the consequences of the decision that Ministers have taken—a cut of 85% in the support that we give to the United Nations Population Fund to prevent maternal and child death and unwanted pregnancy; a cut of 95% to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, at the very moment when the world is closer than it has ever been to eradicating that dreadful disease; and a cut of 50% in the support we give to the humanitarian mine action programme, which stops people losing their arms, their legs and their lives to unexploded ordnance. It is a very long list, and every one of those things harms our reputation and does not help us to persuade others, because other countries judge us not by what we say, but by what we do.

The choice before the House today is a very stark one: do we act to put this right, or do we accept the double lock that has been proposed? I urge the House to reject it, because there is a principle here. What is it about the level of Government spending on helping the world’s poorest people that means that it alone is going to be subject to these tests? No other area of Government expenditure is: just this one. If this is about protecting the public finances, why is this area of Government expenditure—the money we spend on getting children into school, or on vaccinating children so they do not die of diseases that our children do not die of—being singled out? I have great admiration for the OBR, but determining the level of our international aid spending is not part of its responsibility. It is the Government’s responsibility, it is a political responsibility, and Ministers should not try to pass the buck on to someone else, especially since the latest OBR forecast makes clear that it is exceedingly unlikely that the two tests would be met in the next five years.

Mr Harper

Can I just pick the right hon. Gentleman up on that point about other areas of expenditure? The Treasury and the Chancellor have set out these tests—promises that are in our manifesto, and which we mean to keep. The comprehensive spending review is taking place this year, and it seems to me that we will be judging all other areas of Government expenditure by these same measures. I see the Chancellor nodding, so it seems to me that we are being very consistent here, and it is important that we keep our promises about our fiscal responsibilities as well as getting back on track to meet our aid responsibilities.

Hilary Benn

I am afraid that I take a different view of the Government’s consistency from the right hon. Gentleman’s, because they have chosen quite specifically, knowingly and deliberately to break a cast-iron promise to the world’s poorest people that was also contained in that manifesto. As I said in my last contribution on this subject, most of those people probably have no idea that this House made that commitment together, but the Government have chosen to break it, and the choice we are making today is whether we think that is right or wrong.

The Chancellor might think that the double lock is a way out of this political problem, but I do not think it is, because the issue before us has not gone away. It is just the same as it was on the day when the original cut was announced, and the question before us is whether it is right—morally, practically or politically—to break our word to the world’s poorest people. I would argue that it is not: it is wrong in principle and it is harmful in practice, as we have heard from excellent speeches made by Conservative Members. It is not who we are; it is not the country that we should aspire to be; and I ask the House to reject this motion so that we can restore aid to 0.7% and keep the promise that we made to the people of this country and the people of the world.

July 14, 2021
David Davis – 2021 Speech on Foreign Aid Cuts

The speech made by David Davis, the Conservative MP for Haltemprice and Howden, in the House of Commons on 13 July 2021.

I consider myself an economic Thatcherite, yet when I come to choose between money and lives, I always choose lives. This House should remember—this should be at the forefront of every Member’s mind today—that this is a vote where we are choosing whether or not to intervene to save lives. That is the key issue, not the monetary issue, which I will return to in a second.

The Government argue that this is a policy the United Kingdom cannot afford, but while we have heard about this being a small fraction of our borrowing, we should remember that it is an even smaller fraction of our spending. We spend, in a non-covid year, at least £800 billion; the £3.5 billion saving we are talking about is less than 0.5% of that. That is what the Treasury tells us is the critical, overwhelming measure that forces us to do something that has such dramatic consequences.

The Chancellor might say, as his press spokesman did in the course of last week, “Well, you find the money from somewhere else”—saying that to a past Public Accounts Committee Chairman is very dangerous for a Chancellor. We were in Chesham and Amersham a week or two ago, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) said, and Cheryl Gillan would have said to the Chancellor, “Well why don’t you just cancel HS2?” That is between £100 billion and £200 billion; it would pay for 25 to 50 years of this shortfall. It is really that simple.

So I do not really accept what the Chancellor is saying—that the only place, indeed the best place, for savings to be found is cutting aid, which will cost lives. Such a choice is morally reprehensible. Let us be clear about that—morally reprehensible.

Mr Mitchell

My right hon. Friend is making an incredibly good point, but has he also noticed that, in the Chancellor’s outstanding policy on spending announced last November, the cut that he is referring to—this cut of 1% of the borrowing on covid last year—is the only cut that has been announced?

Mr Davis

My right hon. Friend is right. The prioritising of this cut makes it even more morally reprehensible. Indeed, at the same time, as I think the spokesman for the SNP, the hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law), said, we are increasing spending on defence. I happen to agree with increasing spending on defence, but I do not agree with cutting spending on things that will lead to the need for more defence because of migration, civil wars and the rest of it.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield, the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and the Leader of the Opposition have pointed out, the Government’s proposed double lock on returning to 0.7% is deceptive. It is designed to look reasonable. However, in fact, none of the people who have spoken so far has actually stated the full case. Although we say that the condition has been met only once since 1990, under a Conservative Government, and has never been met, really—well, it was once, just about—since the 0.7% policy was put in place, it has actually never been met since 1970, because the wording is not “a current budget surplus” but

“a sustainable current budget surplus”.

All the current budget surpluses we have been talking about so far have been for one year—and frankly, the one under us in 2018 lasted about 10 nanoseconds; it was a very tiny surplus. In practice, we have not had a sustainable current surplus since the 1970s, so I am afraid that, under the actual wording in the statement, we are not looking at 0.7% for a very long time indeed. We heard the Leader of the Opposition say it would be years, possibly decades, possibly never, and I think he is right about that.

