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  • Andrew Mitchell – 2022 Speech on a Strategy for International Development

    Andrew Mitchell – 2022 Speech on a Strategy for International Development

    The speech made by Andrew Mitchell, the Conservative MP for Sutton Coldfield, in the House of Commons on 6 July 2022.

    It is wonderful not to be on a four-minute time limit for a debate as important as this. I draw the House’s attention to my interests as set out in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

    The Foreign Secretary has inherited a complete mess on development, and I have great sympathy for her in trying to bring some order to things. We are, of course, still spending a very substantial sum on ODA as part of our development budget. However, that sum has reduced from 0.7% to 0.5%, and I want to say a word or two about that.

    If someone was looking for the least good time to reduce this expenditure, they would definitely have chosen the date and the day upon which the Prime Minister made that decision. It was in the foothills of Britain chairing the G7 and at the time of an international global pandemic. Development leadership was really needed, and Britain was in a position to provide it. Britain was acknowledged around the world as an international development superpower and was really in a position to move the dial on these things. But what happened? The Prime Minister reduced ODA from 0.7% to 0.5%, at the very time when British leadership was really needed. Of course, the Prime Minister had also dismantled the Department for International Development, and I will come on to that in a moment, but the point I am seeking to make is that, at a time when Britain could have given real leadership—in one of the few areas where it is acknowledged, post empire, that we are a superpower and have real leadership and skills to impart—the money was reduced.

    Following the pandemic, we see the scourge of famine affecting parts of our world such as the horn of Africa and all the way down the rest of the eastern side of Africa. The right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), who is a former Secretary of State for International Development, will remember the acute leadership that DFID gave, leading other countries to stop famines and starvation in the horn of Africa. That skill has never been more needed than it is today, as we stand before a real threat to people’s lives and livelihoods, but Britain is not in a position to give that leadership.

    I will make two further points on the money. I do not think I will carry the Chair of the Select Committee with me here, although I pay tribute to her leadership of her Committee and the very good work that the Committee is doing, but my advice to the Foreign Secretary, given the complete mess on Britain’s development policy, was to find the money from the multilateral programmes and not from the bilateral programmes. If she is forced to make that decision, a decision she should never have had to make, it is clearly right to take the money from the multilateral programmes, for the same reason that Bonnie and Clyde robbed banks: that is where the money is.

    The big multilateral programmes such as the World Bank are where the money is, and the Foreign Secretary is therefore in my view right to take it from there, but that is not a decision she should have had to make.

    Liam Byrne rose—

    Mr Mitchell

    The effects of taking money from the World Bank are very severe, as I suspect my friend the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) is about to make clear.

    Liam Byrne

    I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, my neighbour, but I disagree with him on this point. With the International Monetary Fund, for example, where we have collectively issued $650 billion of special drawing rights, it would have been sensible for the UK to have stepped up and provided some leadership, sharing a much bigger fraction of the £19 billion we have been given. That would have encouraged the rest of the G7 to follow suit, and the G7 is about one third of the SDR issuance.

    Mr Mitchell

    On that point I completely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. Although I do not want to put words into the Minister’s mouth, I suspect that the Foreign Office wanted to do precisely as the right hon. Gentleman has described, but the Treasury made it extremely difficult. My point is that the savage cuts made to the bilateral programmes, where food was literally removed from the plates of starving children in Yemen, show why, in the end, if the Foreign Secretary is forced to make such decisions, she is right to take the money out of the multilateral programme.

    While I am on the subject, Britain has had a leadership role within the Global Fund, along with the Americans. After 2010, we made a number of substantive changes to make the Global Fund better. It is extremely good spending, for reasons that the Minister will be well aware of, and I urge the Government to ensure that we are as generous as possible on the replenishment of the fund, not least because the Americans have made it clear that they will be even more generous than they are already being if other countries put their money where their mouth is. There is a real incentive of getting far more bang for the British taxpayer’s buck in helping with the replenishment of the Global Fund.

    My other point about the money, and again I hope the Chair of the Select Committee will forgive me for making it, is that I do not believe it is sensible to go in one year from 0.5% to 0.7%. The Chancellor has already committed to bringing back the 0.7% in two years’ time. The year before that, he should go to 0.6%. I say that for two reasons.

    There is quite a lot of money involved, and although there is no doubt we could spend it well through the multilateral system, I do not think the British taxpayer would believe that such a big uplift in one year could guarantee that the money was really well spent, and I do not want to test their patience on this. I want to make sure that we can look the British taxpayer in the eye and say that, for every pound of their hard-earned money that we spend on international development, we are delivering 100p of value on the ground. I urge Treasury Ministers to consider bringing back the 0.6% next year and the 0.7% the year after, and not doing it in one lump, which I believe is the current plan.

    Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)

    I commend the right hon. Gentleman on the book he wrote, which I remember reading about two months ago. In that book, he referred to the role he previously held in the then Department for International Development, and from what he said it was clear to me that the benefits of the money the United Kingdom spends are not just marked in financial terms, but in terms of the effect on people across the countries it helps. Does he agree that for those reasons, the good that it does is much more important than the money itself?

    Mr Mitchell

    My hon. Friend—he is my hon. Friend—is absolutely right in what he says, and it is very good of him to make mention of my book, “Beyond a Fringe: Tales from a Reformed Establishment Lackey”, which is still available in bookshops. I am very grateful indeed to him for drawing the House’s attention to that. I should say that the Minister, who has a starring role in my book, understands these issues, and I absolve her of all blame for any of the criticism I am making because she inherited much of this situation and was not responsible for it.

