Poverty Eradication and sustainable development

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2015 General Committees

[Grant Shapps]

I absolutely agree. What the hon. Lady describes is, of course, the golden thread, which is about ensuring money is spent wisely and for the broadest possible spread of the population. Transparency enables people to see that their institutions are serving the broad mass of people rather than the elites, as she suggests.

The hon. Lady reminds me of a point she raised in her initial intervention about direct budget support. There is now almost no direct budget support through the DFID programme. In fact, I spend much of my time meeting Governments who are pleading for direct budget support. In many cases, we do not think that is a suitable way to spend money, not least because it tends to lack the transparency that she and others have called for, as we cannot see how those systems are spending the money. I agree that it is important to ensure that money is spent transparently. That takes many different forms, and she and I are on exactly the same page in terms of the golden thread and ensuring money is spent to the benefit of the masses, not the elites.

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

In that spirit of transparency, will the Minister suggest to people in his Department that putting up a sign or putting something on equipment provided by the UK’s aid budget is a good thing? Other countries do it all the time. Those of us who have been round the world will have seen fantastic projects delivered by the British taxpayer, but the vast majority of people have no idea that it is happening. We go down the road, however, and see signs saying, “A gift from the people of the United States,” or, “A gift from the people of Germany,” or, “A gift from the European Union.” We never make enough of what we give.

[Grant Shapps]

I absolutely agree. That is one of my greatest frustrations, and I would go further: just putting up a sign saying, “A gift of the British people through UK aid,” is not enough. I was driving back from taking my son to football the other week. We live in Hertfordshire, and my son pointed out that underneath the county’s sign, it says, “County of Opportunity.” I have lived in Hertfordshire nearly all my life and have never even noticed we have that slogan. That suggests to me that a sign saying, “A gift of the people of the UK and UK aid,” is not enough; we need to do more.

My hon. Friend makes a serious point. I have so far visited seven countries in Africa that we support directly, and my greatest reflection is that I would be hard-pressed to discover where the money comes from. Often, it is spent through international partners and therefore there is simply no branding at all. If the point of aid is to bring influence in the world—in other words, to ensure that people not only look favourably at the United Kingdom, but favour our approach to great administration, a strong civil service, civil society and the rest of it—then it is important, not just for our own PR purposes, but for spreading exactly the kind of broad-based Government that the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington and others have talked about. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I am on to this, and we will continue to press the point. Indeed, when I now approve new programmes, one of the questions I ask is not just, “How we are going to badge it?”, but how that will be made meaningful to the people who are in receipt of our development assistance.

There was a comment about scrutiny, which we have covered, but let me say again that we will ensure that the 0.7% commitment is the most open to scrutiny of any country in the world. Indeed, we are the only country in the European Union and the only major country in the G7 who spend the 0.7%. I know it is difficult to get people excited about accountancy awards, but the Department has won top awards for openness and transparency on this subject for more than one year running—I think for two or three years running. Long may that continue.

I want to make a further point about our enthusiasm for working with the devolved Administrations. As the hon. Member for Glasgow North knows, and as I mentioned, we worked with the devolved Administrations throughout the process of agreeing the 17 goals and 169 targets. It is absolutely our intention to make sure that we continue to do that.

Finally, let me deal with the development effectiveness of the millennium development goals. I want to reassure the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington that the development effectiveness is measured constantly by the United Nations. This is a programme that we back very strongly, and I would certainly welcome any debate or discussion and any lessons to be learned from those millennium goals, because without that, I do not think it is possible for us to ensure that the new sustainable goals finish off the job correctly. We will continue to call on and support developing countries to take all the actions that those goals enshrine, on things such as tax transparency, anti-corruption and creating the right environment. However, we will also do more through our support for all the goals, which we support equally. Britain leads in some places—for example, on goal No. 7, which is on energy. I launched a campaign on that alongside Kofi Annan, and we will also work with our American partners, Power Africa, to make sure we can maximise the British impact on helping to bring power to two thirds of Africans who do not, at this stage, have power.

We will ensure that the United Kingdom is at the forefront of the new sustainable goals in all those areas. We look forward not only to the support, but to the analysis and to, I hope, the whole House holding our feet to the fire. I thank the Committee and my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford once again for securing today’s debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Sustainable Development Goals

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

Absolutely, and I pay tribute to Members on both sides of the House for that. I believe that that was a Labour amendment, but it had cross-party support and we welcomed that.