Even if the conditions were to be met, the proposal will do nothing to deal with the crises that are caused by the policy already, right now. The Government argue that the cuts are temporary, but death is never temporary—and this will cause deaths.

July 14, 2021
Sarah Champion – 2021 Speech on Foreign Aid Cuts

The speech made by Sarah Champion, the Labour MP for Rotherham, in the House of Commons on 13 July 2021.

It does not show respect for the House to ask us to take such a significant decision with little notice, little explanation and no clarity about the consequences of today’s vote. It does not show respect for communities in the poorest parts of the world when this Government are willing to play games with their lives and livelihoods in this way. The Government present the motion as giving Parliament an opportunity to have a say on when and how the UK will return to spending 0.7% of GNI on aid. But today is not really about the 0.7% target, the cuts or the livelihoods that are already being affected by our reduced spending. It is about exerting pressure on Government Back Benchers who have been brave enough to call out what the Government are doing. Basically the Government are saying, “Back this or you will be blamed when taxes rise or spending falls”—things that will likely happen because of the pandemic anyway.

Today is yet another example of this Government’s complete lack of regard for parliamentary scrutiny, and they have form. There is a pattern of this Government withholding information until the last minute and then only making the most basic details available. Let us be clear: the Government have not brought forward a substantive motion for this debate. The motion that they have tabled is made in neutral terms—a device that was intended to allow the House to debate an issue without coming to a view. They claim that this debate is binding. It is not our procedures that make it binding; it is their political choice. This is a knee-jerk reaction dreamt up between last Thursday and yesterday in the face of growing criticism of this Government.

Yesterday’s written ministerial statement talks of returning to 0.7 % only when we are not borrowing for day-to-day spending and underlying debt is falling. On their own, each of those tests is a high hurdle. When combined, these conditions become incredibly strict. Since the 0.7% target was introduced in 2013, these tests have been met only once. They explicitly link ODA spending to policy decisions made by other Government Departments on tax and spending. This double lock could lead to an indefinite cut in aid spending, and, of course, the tests do nothing to prevent the Government from dropping lower than the 0.5%.

The Office for Budget Responsibility has said that the UK’s economy is forecast to return to pre-pandemic levels in the second quarter of 2020—faster than originally thought. If a return to economic normality is getting closer, why the need to introduce these extra tests before returning to 0.7%? They are just added roadblocks artfully placed by the Treasury on the track back to the legally mandated level of 0.7%. Fundamentally, the statement paints aid spending as an either/or choice; we are spending either on domestic public services or on international aid. It is an artificial choice that MPs are being forced to make. This is a breathtakingly cynical manoeuvre and the House must not fall for it.

July 14, 2021
Andrew Mitchell – 2021 Speech on Foreign Aid Cuts

The speech made by Andrew Mitchell, the Conservative MP for Sutton Coldfield, in the House of Commons on 13 July 2021.

I draw the House’s attention to my interests, as set out in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

The Government have done the right thing today in ensuring that this House has a vote on this matter, and thank you, Mr Speaker, for standing up for Parliament in that respect. There is a straight choice here, as was outlined by the Leader of the House yesterday in his statement. It is between rejecting this motion, in which case the Government will restore the 0.7% from next year—that was the olive branch that my right hon. and hon. Friends and I suggested—and accepting this so-called “Treasury compromise”. I tell the House that it is no compromise at all; it is a fiscal trap for the unwary.

First, it is quite possible that these conditions will never be met. We do not need to look in the crystal ball—we can read the book. It is indisputably the case that there has been only one occasion in the past two decades—in 2001—when these conditions would have been met. If we look at what the OBR has said, we see that it is incredibly clear that the debt to GDP measure will not fall until 2024-25 and day-to-day debt will not fall until 2025-26. Given that the 0.7% goes up and down with our economic performance, a very important point is that the 0.7% policy protects us in that respect.

John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)

Does my right hon. Friend not accept that the OBR has exaggerated the gloom on the debt and deficit, particularly in the last two years? It exaggerated it by £50 billion for last year between November and March, so why on earth does he believe the OBR’s gloomy figures now? I am sure we are going to get the deficit down.

Mr Mitchell

My right hon. Friend is looking in the crystal ball, but I have read in the book: in the past 20 years, this would have happened on just one occasion. So a vote for the Government tonight is a vote to end our 0.7 commitment.

Anthony Mangnall

I am sorry to interrupt my right hon. Friend, but does it say something when every economic and political commentator has said that this new mechanism will not see the 0.7% return in the way that it should and that this is a cop-out of the highest order?

Mr Mitchell

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As I said, this is a trap for the unwary and a tribute to the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s silver tongue. So I shall certainly be voting against this motion and against the Government today. I shall do so with absolute conviction and profound disappointment. This is only the third time since I was elected in 1987 that I have voted against the Government, and on one of those occasions I was in the company of the Prime Minister in the Lobby. It is never easy to rebel and I thank those who have stood with us to support our manifesto. We should not be breaking our promise in this way. We should certainly not be seeking to balance the books on the backs of the poorest people in the world. I am incredibly proud to have been a member of a Conservative Administration who declined to do that even with the austerity that we faced.

For goodness sake, this is 1% of the borrowing that the Chancellor rightly made last year to shore up our country from covid. It is a tiny figure and it is the only cut that he has announced. That will have an enormous impact on our role in the world and, above all, on the huge number of people who will be severely damaged, maimed, blinded, as often happens, or indeed who will die as a result of the cuts. I remind the House that the cuts include a 25% cut to girls’ education, which is a top priority of our Prime Minister and this Administration. For neglected tropical diseases—thank goodness, the philanthropists have stepped in for one year only to protect the British taxpayers’ investment—we have cut aid by 90%. In Yemen, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) said, we have cut it by 60%, which is literally the equivalent of taking food away from starving people. This is what we are doing to the world’s poorest. This is how we are trashing our international reputation. We are the only country in the G7 that is cutting in the middle of a pandemic. Everyone else is increasing. This is a decision that we do not need to make. Since we started this campaign, there has been a 9% increase in support across our country for the Government’s policies. It is, to coin a phrase, worse than a crime; it is a mistake.