    The real problem, which is even worse than breaking our promise on the money, is the vaporisation of DFID. I think the abolition of DFID is now acknowledged in almost every corner as an absolute disaster because it has cut at a stroke the expertise assembled by Britain. The international community used to come to Britain to come to DFID, and to our universities with their programmes that were so closely entwined with DFID, to see how to drive forward the efforts in their part of the world to degrade and try to eliminate grinding international poverty. Most importantly, the top 100 people who were responsible for driving forward the Government’s agenda in DFID have gone. Of course they have, because they have been headhunted by the international system, whether in New York, Geneva or the charitable sector. They have gone because they see a Government who do not recognise or appreciate that extraordinary skill that existed in DFID. The Government are now faced with a large budget but a diminishing level of expertise.

    It is even worse than that, because the Prime Minister decided that we should not revert to what Mrs Thatcher so rightly had—the Overseas Development Administration as a Department within the Foreign Office that Tony Blair subsequently took into DFID. The Prime Minister does not want an ODA in the Foreign Office because he knows that if it was there, another Administration after him could immediately re-set up, or try to re-set up, DFID, and he wants development done on a geographical basis. That is the destruction of a real hub and driver of UK leadership, influence, expertise and knowledge. All that has now gone.

    All international development spending is about Britain’s national interest. It is spent largely in areas where we have a historical connection. When I was DFID Secretary, the Foreign Office always had a view, which we always accepted, about where was the best place in which British influence through development could and should be exerted. The aim of international development policy, which Britain drove forward so successfully under both political parties for so very many years, was to build safer and more prosperous communities overseas. It was to make sure that we helped countries, through partnership, to deal with conflicts—to stop conflicts starting, or, once a conflict had started, to eliminate it and reconcile people who had been torn apart by it, and then to build prosperity and help to promote economic activity to ensure that people had the tools to lift themselves out of poverty. It was hugely in our national interest to pursue those policies because it made us safer in Britain and more prosperous as well. The world is a small place and we are all increasingly dependent on each other. That is an eternal truth.

    Furthermore, building stronger and safer societies over there helps to stop the high level of migration, which is now being fuelled by starvation and famine, climate change emergencies, and the ease of travel. The whole burden of British development policy was to try to help to resolve that by building those safer and more prosperous societies overseas.

    Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)

    The right hon. Gentleman is making an incredibly powerful speech. Does he agree that there is a direct link between the poor people coming across on boats that this Government are now intent on rounding up and putting in detention centres, until legal challenge is stopped, to send them off to Rwanda, and the aid that we are no longer giving to the country they have come from, thus forcing them in that direction? If we want to stop people making those dangerous journeys, is not the best investment we can make to help them to do what they want to do, which is to stay where they were born and where they can be prosperous?

    Mr Mitchell

    The hon. Lady has said more eloquently than me precisely why this is such an important aspect of British policy and also why it is strongly approved of by the Daily Mail and the right, which is because it helps achieve the aim of mitigating and addressing flows of migration and refugees. That brings me to my next point, of which again the Chair of the Select Committee may not approve. I am not opposed to sending people who have been processed here, and who are not eligible for asylum here, to Rwanda, if it is prepared to take them, which it is. I know Rwanda very well. I was there recently for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, participating in an investment conference. It is a wonderful place, and I have no objection in principle to us sending people there, once they have been processed here, if Rwandans are prepared to take them.

    However, there are two problems with the current policy. One is that it will not work, and the second is that it is extraordinarily expensive. In this business, there is no alternative but to put in the work, to do the hard yards and to recognise that we have to process far more quickly and effectively people who are coming to our shores, many of whom are fleeing persecution in great jeopardy. We need to hear their cases and process them.

    Secondly, we need to open up lawful, legal and safe routes. At the moment, those legal and safe routes do not exist. They exist for Ukrainians, and they did exist for Afghanis—and some time ago for Syrians—but for others they do not. Some 87% of the people who come to our shores come from just four countries, and we should remember that 75% of them end up being found eligible to stay in the country. We need these proper legal routes, we need to process in the right way and we need to restore the relationship with France.

    The relationship with France, as anyone who has engaged with the French Government in any way in recent weeks and months will know, is appalling and needs to be restored. There are huge reservoirs of knowledge in this country about France and of good will with senior French politicians. Politicians on both sides of the channel know each other well, and the relationship has never been worse than it is today. It urgently needs to be restored if we are to address the issues that exist in the channel. They are issues of life and death and of order, and we cannot address them properly if we are at loggerheads with a country 22 miles away across the channel.

    The final thing that we have to do if we are to resolve these issues is renegotiate the 1951 Geneva convention on refugees, which was set up largely by British effort. It was British officials who helped corral all the different parties to accept this international convention, but it was made at a time when travel was not as easy as today. The situation has completely changed. If we are to resolve this problem, which will get worse because of climate change migration, we need to understand that the rich world has to play its part if it expects the poor world to comply. That is a real job of work.

    On 25 July, just under a year ago, I had this precise conversation with the Prime Minister, who described the analysis as excellent, but nothing has been done in the past year to give some extra strength and a boost to the international system to do something about it. That is my objection to the Rwanda plan. It is not that I am seduced by the relevant lobby; my objection is one of severe practicality and cost, and the plan just will not work.

    Having broken our promise on the budget and having effectively abolished the Department, we are now left with a big budget being spent in ways that are determined by the Foreign Office. I remind the House that it was a law of Whitehall that while the Foreign Office did prose, the Department for International Development did money. Whenever Tony Blair and David Cameron went to an international conference where money was being discussed, they always took a senior DFID official, because DFID, as even the Treasury would admit, was extremely good at money and running money.

    Frankly, the idea of these brilliant diplomats who prosecute British diplomacy so well being responsible for and running multimillion-pound development programmes should give the taxpayer the heebie-jeebies. What will happen is this: the Daily Mail will discover examples of Foreign Office misspending of the ODA budget, and it will rightly pick up on them. It will say, “If Britain cannot honour its pledge to the taxpayer of value for money, and if it spends money badly in this way, why do we have this budget at all? Why don’t we spend all the money on our schools and hospitals here?” The argument will be made for abolishing the budget altogether, and if it is made on the back of misspending, it will be heard by our constituents.