Eradicating poverty will be possible only if we tackle climate change. If we do not keep temperature rises to below 2º C, millions will fall back into poverty. The Prime Minister says very little about his wind turbine these days. He is a prisoner of his divided party, which is split over whether climate change even exists. For Labour, climate change will be at the centre of our foreign policy and integral to our plan to change Britain.

There is a real opportunity to address climate change this year. The United States, the EU and, most importantly, China, are all showing a willingness to act. At the Paris summit in December, a Labour Government would push for global targets for reducing carbon emissions, with regular reviews towards the long-term goal of what the science now tells us is necessary: zero net global emissions in the latter half of this century. In addition, we must ensure that the sustainable development goals have a specific goal on climate change—something that the Secretary of State has repeatedly failed to back.

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

Having stood opposite the hon. Lady at the Dispatch Box, I know that her tone can sometimes be a bit abrasive. I know that she has been in her present role for only seven weeks, but could she not use this opportunity to say that she welcomes some of the things that are going on in relation to international aid, including some of the bilateral arrangements? Does she not welcome the continued spending of 0.7% of gross national income? Does she not agree that there are some good projects? Her tone today has been deeply divisive on an issue on which there has traditionally been great consensus in the House.

[Mary Creagh]

I am not saying that everything the Department for International Development does is bad; I am trying to point out—[Interruption.] No, that is a wilful misunderstanding of it. On the 0.7%, was the hon. Gentleman one of the Members who stayed here to vote that through? More Labour MPs were in this House for that than Conservatives and Liberals put together, and it would not have passed without Labour votes—and he knows it. The Government have had five years of Government time and Backbench Business Committee business time on a Thursday when nothing has been done.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right about that. If we look at the tranche of children who have still not got into education, we see that they tend to be the children who are disabled or who are in more nomadic tribes and it is harder for them to get into education. We are clear that a core ethos underpinning the next development framework needs to be about leaving nobody behind. My Department is pulling together the first ever DFID strategy on how addressing disability should be part of our development programme. So she is right to raise the issue and I can certainly reassure her that this Government have started to bring that issue into our programming more centrally.

In July, we will convene in Ethiopia to agree a new financing agenda for development. Of course the UK Government have in this Parliament, for the first time ever, finally met their commitment to spend 0.7% of our GNI on international development.

In September, on the 70th anniversary of the United Nations, we will meet in New York to agree the elements of the post-2015 development framework up to 2030. In December, the world will come together in Paris to agree a binding international treaty to tackle the global dangers of climate change. I am proud to be part of a Government who are taking a leading part in all of those negotiations.

Let me briefly discuss the post-2015 agenda. The international community has a duty to produce a set of equally inspiring goals and targets to run up to 2030 that will put us on a sustainable development pathway to eradicate extreme poverty within a generation. The UK has played a leading role in that process, not least demonstrating our commitment to international development by finally meeting the commitment we made to spend 0.7%. Indeed, that is recognised by the fact that the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, personally asked our Prime Minister together with President Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia and the then President Yudhoyono of Indonesia to co-chair the high-level panel of experts who were asked to review these issues and to publish a report about how we should pull together the next sustainable development framework.

[Richard Benyon]

Does my right hon. Friend also agree that what is important is not just the figure of 0.7%, but how it is spent? What this Government have managed to do is focus the money on where it is most effective. That has required some decisions to be taken. We have had to remove funding from countries that did not need it for those that do.

[Justine Greening]

We have worked really hard to ensure that we stopped funding programmes in countries such as China and Russia, which no longer require targeted development assistance.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

To my memory, I have never been lobbied on this particular issue. I looked at it this morning. The Treasury has listened very carefully to the arguments and has made the decisions for the reasons that the hon. Lady knows.

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

More than 300,000 new businesses have been registered in the United Kingdom over the past three years—that is a record figure. The key priority in supporting those businesses over the difficult first few years of trading is to make sure that we bear down on regulation. Much has been done through the red tape challenge, one-in, one-out and other measures. What more can the Government do to support these risk-takers at this difficult time?

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. The news out today is that we now have the largest number of companies we have ever had in our country, and over the past three years we have seen 400,000 extra companies established. What we have to do is help them in every way we can. The most powerful thing we are doing is cutting the national insurance that they will have to pay by £2,000, starting next year. That will be a real boost to small businesses. On the red tape they are currently throttled with, we are dealing with that at every level, including at the European Council coming up this week, where I have organised a meeting for our businesses to explain their proposals for cutting red tape to fellow European leaders from Finland, Italy, Germany and elsewhere. It is an agenda right across the board to help small businesses grow our economy.