May I say, finally, in humble respect to my own party, that some of us have seen this movie before? It took us 23 years—until 2015—to achieve an overall majority by wiping out the Liberal Democrat seats, and to achieve it we secured the support of decent, internationalist, pro-development spending people, who saw from our time of austerity that we would stand by this promise. The former Brexit Secretary—my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis)—and I visited Chesham and Amersham. May I say that our much-loved former colleague, Cheryl Gillan, would have been voting with us on this issue tonight? Anyone who thinks that this issue is not affecting our party’s reputation is living in cloud cuckoo land. Chesham and Amersham has the biggest Christian Aid group in the country.

There is an unpleasant odour wafting out from under my party’s front door. This is not who we are. This is not what global Britain is. I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to vote against this motion.

July 14, 2021
Chris Law – 2021 Speech on Foreign Aid Cuts

The speech made by Chris Law, the SNP MP for Dundee West, in the House of Commons on 13 July 2021.

There is not a single nation on the planet that has escaped the devastation of this global pandemic, and there is not a single person who is pretending that the challenge of recovery from covid is easy. We also know that it has been the poorest of our own society who have been hit the hardest over the past 18 months. Tragically, that has been replicated across the globe. Inequality has widened. Millions have been pushed into poverty. Development gains have been reversed, and it is the poorest and most vulnerable in our societies who are dying.

We therefore need a global recovery that builds forward better, creates a fairer, more inclusive and more sustainable world and ultimately honours the millions who have lost or are losing their lives to this terrible pandemic. In order to do that, the wealthiest countries in the world, of which the UK is one, must step up to tackle the great challenges facing humanity, not step away. However, it is with the deepest regret that this UK Government’s callous cut to the aid budget is not only jeopardising those efforts, but will mean that the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world will pay the ultimate price. Make no mistake: these cuts will cost lives.

The UK Government are making a desperate effort to stress the economic necessity of cutting aid from 0.7% to 0.5% of GNI. They are desperate to talk about fiscal tests, borrowing levels and tax receipts, but they do not want to address the questions that put them to shame. How many children will go without an education? How many girls will be forced into unwanted marriages and teenage pregnancies? Ultimately, how many individuals will die needlessly because of this Government’s decision? Those are questions that the Government have run away from, just as they have run away from this debate and this vote for the past six months.

It should simply never have come to this. This Parliament should have had a vote on the aid cut before it was implemented, but instead the Government pressed ahead with international austerity on the backs of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people. Without consultation with those most in need, without any impact assessment and without any debate in this Parliament, the Government made their decision based on a Treasury spreadsheet. With a stroke of a pen, they signed the death sentence—a policy that will lead to 1 million children’s excess deaths.

Those who are considering voting in favour of the motion should reflect on these questions. Are they building forward and leaving no one behind in a global strategy against covid? Are they honouring the millions who are losing their lives and the many more millions who will lose their livelihoods as a result of the pandemic? Are they happy to sign that death sentence?

Let us look at a few examples of the life-saving aid programmes that have been curtailed or cancelled, with horrifying consequences right now. Yemen is the world’s worst humanitarian disaster, where 20 million people are suffering from hunger and malnutrition. Many of them face famine after years of war. Despite that, the UK Government have slashed their humanitarian funding to the country by more than 60%. The UN Secretary-General put it bluntly:

“Millions of Yemeni children, women and men desperately need aid to live. Cutting aid is a death sentence.”

Given that 400,000 children under five might starve to death in Yemen alone this year, how on earth can this Government defend themselves?

Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point about Yemen, although it should be acknowledged that the UK gave aid to Yemen well in excess of what we had budgeted for, and that we have a very generous record. Does he agree that it is not only a question of emergency aid? If we are to find peace in that country, we will need to give aid for its reconstruction to keep it out of civil war and famine again, so it is entirely the wrong time not to step up with the money necessary for a lasting peace.

Chris Law

I agree with every point that the hon. Member makes. It is important for our national security and in our national interest to be stepping up at this point, not stepping away.

The UK Government’s funding to the United Nations Population Fund, which provides contraceptives and reproductive health supplies globally, is being cut by a staggering 85%. Yes, Mr Speaker, you heard that correctly: 85%. The UNFPA has stated:

“These cuts will be devastating for women and girls and their families across the world.”

The money being withheld by this Government would have helped to prevent a quarter of a million child and maternal deaths, nearly 15 million unintended pregnancies and more than 4 million unsafe abortions.

A third example, which just shows how ridiculous the cuts are, is that tens of thousands of people are likely to die needlessly because nearly 300 million doses of medicine for the treatment of neglected diseases in Africa are at risk of expiring following the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s announcement that it is almost entirely withdrawing its allocated funding. So far, the UK Government have not confirmed that the expiring medicines will be distributed urgently rather than destroyed. What an utter folly—an absence of simple human decency. Hon. Members voting on the motion must tell their constituents that, because these are the simple facts.

Those are just three examples that cover women’s reproductive rights, disease prevention and urgent humanitarian assistance, but cuts are happening across the board. Programmes to eradicate poverty, to prevent conflict or even to combat climate change—in the year that we will host COP26 in Glasgow—are all suffering a similar fate. Each budget reduced, each project scaled back and each programme cancelled results in a loss of hard-fought progress, a loss of expertise and, fundamentally, a loss of trust. This so-called temporary measure will inflict long-term damage and long-term pain and suffering, which is why the cut must be urgently reversed. The Government are pretending that there is no other option than to cut from 0.7% to 0.5%, but we know that that is not the case. In fact, it is blatantly not the case.