    The Independent Commission for Aid Impact is the watchdog that reports on international development—rightly, to the Select Committee and not to Ministers who can sweep inconvenient truths under the carpet. It draws its power from the legislature and is an important new part of the Government’s architecture. Officials hate it because, of course, it can look at what they are doing and expose them. It is the taxpayer’s friend, it reports to Parliament, and Ministers have the benefit of its work, attention and rigour. It is a vital tool of making policy, so I urge the Minister, who understands such things, to become its strong supporter.

    Sarah Champion

    I pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman for the formation of the ICAI, which absolutely does its job of scrutinising where the money goes. Does he share my concern that, at the moment, its future budget has not been signed off and it looks like its funding will be reduced, which means that its ability to scrutinise will be reduced as well?

    Mr Mitchell

    Of course, all the officials in the Foreign Office will want to reduce ICAI expenditure—first because they will have perfectly respectable arguments for where else the money could be spent, and secondly because they know that the way to emasculate it is to cut its expenditure. That will mean that it cannot investigate without fear and favour on behalf of the taxpayer who, as I say, is the main beneficiary. I agree with the hon. Lady and very much hope that her voice will be heard.

    I will end on the subject of China, which seems to bring the whole argument together. In 2009, the Conservative Opposition decided that all development money for China would end. We did that because China has roared out of poverty; if we look at what China and India have done for poverty alleviation, we see that the results are sensationally good. China has done so much to tackle poverty and its GDP is bigger than ours, so there was clearly no case for expecting the British taxpayer to pay any money at all for development in China. I was sent by David Cameron to inform Madam Fu, the Chinese ambassador, of the decision that if we were elected and had the privilege of forming a Government, there would be no more ODA spend to China. She gave me a tremendous ticking off, but the Chinese accepted it.

    When we went into government in 2010, the first thing I did when I had the privilege and honour of going into my new DFID office was to say, “No more ODA money for China. That was our commitment at the election to our constituents, and unless it’s legally due now, there’s to be no more ODA spend in China.” Basically, since that day, DFID—when it was DFID—has not spent money in China. There were long-tail projects that it could not end, but apart from that, it did not spend any more.

    Significant money continues to be spent in China, however, by the Foreign Office, and it is not really development money. Providing that money is, the Foreign Office thinks, the best way to suck up to the Chinese Government, but it is not spent sensibly. Between 2009 and 2011, in the incoming years of the Conservative Government, the expenditure was reduced from £49 million to £15 million. Between 2014 and 2019, however, that ODA expenditure—taxpayers’ money—on the development budget in China rose from £23 million to £68 million. That was the highest figure, but I understand that it was £64 million in 2020. What on earth are the Government doing spending ODA money in China? We promised the electorate that we would not do it. DFID did not do it. It is not a development priority, there is no case for it and it should be stopped.

    The second thing I ask of the Minister—the first was her trenchant support for the ICAI—is to commit to the House that there will be full transparency on ODA money that is spent in China. How much is it, and on what is it being spent? There is a suggestion that some of this money has been spent on prison reform in China. If that is the case, then for reasons that everyone will understand, it is an absolute disgrace. I hope the Minister will reassure us that, if that was happening, it is not happening any more and it will not happen again.

    There has been further disingenuity, I would say, about spending in China, with the former Foreign Secretary announcing he was reducing it by 95%. That prompts the question of what it was doing being spent in the first place, but I suspect that figure is 95% of what the Foreign Office was spending and does not include what was being spent by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. I end on this point: I am pretty sure that the money spent by BEIS has been tied aid. As the House will know, it is absolutely not allowed to spend money on tied aid—we are subject to numerous conventions we have signed not to do so—and I think it may even be against the law.

    My point is that, because we no longer have the rigour and expertise of a separate Government Department that ensures this money is well spent, delivers results and gives value for money both to our partners on the ground and to the British taxpayer—we have lost that—we now have the very unrigorous and uncertain system of controls that previously led to the Pergau dam issue. We do not have the controls we had in the past, and the reputation of Foreign Office Ministers, the Foreign Office and the Government are very much at risk as a result.

  • Sarah Champion – 2022 Speech on a Strategy for International Development

    Sarah Champion – 2022 Speech on a Strategy for International Development

    The speech made by Sarah Champion, the Chair of the International Development Committee, in the House of Commons on 6 July 2022.

    Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is always a pleasure to serve under your guidance. I also wish to thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate on the spending of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office on the strategy for international development.

    A year ago, I stood in this Chamber to open an estimates day debate on the FCDO’s main estimate. At that point, the Department had recently changed the format of its spending plans, which made scrutiny incredibly difficult. I wish to take this opportunity to thank FCDO officials who have worked with House of Commons staff over the past year to restore and improve the quality of information available in the estimate, allowing my Committee and Members to fulfil their crucial role in holding the Government to account for how they spend their aid.

    Much has changed since I made that speech last year, but one in 10 people around the world are still living in extreme poverty. That simply cannot be right. Today, I wish to reflect on the enormous potential that lies within the poorest communities in the world and on how the UK Government’s aid spending should seek to develop that potential, transforming lives and creating a fairer, more inclusive world for all.

    In the past few weeks, we have finally seen the Government release their new international development strategy. Combined with this main estimate, the approach signals a new era in how the UK spends its development funding, but I am simply not convinced that this approach will help the very poorest people in the world. It is clear that the Government’s priorities are increasingly about trade, security and creating British jobs, but the legally mandated objective of UK aid spending is to reduce poverty. That must remain front and centre.

    The Government’s plans described a more hard-nosed, investment-driven approach to UK official development assistance. Capital investment expenditure—spending that is used, for example, on infrastructure projects—has increased by 49% compared with the last financial year, but relative day-to-day spending, from which traditional aid programmes would typically be funded, has increased by only 8.5%.