It must have been a complete humiliation for the UK Government when they hosted the G7 summit in Cornwall last month, which should have been a moment of pride in demonstrating our shared collective values. This House may ask why. It is because every other G7 country has recognised the necessity of helping those in urgent need at this time of unprecedented volatility and increased aid spending.

Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)

I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way, but would he acknowledge that those countries may have raised spending from a much lower level and that we shall still be the third highest in the G7?

Chris Law

I thank the hon. Member for his comments. This is not a question of pride that we are still giving very generously—that we will be the third most generous. We are the sixth wealthiest nation. We keep talking about global Britain, but we are actually a shrinking Britain with these cuts. We are actually losing our soft power. You are going against national security. You are going against our collective national interest right across this House, with every party that is here today.

Sadly, because of these brutal cuts by the UK Government, the massive increase in spending—to come back to the hon. Gentleman’s point— by Germany was effectively cancelled out. Within these islands, I should also add, the Scottish Government have increased their international aid budget by 50%. That puts this House, frankly, at shame with this motion.

It is simply a matter of political priorities, and this Chancellor and this Prime Minister have shown where their priorities lie. Let us not kid ourselves that this is being spent on health, welfare and education at home because it clearly is not. The Chancellor chose to take money away from preventing famine and malnutrition, conflict prevention, and protecting our planet and marginalised communities from the devastating effects of climate change. Instead—I am glad to see the Chancellor in his place—he chose to spend the money on enhanced cyberweapons, AI-enabled drones and, the biggest folly of all, increased stockpiles of nuclear weapons, weapons of mass destruction, after he delivered a windfall for the defence budget—in the very same month the cut from 0.7% to 0.5% was announced.

If that is not an act of national shame, let us look at the icing on the cake. The Prime Minister, who is no longer in his place—he should be embarrassed when I read this—believes that spending upwards of £200 million on a shiny brand new royal yacht, Britannia 2.0, is more important than using lifesaving aid to deliver a more just, peaceful and secure world. That is despite the fact of the royal family’s complete displeasure. Mr Speaker, how un-British could that be?

Mr Speaker

Order. Normally, we do not bring the royal family into our debates. They are outside our debates. Those are the rules of the House.

Chris Law

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I raised it only because it is on the record elsewhere.

Even every former living Prime Minister has opposed this cut and continues to do so. The simple fact is that aid spending has always been in the Prime Minister’s sights, ever since he described it as

“spending huge sums of British taxpayers’ money as though we were some independent Scandinavian NGO”

and

“shovelling money out the door”.

He has now chosen to go against a decades-long cross-party consensus, breaking his own manifesto promise and that of all his Conservative colleagues as he is dragged far right by the UK Independence party and the Brexit party, and implementing their promises to cut aid instead.

This will likely herald a new decade of austerity. Let us call it austerity 2.0. We all know what the first decade was like. There is nothing temporary about this motion. This is not global Britain; this is a nasty, short, poor, brutish and, most of all, very little Britain. Across this House, we all stood on a manifesto commitment to protect the 0.7% spend on international development. That is, for those who are not very good at maths, 7p in every £10. When I describe that to children in primary schools I visit and to young people in my constituency, they are surprised at how little we spend as the sixth wealthiest nation in the world and they are right to be so.

Today, we have an opportunity to reaffirm our values, rather than be led into voting to balance the imaginary books on the backs of the world’s poorest. We must all keep to our word to deliver on our promises to our fellow global citizens who are the most marginalised and vulnerable people on earth. If covid has taught us anything, it is that we all share in the same struggles and challenges, but also the hopes and dreams of a better future, working together as one planet and one community. Now more than ever before we must step up to support our global community, not step away. There is no honour for those who have suffered as a result of this pandemic in stepping away. There is no meaning in the phrase “building back better” if we turn our backs. For those who decide to vote for this immoral motion today, there is no place for you to hide. When asked the question, “Why did you vote for this?” by your own children, friends and family and, equally importantly, constituents, it will be an indelible mark against your opportunity to do the right thing here today and you will have to live with it for the rest of your time in this House.

July 14, 2021
Theresa May – 2021 Speech on Foreign Aid Cuts

The speech made by Theresa May, the former Prime Minister, in the House of Commons on 13 July 2021.

I thank you, Mr Speaker, and the Government for enabling this debate today.

I stood on a manifesto commitment to maintain international aid funding at 0.7% of gross national income—and not just that, because we said:

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

Early last year, the pandemic hit. It had an immediate negative effect on the economy, yet in September 2020, when that effect on the economy had been seen, when public spending was increasing and when the Government were already borrowing hundreds of billions of pounds, they confirmed in their response to the fourth report of the International Development Committee that they would honour that manifesto commitment, saying:

“a commitment enshrined in law and one to which the new Department”—

the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office—

“will honour its responsibilities.”

The Government went on to say that investing that 0.7% was at the heart of the vision of the Government’s integrated review for the UK

“as an active, internationalist, problem-solving and burden-sharing nation.”

Where is that vision now, as the Government turn their back on some of the poorest in the world?

With GNI falling, our funding for aid was falling in any case. To reduce it from 0.7% to 0.5% is a double blow. This is not about palaces for dictators and vanity projects; it is about what cuts to funding mean: fewer girls will be educated, more girls and boys will become slaves, more children will go hungry and more of the poorest people in the world will die.