    Investment partnerships are becoming a more dominant feature of UK aid. British International Investment will receive a further £200 million in capital from the FCDO, and the amount of funding channelled through BII is set to increase dramatically over the next two years. Economic and investment-led development certainly has a place in any coherent development strategy, but it tends to benefit those who are engaged, or are able to engage, with the formal labour market. I am not convinced that this approach will help the poorest and most marginalised groups around the world. I am just not convinced that it will help them to achieve their potential or create long-lasting development in their communities.

    Putting all of the UK’s development eggs in the economic basket will mean that swathes of people are left behind: disabled people, minorities, and women and girls. How does the FCDO’s approach help them to reach their potential and enrich their communities? I have no doubt that UK investments can fund and support some truly transformative projects. However, we need to get the basics right first, otherwise how will those projects succeed?

    Investing in new roads does not help a girl who cannot access clean water. A new telecoms network is not much use to a boy who cannot get vital vaccines. We need basic support in place first, before those investments can succeed. Get the foundations right, and then development will flourish. Under DFID, it was clear how UK aid was working towards the attainment of the UN sustainable development goals—the map to lifting people out of poverty and keeping them out of it—but this strategy barely refers to the SDGs.

    It is hard to know whether we are on the right path to development without the map that the SDGs provide. With the integration of development and wider foreign policy objectives, helping the poor increasingly seems to be seen as a by-product of British foreign policy, rather than an end in itself. In fact, this Government strategy has no qualms about UK aid being “overtly geopolitical”. The strategy seeks to actively draw lower income countries away from the influence of authoritarian regimes, and to promote freedom and democracy around the world.

    However, what about the communities living in countries that are not a pressing priority for achieving a foreign policy aim, or whose Governments do not share UK objectives? Are we leaving those communities behind? What happens to their potential? In my Committee’s work, we have heard that different types of development problems require different approaches. Sometimes spending through bilateral programmes is effective, and sometimes putting funds through multilaterals—such as Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, or the World Food Programme—is more effective. We need to use the right tools for the job.

    The UK is stepping back from its commitment to multilateral co-operation and placing more emphasis on bilateral spending. The Foreign Secretary told my Committee that, in 2022-23, £3.7 billion of UK aid funding will be spent through multilaterals. By 2024-25, it will be £2.4 billion—a 35% reduction in just two years. The UK’s contribution to major multilateral institutions means that we generate goodwill and we also have a huge influence over the way global institutions spend tens of billions of dollars each year.

    Our multilateral investments are also a lever in investments from elsewhere, meaning that they have a multiplier effect, but the UK will be reducing its contribution to the World Bank by an astonishing 54%. If the UK is looking to increase its influence on the global stage, it seems counter-intuitive to step away from that leadership role.

    Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)

    I am grateful to the Chair of the Select Committee, who is making a brilliant speech. Does she agree that it is in Britain’s interests to use multilateral institutions, rather than to simply donate bilaterally, because that multiplies the impact that we can have?

    Sarah Champion

    My right hon. Friend is absolutely correct. At a time of such international uncertainty, a policy of giving away influence and friendships that have taken decades, if not centuries, to build up seems a very strange way to further the interests of this country, let alone the poorest in the world.

    Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)

    My hon. Friend is making a very good speech, and I strongly agree with her point about multilateralism. May I take her back to a debate she initiated in Westminster Hall on the plight of the Palestinians and the role of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency—a crucial part of the multilateral system that does so much to support Palestinians in the worst conditions in Gaza, the west bank and elsewhere in the middle east? I am sure my hon. Friend agrees that it would be good to hear from the Minister how the UNRWA pledging conference went—the Minister was good enough to reference the conference in her response to the debate last week—as well as what Britain’s contribution was and why no Minister from the UK attended.

    Sarah Champion

    I second everything my hon. Friend has said. We have a number of significant pledges that are coming up or being processed—I am thinking, for example, of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. It would be so short-sighted to step away from investments that we have been making for so long, when we are at a real crisis point on many issues, whether that is solving the problem of malaria or HIV or just maintaining what we have already built up. So I completely support what my hon. Friend has said.

    The Government are blunting a key tool in the development toolbox by not continuing their support of multilaterals. Let us remember that they have chosen to cap the aid budget at 0.5% of gross national income. We face an unprecedented set of crises around the world—the war in Ukraine, hunger in the horn of Africa and the devastating impacts of climate change—so we must spend every penny of the budget in the most effective way possible. Sadly, I am not convinced that the direction we are taking with this spending allows us to do that.

    There is enormous potential in the poorest communities around the world, and UK aid can empower people to help themselves, creating long-term, sustainable economies, but we need to help lift people out of poverty first and make those transformations permanent.

  • David Lammy – 2022 Speech on the NATO Accession of Sweden and Finland

    David Lammy – 2022 Speech on the NATO Accession of Sweden and Finland

    The speech made by David Lammy, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, in the House of Commons on 6 July 2022.

    I thank the Minister for advance sight of her statement. The accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO is an historic decision that is wholeheartedly welcomed by the Labour party. Finland and Sweden will be valuable members of this alliance of democracies that share the values of freedom and the rule of law and that seek peace through collective security.

    Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine is a turning point for Europe. As we strengthen UK and European security, it is more important than ever to do so alongside our allies. The great post-war Labour Government was instrumental in the creation of NATO and the signing of the North Atlantic treaty in 1949. Seven decades later, the alliance remains the cornerstone of our defence, and Labour’s commitment to NATO is unshakeable.

    I have visited both Finland and Sweden in recent months to discuss the consequences of Russia’s attack on Ukraine. I have seen the careful, considered and democratic approach that the Governments of both countries have taken to this new security context. They saw the need to think anew and to reassess the assumptions of the past. I pay tribute to the Swedish and Finnish Foreign Ministers, Ann Linde and Pekka Haavisto, for their roles in stewarding this process. It is a remarkable illustration of the dangers that Putin poses that Sweden and Finland have reversed their long-held policies of non-alignment. But is it also a demonstration of the way that Russia’s attack on Ukraine has had the opposite effect from what was intended—strengthening rather than weakening NATO, unifying rather than dividing the alliance. As the recent Madrid summit demonstrated, NATO is responding resolutely to the threat Russia poses and adapting to the challenges of the future.

    I do note, though, that although Finland and Sweden and many other NATO allies, including Germany, have reassessed their defence planning in this new context, the UK has not. Labour, in government, did exactly that after the 9/11 attacks, introducing the longest sustained real-terms increase in spending for two decades. We believe that the Government should reboot defence plans and halt cuts to the Army, as we have been arguing for months. We also believe that it is important to deepen our security co-operation with our European allies and the EU, as a complement to NATO’s role as the bedrock of Euro-Atlantic security.

    Turning to the mechanism of ratification, in normal circumstances we would rightly expect the House to have appropriate time to consider and consent to the ratification of an international treaty of this importance. But these are not normal circumstances, and there are clear risks to both countries from a drawn-out accession process, so we recognise the need for the Government to act with haste in these exceptional circumstances.

    I thank the Foreign Secretary for keeping me up to date on that particular matter, and for the Government’s decision to come to update the House today. It provides an opportunity for the whole House to send a united message of support to our new allies and I hope it will encourage other NATO partners to move swiftly in the ratification process too. Putin has sought division, but has only strengthened Europeans’ unity and NATO’s resolve. We stand together in defence of democracy and the rule of law.

  • Jeremy Quin – 2022 Speech at the RUSI Conference

    Jeremy Quin – 2022 Speech at the RUSI Conference

    The speech made by Jeremy Quin, the Defence Procurement Minister, on 7 July 2022.

    Some of you may have wondered whether this event would proceed this morning. Thank you for keeping the faith and being here.

    All of us in Defence have a profound sense of the weight of responsibility in undertaking the tasks with which we are charged even in the most difficult of circumstances.

    From a personal perspective I think the Prime Minister has shown enormous leadership on Ukraine which will be a lasting legacy and he has proved a good friend for defence. I wholly understand why he is now stepping down, it is the right decision, and I wish him well.

    Now to Defence. We meet in historic times and I am delighted that the process of Nato ratification of Finnish and Swedish accession is underway with Canada the first to complete the process so far.

    I have visited Finland on several occasions as Defence Minister especially in the run up to their HX competition.

    I confess to being delighted yet bemused by being engaged in earnest debate on the differential performance of F35, Grippen and Eurofighter not just by the Finnish Government but by a Helsinki taxi driver and a wide array of Finnish citizens.

    It transpired that a considerable number of the men and women on the Helsinki omnibus knew all about the munitions carriage and stealth in modern combat air, such is their personal focus on their nation’s defence – and for good reason.

    While debate of this nature in the United Kingdom is rather more muted, I learned early on in my role that a Defence Procurement Minister can rely on strong and informed debate via the medium of Twitter.

    There is often complete agreement on Twitter than an issue must be aired if a less uniform view on how it should be concluded.

    Underpinning all such debates, RUSI has remained supreme in offering detailed and considered views on defence. I have often said that our defence industry is a strategic national asset. Without comparing the two in terms of scale I have no doubt I can say the same of RUSI.

    It has been a constant through a great deal of change. Including changes in Defence Procurement Ministers. In the two calendar years prior to my appointment in February 2020 no fewer than 5 Defence Procurement Ministers held office.

    No wonder in the introductory call with my German counterpart he warmly welcomed me and I quote “to the plushest ejector seat in UK Defence.”

    I feel today, two and half years in, the same excitement and determination I did on day one. It is an extraordinary role it is a privilege to serve – and above all to have the opportunity to work with truly excellent and committed colleagues in and out of uniform.

    Unlike my Commons Defence Ministerial colleagues who have all served their country on the front line of combat operations and done so with distinction, the nearest I have got to action was serving in the treasury during the financial crisis and the whips office during Brexit.

    However, we are all at our strongest working in teams and I indebted to the huge support of the Defence Secretary who is doing an outstanding job and all my ministerial colleagues.

    My 25 years of experience in business before entering parliament means I often start a debate on procurement from a different perspective but we invariably come to the same conclusion –

    We recognise Core skills.

    Fundamental focus on the tasks we need to meet.

    Ruthless prioritisation within budget.

    Working with suppliers through partnership.

    Creating and retaining the Skills base we need to deliver.

    One learns early on that Defence Procurement isn’t easy.

    We are delivering “Some of the most technically complicated, risky and costly procurements in Government.”

    Not my words but those of the NAO.

    Whilst our national debates are not as active as those on the Helsinki omnibus, defence procurement can occasionally hit the news and, if I may share a secret with you, that’s not hugely when projects are going well.

    From some of the commentary, one could be forgiven for believing that every defence procurement is late and every project is over budget.

    In point of fact nearly three quarters of DE&S projects have already delivered or are expected to hit their original P50 cost estimate. In a world dominated by covid and supply chain hold-ups, over half of DE&S projects have been or are expected to be on their P50 estimated delivery time – and this audience is wise to the fact that by definition not all projects will come in within a P50 estimate.

    In addition, since 2016 we have made £5.9 billion of independently assured efficiencies on our Equipment plan – genuine improvements with the same output being delivered for lower cost.

    The DPAG which was established through the Spending Round, has met regularly since has recognised a changed MOD with greater clarity and transparency – determined to recognise and fix issues, not hide them.