The Government have promised what they see as a compromise, and I am grateful to the Chancellor for speaking to me last night. I asked how long it would take before the tests are met and we return to 0.7%. I was told, “Four to five years, but it could be sooner, because the economy is recovering so well.” If the motion is defeated tonight, it will be 0.7% from January next year. The Government appear to be saying to us, “We cannot afford 0.7% next year because the economy is doing so badly, but actually the economy is doing so well that we could very well be able to restore 0.7% very soon”. The Government cannot have it both ways.

I certainly doubt whether the tests will ever be met in five years’ time. Meeting them depends not only on a significant recovery in the economy—the Office for Budget Responsibility is forecasting trend growth of less than 2%—but on the Government reining in their inclination to continue to increase public spending. We are told that there will be dire consequences for tax and public spending if this motion is defeated. We have borrowed £400 billion—where are the dire warnings about that? It seems that £4 billion is really bad news; £400 billion—who cares?

Finally, as has been pointed out, the two tests have only been met in one calendar year in the past 20 years. I have been in this House for nearly a quarter of a century. During that time, I have never voted against a three-line Whip from my party. As Prime Minister, I suffered at the hands of rebels. I know what it is like to see party colleagues voting against their Government. We made a promise to the poorest people in the world. The Government have broken that promise. This motion means that promise may be broken for years to come. With deep regret, I will vote against the motion today.

July 14, 2021
Keir Starmer – 2021 Speech on Foreign Aid Cuts

The speech made by Keir Starmer, the Leader of the Opposition, on 13 July 2021.

I start by thanking you, Mr Speaker, and hon. Members from across the House for ensuring that this debate took place today. In particular, I thank the right hon. Members for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) and for Maidenhead (Mrs May). I think they are the “lefty” propagandists that the Prime Minister was talking about a couple of weeks ago. I have to say that if the Prime Minister had confidence in the arguments he is making to this House, he would have given way to them a moment ago so that his arguments could be tested. He does not have confidence in them, otherwise he would have done so—that is obvious already. However, we do welcome the chance to debate this motion.

The motion is broad and, if I may say so, from this Prime Minister it is typically slippery. The House should have had the opportunity for a straight up/down vote on whether to approve or reject the Government’s cut to overseas aid to 0.5%. This motion does not do that. But the Chancellor’s written ministerial statement is clear: if the motion is carried, the cut in overseas aid to 0.5% will effectively carry on indefinitely. I will expand on that point in just a moment—[Interruption.] I will expand on that point and take interventions on it.

Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

Keir Starmer

I am going to develop that argument. When I get to it, I will give way so that that argument can be tested, in the usual way. But if the motion is rejected,

“the Government would consequently return to spending 0.7% of GNI on international aid in the next calendar year”.—[Official Report, 12 July 2021; Vol. 699, c. 4WS.]

Let me be clear: Labour will vote to reject this motion tonight and to return overseas aid to 0.7% of GNI.

Mr Harper

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

Keir Starmer

I am going to summarise my argument—[Interruption.] I am going make my argument, and when I get to the relevant part, I will take interventions.

The case that we make is this: first, that the cut is wrong, because investing 0.7% on international aid is in Britain’s national interest; secondly, because the economic criteria set out by the Chancellor would lead to an indefinite cut that is likely to last beyond this Parliament; and, thirdly, because it matters that this House keeps its word to the voters who elected us. Every Member here—every Member here—was elected on a manifesto to retain the 0.7% target, and it matters that we keep our promises to the world’s poorest, particularly at such a time of global uncertainty.

Mr Harper

I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way. I agree with him about keeping promises, and Conservative Members were also elected to keep fiscal promises to reduce our debt and not to borrow for day-to-day spending. I hope in his remarks he will set out, given that he is not going to support this motion, which areas of spending he is going to cut to pay for it or which taxes he is going to raise. If he does not do either of those things, then I am afraid his promises and his vote today are hollow, and no one will believe him.

Keir Starmer

I have to say that it is a bit rich from someone who may break the manifesto commitment to say that the vote today and the words today are hollow, but just to take that straight on, it is a false economy, I am afraid. Cutting aid will increase costs and have a big impact on our economy. Development aid—we all know this—reduces conflict, disease and people fleeing from their homes. It is a false economy to pretend that this is some sort of cut that does not have consequences.

Mr Mitchell

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is making a House of Commons speech, not a partisan speech. Can I ask him what I would have asked the Prime Minister if the Prime Minister had given way? First, will he confirm that the cut we are discussing today is 1% of the borrowing the Prime Minister described that he quite rightly sanctioned last year? Secondly, will he underline the fact that this was an all-party promise made at the general election by every single one of us, and we really should not break our promises to the poorest in this terrible way?

Keir Starmer

Yes and yes. It was not ambivalent in the manifestos and it was not conditional; it was clear.

On the first part of the argument—the national interest—British aid saves lives, it builds a more secure world, and it promotes democracy and British soft power. For the last 20 years, that has been the political consensus across this House. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown first set the goal of the UK reaching the 0.7% target—[Interruption.] I am making a speech to the House and for the House. David Cameron and the right hon. Member for Maidenhead made it a reality, and we acknowledge that in the right way. It has been supported—[Interruption.] The chuntering is all very well, but this has been a cross-party position for 20 years, and successive Prime Ministers have kept to the commitment. Every other living Prime Minister thinks this is wrong; there is only one Prime Minister who is prepared to do this, and he is sitting there, on the Front Bench. I acknowledge what those on the Benches opposite did in relation to this—the previous Prime Minister is sitting opposite. I am openly acknowledging that, and it has been supported by all parties, and rightly so. As the sixth richest country in the world, Britain has a moral obligation to help the world’s poorest, and our aid budget has done that with fantastic results.