    However, and especially on delivery the overall position is of course not where we want it to be, there is room for huge improvement and I am determined that the reforms we are driving will deliver just that – but this is a solid base from which to drive performance.

    The reasons why we must get better are legion, but the pressing current is all too obvious.

    Since 1989 our belief in what the collapse of the Berlin Wall presaged has dictated the size of not just our forces but has driven changes to the structure, capability and even the expectations that we place upon our entire Defence sector.

    As the Secretary of State has said, the way we’ve been doing defence for the last three decades is no longer adequate for the threats we are facing today.

    We thankfully got ahead of the game in recognising the changed world when the Prime Minister took the strong decision to invest an extra £24 billion in Defence in 2020.

    And we are even more thankful that last Thursday the Prime Minister went one step further by making clear that the critical capabilities we are pursuing in defence from FCAS to AUKUS mean that we will reach 2.5% of GDP by the end of the decade.

    We need to ensure that not only will the equipment procured be deployed effectively by all our armed forces, including as vividly set out by the new CGS through “Operation Mobilise”. We need to ensure we deliver that equipment on time on budget and to the very best of our ability.

    All of which brings me right back to procurement.

    Given the scale of the task ahead an eye-catching route would be to seize the opportunity for a “review”.

    I dare say this would immediately get plaudits and Defence would be praised for recognising historic issues and seeking external insight as to how we meet fresh challenges.

    Except I don’t think that’s getting after the issues at all. I fear that’s hiding from them. After all we’ve been round this buoy before, many times actually, we’ve had 13 reviews in one form or other of defence procurement in the last 30 years.

    We know what happens. We have seen it in public and private sector alike. The self-absorption of the process. The inertia while its conducted. Good people getting frustrated. The less good eagerly awaiting a game of musical chairs when the distracting music finally stops.

    In all the analysis I have seen, of international comparators, or different structural options here in the UK the one point that has stood out is that there is no nirvana.

    Every model set up to deliver equipment, equipment which has never previously been created before but which may be needed in service for decades and which will depends on multiple untested linkages, will be vulnerable to the challenge of delivering those projects.

    There is no single bullet. In the same way that our uniformed colleagues succeed by constant work, upskilling, agility and attention to detail we need to do the same.

    We know what the challenges are.

    We know what we need to do to overcome them.

    It’s often the small things that derail big projects. When the Apollo 13 mission was aborted the problem turned out to be something as small as damaged electrical wire insulation.

    Sometimes you don’t need to overhaul the whole system. You just need to fix the wiring.

    And our approach to procurement requires a remorseless focus on getting the basics right.

    First making the structure of what we do as clear and simple as possible, junking unnecessary bureaucracy and injecting flexibility and agility into our processes. We are doing just this through the Procurement Bill which is wending its way through the Lords now and is a cast iron exemplar of our commitment to ongoing sensible reform.

    Secondly take skills. If our people are going to be working on the most sophisticated projects around, we are going need to make sure they are better trained, more experienced and have more time to dedicate to the task.

    So that’s what we’ve been doing.

    Our Senior Responsible Officers for all our major projects are now required to complete the Infrastructure and Projects Authority’s Major Projects Leadership Academy.

    Around 40% of major projects currently meet or exceed the 50% SRO time commitment, up from 23% previously and we are determined that this upward trajectory must continue.

    We are encouraging commands to consider rank-ranged posts to enable SROs to be promoted within a project and also to align military SRO postings with key project milestones.

    We are determined to create a broader bench of SROs, civilian and military, growing experience over time so that we have people able to better deliver for us in the years ahead.

    And we’re investing in skills more broadly.

    All of the most senior DE&S finance and accounting staff now have professional Chartered Accounting qualifications.

    While more than 80% of our commercial staff are qualified with the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS) or are studying for their qualifications, and we also have a finance graduate development programme and a finance apprentice scheme.

    Meanwhile, to streamline our approvals processes we are developing new approaches and tools to support proportionate, risk-based, assurance activity. This ensures our effort is focused in the highest risk areas, so we can continue to take robust, evidence-based investment decisions.

    Programmes such as the Vehicle Storage and Support Programme have used these new approaches to save time and drive pace in delivery.

    Reducing time on bureaucracy saves time and money and I know that the more we are seen to deliver the greater will be the trust in defence in the Cabinet Office and Treasury and the more we can in turn reduce timelines external to the Department.

    But the hardest things to fix in any organisation are not the practical problems but the cultural ones.

    These are issues which span both defence and the industry –

    I have spoken on occasion at Staff College courses and one of the things with which I have been struck is how these brilliant and committed officers have been imbued with a sense throughout their service career that you don’t go to Higher Command with a problem, you go with a solution. Don’t second guess, find a solution and deliver.

    We all get that on operations but procurement works to different rules.

    When you are ordering state of the art weaponry which has never previously been manufactured the one thing you can guarantee is that there will be problems.

    Raising concerns, seeking external advice, ensuring issues are addressed not hidden. That is what we require from our procurement teams.

    One example of where, faced by externally created issues, we let ourselves down comes through in the Ajax Health and Safety Report. And we know that Ajax is not unique.

    So, we need to learn these lessons… We need to be open… We need to be honest with each other… We need to share.

    On Ajax we have commissioned a further review by Clive Sheldon QC and I have no doubt we have valuable lessons to implement.

    So, we can tighten up our own act to be better customers but it takes two to make a partnership work.

    This is one of the core emphases of DSIS which the thoughts of RUSI over many years have been incorporated in the work we did in taking DSIS forward.

    Not only do we have DSIS but many sub-sector reports from AI to the Land Industrial Strategy that have followed.

    Underpinned as they all are by the Equipment Plan (which I will remind you for the first time in years according to the NAO is not unaffordable!) and by the Defence Capability Framework which was published yesterday setting out our plans for military capability development.

    Defence has never been more transparent in setting out how we believe we can address emerging threats nor more open about seeking the engagement of industry and academia in meeting them.