Dame Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

Keir Starmer

I will in a moment.

This has been providing education for women and girls; fighting poverty; providing sanitation, healthcare and vaccines; building resilience and infrastructure; and doing incredible post-conflict and reconstruction work, where I think Britain does a better job than anyone else, so it has real results. Let us be clear what these cuts would mean: 1 million girls losing out on schooling; nearly 3 million women and children going without life-saving nutrition; 5.6 million children left unvaccinated; an estimated 100,000 deaths worldwide. [Interruption] The Prime Minister says “Rubbish”; that is the human toll of the choices the Government are making, and it is not rubbish.

Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)

The case being made by the right hon. and learned Gentleman is that the Prime Minister is making a promise he will not keep, but what did Tony Blair and Gordon Brown do? They made a promise but they never, ever spent 0.7% of GDP on aid, and therefore the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s speech lacks all moral force.

Keir Starmer

They more than doubled it; they set the goal, and then successive Prime Ministers implemented that goal. That is such a weak argument—11 years into this Government that is such a weak argument. When I was Director of Public Prosecutions, which has a five-year term, the very idea that I could turn around four or five years into the role and say it was somebody else’s fault five, 10, 15, 20 years ago—I have always found such an argument particularly weak. This is such a bad argument but it is used all the time. They have been in power for 11 years; either take responsibility for what you are doing or give up.

Our overseas aid budget goes beyond that moral obligation: it also helps build a more stable world and keeps us safer in the UK. In Afghanistan aid has supported improvements in security, in governance, in economic development and in rights for women and girls, yet, despite all the challenges that that country now faces and the security and terrorist threats that that poses to the UK—we know about those, and the previous Prime Minister the right hon. Member for Maidenhead knows about them—UK aid to Afghanistan is being cut from £192.3 million to £38.2 million. That is Afghanistan. [Interruption.] The Prime Minister chunters, but they are actually the Government figures. In Yemen, where there is the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world, UK aid has been cut by nearly 60%; in Syria, the Government are slashing aid by around 50%; and for the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh there is a cut of 42%. All of those decisions will create more refugees, more instability and more people having to flee their homes.

Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)

Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware of the words of General James Mattis, the former United States Defence Secretary? When President Trump proposed cutting overseas aid, General Mattis said, “Fine, cut it, but you will have to give me, the Defence Secretary, more money to buy more bullets.”

Keir Starmer

I am aware of that, and it exposes the false economy argument in the Prime Minister’s case.

This cut will also reduce UK influence just when it is needed most, and of course it risks leaving a vacuum that other countries—China and Russia, for example—will fill. At a time when Britain will host COP26 and has hosted the G7 we should be using every means at our disposal to create a fairer and safer world, but we are the only G7 country that is cutting our aid budget—the only G7 country. That is not the vision of global Britain that those of us on the Labour Benches want to see, and I do not think it is the vision of global Britain that many on the Benches opposite want to see either.

Dame Andrea Leadsom

All of us in this House long to see our aid commitments re-established at 0.7% of national income, but the Leader of the Opposition will nevertheless appreciate that we continue to be one of the most generous foreign aid donors. He is making a good point about the 0.7%, but can he explain why, in all the Labour years of Labour Government, they averaged 0.36% of national income on overseas aid?

Keir Starmer

They doubled it, actually.

Let me turn to my second point, which has already been debated: the economic argument behind the Government’s position. The Prime Minister and Chancellor say that these cuts are unavoidable because of the pandemic and the economic consequences we now find ourselves in, but the whole point of the 0.7% target is that it is relative to the UK’s economic success or challenges: it rises when we grow and falls when we experience economic shock like the pandemic. Nobody in this House is arguing for overseas aid to be maintained at the pre-pandemic level during the downturn in strict terms. We all recognise that a contracting economy means a relative contraction in our aid budget, but the Chancellor and Prime Minister are asking the House to agree to go beyond that, to impose a new target of 0.5% and to create entirely new criteria for ever returning to 0.7%. In effect, the Chancellor is proposing a double lock against reverting to 0.7%. The written ministerial statement makes it clear that Britain will go back to 0.7% only when public debt is falling as a percentage of GDP and there is a “current budget surplus”.

Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)

Will the right hon. and learned Member give way?

Keir Starmer

Let me make this point, and the Prime Minister can intervene if he wants. On the former point, the Office for Budget Responsibility does not predict public debt falling as a percentage of GDP until 2024 or 2025 at the earliest. If the Prime Minister wants to intervene, I am ready. That would mean returning to 0.7% will not happen in any year in this Parliament. I am clear about that. Does anyone want to intervene? That is the OBR’s prediction.

Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for allowing me to intervene. Perhaps he can help in ascertaining when those targets would have been met in the past 20 years.

Keir Starmer

Well, that is a very good point. I think it is once in 20 years. However, there are two points here and, if there is a contrary argument, the Prime Minister can make it. On the first point, the OBR does not predict a fall in debt as a percentage of GDP until 2024 to 2025. Therefore, anybody voting tonight who is pretending to themselves that the cut is temporary and will be changed in a year or two is not looking at the facts. If anybody wants to say they have better statistics and the OBR has got it completely wrong, please do so—that includes the Prime Minister.

On the second point, the OBR does not forecast a current surplus for its entire forecast period. In fact, there is no expected timeline for that criterion to be met at all. What the Chancellor is setting out is not a temporary cut in overseas aid; it is an indefinite cut. Let me remind the House that only, I think, five times in the past 30 years has a current budget surplus been run—four of them, I might add, were under a Labour Government and one under the Conservatives—so the chances of those criteria being met under a Conservative Chancellor are remote at best. All the more so, because the statement creates an artificial £4.3 billion fiscal penalty for any Chancellor who seeks to rebalance the Budget. So this is an indefinite cut—it is not going to be reversed next year or the year after—and, however much the Prime Minister shakes his head, there is no contrary argument.