    Through the Defence Command Paper we have deleted programmes we can’t afford and we are focusing on the projects we need to deliver and we know we can finance.

    We are investing in capabilities that will be delivered, at pace with certainty that spiral upgrades will follow– maintaining skills, maintaining R&D and maintaining joint working long after FOC. Front Line Commands need to know that they will not only get good kit into service but that perfection can be delivered overtime rather than overburdening the camel at the start of its journey with far too many straws.

    Industry needs to deliver on the open architectures and room for development that we all know are vital to enabling spiral development and accessing a wider eco-system of providers.

    We are doing our bit on investment in R&D, the long decline over 30 years has already been checked and reversed. This is surely as leading an indicator as there can be about our seriousness to deliver – £6.6 billion of ringfenced funding to drive forward the game-changing ideas of the future.

    And we know the game has evolved. 50 years ago, if my predecessors had a challenge they could bring five companies into the office and discuss who’d be best at bashing bits of metal together to make a better bit of metal.

    But these days the answers to our future needs could just as easily be found in a university lab, or any number of brilliant SMEs.

    We know we need to harvest wider ingenuity than ever before and we have seen that it works.

    Working in partnership through our new Regional Defence Clusters across the UK, at the brandnew Defence Battlelab, at the newly created Newcastle AI Hub among other defence centres of excellence to produce the goods.

    In the last five years our Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) has provided over £180 million worth of funding for more than 1,000 projects, 58% of which were awarded to SMEs.

    Our Defence Technology Exploitation Programme will help support these SMEs to work with Primes to deliver their brilliant thinking to the front line.

    As I set out in the SME Action Plan earlier this year we have already increased SMEs shares of our procurement spend from 16 to 23 per cent and there is further to go.

    One of the joys of working with SMEs is their sheer agility

    Technology is evolving quickly and we need to be able to mobilise quickly to harness these new ideas and get them into the hands of the users. We do this in response to urgent requirements as a matter of course.

    Over the last 120 days I have seen one SME taking the early concept of some serious military equipment through contract to mass production and delivery. I have seen dozens of others produce brilliant ideas for our Ukraine Innovation challenge which we are going through right now.

    Evidence from Ukraine is that low value capabilities adapted quickly from the commercial market can have an asymmetric and significant effect on the battlefield.

    In these situations, we have shown that we can change our procurement and certification risk appetite and adapt to the circumstances.

    We need this approach to become more mainstream in procurement and free up our acquisition professionals to think outside the box and incentivised to deliver.

    There are not many positive stories written about defence acquisition – you all know that in this room – and this has driven a risk averse culture through the organisation – nobody enjoys being constitutionally quite properly put through the ringer at select committee.

    But the fact is that if we are to get ahead, then we need to take measured risk and accept that not everything will be always be delivered to plan.

    In the new world we have to take risks and be willing to move on when projects hit the buffers.

    I enjoy having meetings when SROs tell me that all is well.

    I enormously respect SROs who come to me in candour to explain the problems their work has exposed – whether that means projects are rated RED or Amber and we know what we must to do turn them around.

    Or ultimately when we know it’s time to pull the plug, fail fast and reinvest.

    Problems will happen it’s how we respond to those problems that matters.

    And to have the right kit we need to take risks and we need industry to deliver.

    Let’s be clear back in 1937, to use General Patrick’s comparator, there was no doubt why we needed a strong on-shore Defence industry.

    And once again the need for the West in general and the UK in particular to be able to churn out quality kit to meet our needs is very stark.

    It is very clear to the British people that we need armed forces to deter our adversaries and that we need them to be supplied reliably, swiftly and effectively.

    But there is more than that in the equation and that points to the national security that is delivered through national prosperity.

    I am so pleased that the JEDHub Annual Economic Report has set out clearly the distinct and vital role that is played by defence in our wider economy. This is just the base from which I am confident we will see rapid growth in the years ahead.

    JEDHub revealed a growing sector, delivering greater productivity than wider manufacturing, growing investment in skills and R&D. A sector enmeshed in exports with nearly 40 per cent of surveyed jobs supported by international business. A sector which distributes jobs and prosperity right across our Union.

    A sector which we are ensuring through the application of social value in our tenders is delivering not just critical capability but more widely for our country.

    Our national agenda for levelling up and strengthening our Union is vital and every part of our country will benefit as we invest in our own defence and help secure the overseas orders and partnerships, supported where appropriate with G2G packages, UKEF funding and critically a joined up approach across Government which pulls in support from our brilliant armed forces.

    Not only is the UK rightly perceived as producing battle winning kit we are a country with whom the world, including many who had previously looked to our adversaries’ inventory, wishes to do businesses.

    I am proud that traditional strengths in combat air is being matched by a renaissance in naval shipbuilding and other areas of UK capability as we regain momentum in a growing world market.

    I want to finish by reiterating a fundamental point.

    Our on-shore defence industry is a national asset it bestows wider benefits on our economy and critical capabilities to our armed forces. It can deliver exports and defence diplomacy and engagement. It helps keep us safe.

    We need them to continue to lift their sights and take risk.

    Our demand signal, bolstered by export opportunity, is the clearest signal one could imagine of the opportunity ahead.

    We look forward to seeing the fruits of industry’s investment in skills, capacity, R&D and export campaigns and in return we will be supporting them through clarity of purpose, investment in defence science and technology and the full gamut of support to access UK and international markets.

    We will continue in defence procurement to work with industry tirelessly to deliver the multiple improvements which together will guarantee more agile and reliable programmes on which we can all rely.

  • Boris Johnson – 2022 Resignation Statement

    Boris Johnson – 2022 Resignation Statement

    The statement made by Boris Johnson, the outgoing Prime Minister, in Downing Street, London, on 7 July 2022.