This is not just about economic necessity; a political choice is being made. Not only is it against our national interest but it further erodes trust in our politics. That brings me to my third point: trust. There is now a central divide in British politics and across the world between those who value truth, integrity and honesty and those who bask in breaking them. We were all elected on manifestos that committed to the 0.7% target. I am proud to have stood on that commitment and I know that many hon. Members across the House are as well.

Mr Simon Clarke

Will the right hon. and learned Member give way?

Keir Starmer

I will in just a moment. Let me quote page 53 of the Conservative manifesto, which says:

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

Do not shake your head, Prime Minister—it is there in black and white. As Conservative Members have said, that is not equivocal or conditional. It was a clear promise to voters and it should be honoured. If it is not, where does that leave us? There are already countless examples of the Prime Minister breaking his promises, such as: no hard border in the Irish Sea; no cuts to our armed forces; and an already-prepared plan for social care—the list is endless. That matters. It matters to the British people that they can trust a Prime Minister to honour a clear commitment. It matters to our reputation around the globe that the word of the British Government will hold in good times and bad.

Today, the House has the chance to stand up for a better kind of politics for the national interest, to do what we know is right and to honour our commitments to the world’s poorest. When the Division is called, Labour MPs will do so, and I am sure that others on the Conservative Benches will do so. I urge all Members to do so.

July 14, 2021
Boris Johnson – 2021 Statement on Foreign Aid Cuts

The statement made by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, on 13 July 2021.

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Written Ministerial Statement relating to Treasury Update on International Aid, which was made to the House on Monday 12 July.

I believe that, on this vital subject, there is common ground between the Government and hon. Members on both sides of the House, in the sense that we believe in the power of aid to transform millions of lives. That is why we continue to agree that the UK should dedicate 0.7% of our gross national income to official development assistance.

This is not an argument about principle. The only question is when we return to 0.7%. My purpose today is to describe how we propose to achieve this shared goal in an affordable way.

Here we must face the harsh fact that the world is now enduring a catastrophe of a kind that happens only once a century. This pandemic has cast our country into its deepest recession on record, paralysing our national life, threatening the survival of entire sectors of the economy and causing my right hon. Friend the Chancellor to find over £407 billion to safeguard jobs and livelihoods and to support businesses and public services across the United Kingdom. He has managed that task with consummate skill and ingenuity, but everyone will accept that, when we are suddenly compelled to spend £407 billion on sheltering our people from an economic hurricane never experienced in living memory, there must inevitably be consequences for other areas of public spending.

Last year, under the pressure of the emergency, our borrowing increased fivefold to almost £300 billion—more than 14% of GDP, the highest since the second world war. This year, our national debt is climbing towards 100% of GDP, the highest for nearly six decades. The House knows that the Government have been compelled to take wrenching decisions, and the International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Act 2015 expressly provides that fiscal circumstances can allow departure from the 0.7% target.

Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and the Chancellor for their constructive engagement with those of us who have been profoundly concerned about our departure from the aid target. Will he reconfirm to me and to the House that this is not a fiscal trap, and that the mechanism set out in a written ministerial statement is a genuine and full-hearted attempt to return to our commitment of 0.7% at the very earliest economically sustainable opportunity?

The Prime Minister

I thank my hon. Friend for his work on and expertise in this matter. I know how deeply he cares about this, in common with many other Members across the House, and I can indeed give him that confirmation. The decision that we made was temporary, to reduce our aid budget to 0.5% of national income.

Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)

Will the Prime Minister give way?

The Prime Minister

With great respect, if the House will allow me, I will make as much progress as I can in this speech, and then allow the, I think, 77 others who wish to contribute to have their say, so I will not take any more interventions.

In the teeth of this crisis, amid all the other calls on our resources, we can take pride in the fact that the UK will still invest at least £10 billion in aid this year—more, as a share of our GDP, than Canada, Japan, Italy and the United States. It would be a travesty if hon. Members were to give the impression that the UK is somehow retreating from the field of international development or lacking in global solidarity. As I speak, this country is playing a vital role in the biggest and fastest global vaccination programme in history. We helped to create COVAX, the coalition to vaccinate the developing world, and we have invested over half a billion pounds in this crucial effort, which has so far distributed more than 100,00 million doses to 135 countries.

The Government’s agreement with Oxford University and AstraZeneca succeeded in producing the world’s most popular vaccine, with over 500 million doses released to the world, mainly to low and middle-income countries, saving lives every hour of every day. The UK’s expertise and resources have been central to the global response to the emergency, discovering both the vaccine and the first life-saving treatment for covid. We have secured agreement from our friends in the G7 to provide a billion vaccines to protect the world by the end of next year, and 100 million will come from the UK. We are the third biggest sovereign donor to the World Health Organisation, and the top donor to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which vaccinates children against killer diseases.

We are devoting £11.6 billion, double our previous commitment, to helping developing countries to deal with climate change, including by protecting their forests and introducing green energy. I can tell the House that this vital investment will be protected.

When it comes to addressing one of the world’s gravest injustices—the tragedy that millions of girls are denied the chance to go to school—the UK has pledged more than any other country, £430 million, to the Global Partnership for Education, in addition to the £400 million that we will spend on girls’ education this year.

Later this month, I will co-host a summit of the partnership in London with President Kenyatta of Kenya. Wherever civil wars are displacing millions or threatening to inflict famine in Syria, Yemen, Ethiopia or elsewhere, the UK is responding with over £900 million of help this year, making our country the third-largest bilateral humanitarian donor in the world. It bears repeating that we are doing this in the midst of a terrible crisis, when our public finances are under greater strain than ever before in peacetime history and every pound we spend in aid has to be borrowed. It represents not our money, but money we are taking from future generations.

Last year, we dissolved the old divide between aid and diplomacy that once ran through the entire Whitehall machine, by creating the new Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. In doing so, my objective was to ensure that every diplomat in our service was actuated by the mission and vision of our finest development officials, and that our aid was better in tune with our national values and our desire to be a force for good in the world. So I can assure any hon. Member who wishes to make the case for aid that they are, when it comes to me or to anyone in the Government, preaching to the converted. We shall act on that conviction by returning to 0.7% as soon as two vital tests have been satisfied. The first is that the UK is no longer borrowing to cover current or day-to-day expenditure. The second is that public debt, excluding the Bank of England, is falling as a share of GDP.

Mr Mitchell

Will the Prime Minister give way?

The Prime Minister

I am just coming to the end. The moment the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts show that both of those conditions will sustainably be met, from the point at which they are met we will willingly restore our aid budget to 0.7%.

Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)

Will the Prime Minister give way?

The Prime Minister

Plenty of people want to speak in this debate. The Government will of course review the situation every year and place a statement before this House in accordance with the International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Act 2015. But as we conduct that annual review, we will fervently wish to find that our conditions have been satisfied. This is one debate where the Government and hon. Members from across the House share the same objective—

Yvette Cooper

Will the Prime Minister give way?

The Prime Minister

I am sure the right hon. Lady will have plenty of time later on.

As I was saying, we share the same objective and the same fundamental convictions. We all believe in the principle that aid can transform lives, and by voting for this motion, hon. Members will provide certainty for our aid budget and an affordable path back to 0.7%, while also allowing for investment in other priorities, including the NHS, schools and the police. As soon as circumstances allow and the tests are met, we will return to the target that unites us, and I commend this motion to the House.

July 14, 2021
Priti Patel – 2021 Statement on the National Crime Agency

The statement made by Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, in the House of Commons on 13 July 2021.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) leads the fight against serious and organised crime. It has the power to task other law enforcement partners and a capability, with local to international reach, to disrupt the impact of serious and organised crime on the UK.

This is the eighth Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services inspection of the NCA and examines the non-specialist NCA investigation teams based at the branch offices across the UK. The focus is specifically on the alignment of investigations to the threats, allocation of resources, and the NCA’s capacity to tackle organised crime.

I have asked HMICFRS to publish the report. It will be published today and will be available online at http://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/. I will arrange for a copy to be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

The inspection found that NCA’s crime reduction function is working well in a number of areas of law enforcement. The agency’s management of the highest priority cases and the difficult management of scarce, specialist resources are effective, and cases being developed by the intelligence command are focused on SOC threats. The agency’s investigators show resilience and flexibility often in difficult conditions. However, the report also identifies a number of areas for improvement, including assessment of capacity in the investigations command to meet the demand being developed by the intelligence command, inadequate level and quality of equipment and access to investigative tools in some parts of the country, an over-reliance on legacy IT systems and the need for consistent investment to ensure the NCA is at the same standards as the police force.

July 14, 2021
Nick Gibb – 2021 Statement on Education Update

The statement made by Nick Gibb, the Minister for School Standards, in the House of Commons on 12 July 2021.

Today, Ofqual and the Department for Education published joint consultations outlining detailed proposals for alternative arrangements for awarding general qualifications in 2022 and vocational and technical qualifications in academic year 2021-22.

These consultations, outlined in “Proposed changes to the assessment of GCSEs, AS and A levels in 2022” and “Arrangements for the assessment and awarding of Vocational and Technical Qualifications and Other General Qualifications in 2021 to 2022”, will end on 1 August for GCSEs, AS and A levels and on 26 July for vocational and technical and other general qualifications. These changes will be for one year only.

The Government have made clear its intention that exams and other assessments should go ahead in the academic year 2021-22. In order to ensure that they can go ahead fairly, however, we must recognise that students in the 2021-22 cohort have experienced significant disruption to their education, and we are proposing that exams and assessments in 2021-22 should be adapted to take this into account.

For GCSEs, AS and A levels we are proposing a package of measures that includes four elements: in those GCSE subjects where it is possible to do so without undermining the assessment, a choice of topics on which students will be assessed; advance information about how exams will be focused for the majority of GCSE, AS and A level subjects; reducing the burden of non-exam assessment in some subjects; and allowing students to have access to support materials in the exam room in a small number of subjects.

For vocational and technical qualifications and other general qualifications, the consultation sets out a suite of proposed measures for those qualifications that are included in performance tables including adaptions such as streamlining assessment, early banking of assessments and providing revision guidance. The consultation focuses on the impact of the measures proposed and updating the existing vocational and technical qualifications contingency regulatory framework to reflect our aim that exams and assessments should go ahead in 2021-22.

The consultation seeks the views of students, parents and carers, teachers, school and college leaders, FE colleges and universities, employers and others before decisions are made on final arrangements. We intend to announce decisions for GCSEs, AS and A levels early in the autumn term and for vocational and technical qualifications and other general qualifications in early August.

As well as these proposed adaptations, Ofqual is considering how best to grade qualifications in 2022 in a way that is as fair as possible to students in that year, those who took qualifications in previous years, and those who will take them in future. Ofqual has statutory responsibility for the maintenance of standards and for public confidence in qualifications, while taking account of Government policy. Ofqual will make a decision once 2021 results are known, and will announce its decisions in the autumn.

We are also continuing to work with Ofqual on contingency plans in case it does not prove possible for exams to go ahead safely and fairly in 2021-22.

July 14, 2021