    Good afternoon everybody,

    It is now clearly the will of the parliamentary conservative party that there should be a new leader of that party

    and therefore a new Prime Minister

    and I have agreed with Sir Graham Brady

    the chairman of our backbench MPs

    that the process of choosing that new leader should begin now

    and the timetable will be announced next week

    and I have today appointed a cabinet to serve – as I will – until a new leader is in place

    so I want to say to the millions of people who voted for us in 2019 – many of them voting Conservative for the first time

    thank you for that incredible mandate

    the biggest Conservative majority since 1987

    the biggest share of the vote since 1979

    and the reason I have fought so hard for the last few days to continue to deliver that mandate in person

    was not just because I wanted to do so

    but because I felt it was my job, my duty, my obligation to you to continue to do what we promised in 2019

    and of course I am immensely proud of the achievements of this government

    from getting Brexit done and settling our relations with the continent after half a century

    reclaiming the power for this country to make its own laws in parliament

    getting us all through the pandemic

    delivering the fastest vaccine rollout in Europe

    the fastest exit from lockdown

    and in the last few months leading the west in standing up to Putin’s aggression in Ukraine

    and let me say now to the people of Ukraine that I know that we in the UK will continue to back your fight for freedom for as long as it takes

    and at the same time in this country we have at the same time been pushing forward a vast programme of investment in infrastructure, skills and technology

    the biggest for a century

    because if I have one insight into human beings

    it is that genius and talent and enthusiasm and imagination are evenly distributed throughout the population

    but opportunity is not

    and that is why we need to keep levelling up

    keep unleashing the potential of every part of the United Kingdom

    and if we can do that in this country, we will be the most prosperous in Europe

    and in the last few days I have tried to persuade my colleagues that it would be eccentric to change governments

    when we are delivering so much

    and when we have such a vast mandate and when we are actually only a handful of points behind in the polls

    even in mid term after quite a few months of pretty unrelenting sledging

    and when the economic scene is so difficult domestically and internationally

    and I regret not to have been successful in those arguments

    and of course it is painful not to be able to see through so many ideas and projects myself

    but as we’ve seen at Westminster, the herd is powerful and when the herd moves, it moves and

    and my friends in politics no one is remotely indispensable

    And our brilliant and Darwinian system will produce another leader equally committed to taking this country forward through tough times

    not just helping families to get through it but changing and improving our systems, cutting burdens on businesses and families

    and – yes – cutting taxes

    because that is the way to generate the growth and the income we need to pay for great public services

    and to that new leader I say, whoever he or she may be, I will give you as much support as I can

    and to you the British people I know that there will be many who are relieved

    but perhaps quite a few who will be disappointed and I want you to know how sad I am to give up the best job in the world but them’s the breaks.

    I want to thank Carrie and our children, to all the members of my family who have had to put up with so much for so long

    I want to thank the peerless British civil service for all the help and support that you have given

    our police, our emergency services and of course our NHS who at a critical moment helped to extend my own period in office

    as well as our armed services and our agencies that are so admired around the world and

    I want to thank the wonderful staff here at Number Ten and of course at chequers and our fantastic protection force detectives – the one group, by the way, who never leak

    and above all I want to thank you the British public for the immense privilege you have given me

    and I want you to know that from now until the new Prime Minister is in place, your interests will be served and the government of the country will be carried on

    Being Prime Minister is an education in itself

    I have travelled to every part of the United Kingdom and in addition to the beauty of our natural world

    I have found so many people possessed of such boundless British originality and so willing to tackle old problems in new ways that I know that even if things can sometimes seem dark now, our future together is golden.

    Thank you all very much.

  • Dominic Cummings – 2022 Comments on Boris Johnson’s Departure

    Dominic Cummings – 2022 Comments on Boris Johnson’s Departure

    The comments made by Dominic Cummings on Twitter on 7 July 2022.

    I know that guy & I’m telling you -he doesn’t think it’s over, he’s thinking ‘there’s a war, weird shit happens in a war, play for time play for time, I can still get out of this, I got a mandate, members love me, get to September…’

    If MPs leave him in situ there’ll be CARNAGE

  • Liz Truss – 2022 Comments Backing Boris Johnson’s Resignation

    Liz Truss – 2022 Comments Backing Boris Johnson’s Resignation

    The comments made by Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, on 7 July 2022.

    The PM has made the right decision.

    The Government under Boris’s leadership had many achievements – delivering Brexit, vaccines and backing Ukraine.

    We need calmness and unity now and to keep governing while a new leader is found.

  • Keir Starmer – 2022 Statement on the Resignation of Boris Johnson

    Keir Starmer – 2022 Statement on the Resignation of Boris Johnson

    The statement made by Keir Starmer, the Leader of the Opposition, on 7 July 2022.

    It is good news for our country that Boris Johnson has resigned as Prime Minister.

    But it should have happened long ago. He was always unfit for office. He has been responsible for lies, scandal and fraud on an industrial scale. And all those complicit should be utterly ashamed.

    The Tory Party have inflicted chaos upon the country during the worst cost of living crisis in decades and they cannot now pretend they are the ones to sort it out.

    They have been in power for over 12 years.

    The damage they have done is profound. 12 years of economic stagnation, 12 years of declining public services, 12 years of empty promises.

    Enough is enough.

    We don’t need to change the Tory at the top – we need a proper change of Government.

  • James Cartlidge – 2022 Letter of Resignation as Courts Minister

    James Cartlidge – 2022 Letter of Resignation as Courts Minister

    The letter of resignation sent by James Cartlidge, the Courts Minister, on 7 July 2022.

  • Chris Philp – 2022 Letter of Resignation as Technology and Digital Economy Minister

    Chris Philp – 2022 Letter of Resignation as Technology and Digital Economy Minister

    The letter of resignation sent by Chris Philp, the Minister for Technology and the Digital Economy, on 7 July 2022.