Official Development Assistance

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Tuesday 13th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Baroness Chapman of Darlington) (Lab)]

My Lords, I am genuinely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bates, for providing us with the opportunity to have this discussion. It is probably rather overdue, and there seems to be some pent-up frustration and anger in the Chamber about decisions that have been made, and I absolutely hear that. He gave us such a vivid account of why this matters, and I honestly could not agree more with the case that he made for the UK showing global leadership on development and humanitarian assistance. He is absolutely right to talk to us about how important this is.

The noble Lord spoke of fallacies around the UK public’s attitudes and the hopelessness of all this, and he is right to do that too. However, it is true—and it is important that we remind ourselves of this—that development, countries and the nature of humanitarian aid have changed as well. Even if we had not cut the budget, we would have had to fundamentally rethink how we go about the business of development in 2026, compared to the decisions that were taken in, say, 2005. I am incredibly proud of those decisions, and of the role that the then Labour Prime Minister and Chancellor played in that, but the world has changed.

The collective experience of this House has shone through this evening; it is an experience of many decades, from noble Lords who have worked on this as a Minister, in the sector or with Halo, and we benefit from hearing all about that. Like people across the country, this Chamber cares deeply about the role that the Government play. On behalf of the Government, I want to leave noble Lords in absolutely no doubt whatever that we share that care and commitment to supporting the world’s poorest.

I have to challenge the idea that less money in the ODA budget has to lead to less action, less impact and fewer development outcomes. I do not believe that any more. As we have already seen this year, the world has changed a lot and it is continuing to change. We cannot just keep doing things as we always have done in the face of that change. I am absolutely focused on the reform agenda that we need to see in the humanitarian and development system. We need that so we get the biggest impact for those people who we are working so hard to support.

The noble Lord, Lord Bates, and other noble Lords quoted figures around our global health spend. I do not think those numbers are quite right—they probably relate to our global health directorate. We spend more of our money on global health through the Global Fund and Gavi. Those who have been Ministers will remember that there is not an even spend across the years on those. We are now the largest contributor to Gavi and we hosted the Global Fund replenishment. We are at the leading edge of donors on global health, and that has not changed. The numbers have finally been published for the proportion of our money that goes on global health, and noble Lords will see that that has increased. I ask those noble Lords opposite with such a deep concern about this to perhaps challenge the leadership of the Conservative Party about its current position on further reducing spend to 0.1%. Even I cannot see how you run a development budget on that amount of money.

Tom Fletcher’s name came up a few times, as it should. He is a strong leader and we are very proud of him at OCHA. I am seeing him tomorrow and I encourage others who have been invited to go to the briefing that he has arranged. He is an incredibly strong advocate for this agenda and he is doing remarkable work at the United Nations.

I want to touch a little on the humanitarian context. Despite huge advances in the last 30 years, which have seen extreme poverty fall, today, humanitarian needs are rising, and a lot of this, as noble Lords have said, is about conflict. This year, more than 239 million people will require humanitarian support, and the UN is hyperprioritising 87 million people with the most life-threatening needs. Our hearts are absolutely in this agenda, but our heads need to be as well. We need to do that so that every penny goes where it is needed. We have to make prioritisation decisions with our ODA budget for the next three years, and we are going to be announcing the allocations very soon.

However, it is not true to say that the UK’s international reputation is diminished. That is incorrect, and saying that fails to appreciate the way in which the world has also changed. The clear message that we have from partners particularly in Africa—we announced our new Africa approach just before Christmas—is that our partner countries want to work with us just as that: as partners, and they do not see us as donors. They want to take responsibility for their own services, the education of their own children, setting up their own health systems, and we can do a lot better than we have done sometimes in the past in supporting countries to do that and to raise more of the money that they need domestically. This is working in Ghana and in Rwanda, and we have done some good work on this in Ethiopia and Kenya. That is how countries want to work with us. It is very different to a traditional programming approach.

On humanitarian spend, we estimate that, in 2025-26, this will be around £1.6 billion. I can answer the noble Earl, Lord Courtown, opposite: in Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan we are going to protect our spending. I think Ukraine currently has the biggest ODA programme in history, at £240 million a year.

On Gaza, I was asked about access. We are pressing for humanitarian corridors. We are calling on Israel to lift restrictions to allow the UN and other NGOs to operate freely, and we will continue to do that.

Since April, our humanitarian crisis reserve has provided £72.5 million in life-saving support, which is in connection with earthquakes in Myanmar and Afghanistan, famine risks across east Africa and Yemen, and the hurricane in Jamaica.

I was quite impressed by the speech by the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, explaining the need for evidence-based work. I completely agree with that, and we are now having to be much more ruthless about ensuring that everything we do is based on a sound understanding of what works. We are backing multilateral organisations which have the biggest impact —I think the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, encouraged us to do that—including through the commitments that we have made to Gavi and the Global Fund, and we are championing reform, particularly at the UN.

I meet Tom Fletcher regularly, as I have said, and we completely support the reform agenda that he is proposing. We are clear about what we need to see; this is about rigorous prioritisation of those in the greatest need, more streamlining to approve efficiency and value for money, and a greater focus on upholding international humanitarian law and protecting the vulnerable. This will give us a more joined-up response across humanitarian and development agencies, removing false distinctions, which hold effective work back too often. We will also lead by example on this, reflecting these principles in the UK decisions that we are making. As the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, said we should, when we can, we will work principally with local organisations.

The noble Lord, Lord McConnell, and others encouraged us to increase the Government’s spend. I am very happy to take that message back to my right honourable friend the Chancellor. I do not think that that will happen any time soon, but we need to use the opportunity that we have now to carry out the changes that are needed, so that when the situation changes, we can get absolute best value out of every penny that we spend—I am trying to make sure that I do not run over time here.

I will mention a little about technology in the private sector, which I think the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, also mentioned. We need to bring all the talents of the United Kingdom to bear on this, because this will no longer be a situation where the Government are the only actor alongside some NGOs. Technology companies, philanthropic organisations, the private sector, our universities—I think that with all of them there is a desire, which is far more widespread than we have been able to capitalise on in the past, to be active and leading in development. The Government ought sometimes to be more of a convener than a provider, and we will be taking that approach forward. We hope to hold an event in the summer where we try to bring all these people with an interest together—I will finish very soon.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Sugg and Lady Goudie, asked us about violence against women and girls, and I am very glad that they did. They will have seen that my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has called a national and international violence against women and girls emergency and is committed to putting these issues at the heart of our foreign policy. The impact assessments and the decisions that we have made will be published in full when we publish our allocations. We have already used those impact assessments to amend some of the decisions that we have made, and I hope that the noble Baroness will be able to see traces of what she believes in when we make those announcements.

The noble Lord, Lord Herbert, said, on TB, that we need to look at systems and multilateral work. He is absolutely right, and I am very happy to meet with him to discuss that further.

I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Evans, for his work on Halo and demining; I have had great conversations with his organisation, and I am very pleased to be able to continue to work with it.

Finally, I just want to say that we need to continue to back our brave humanitarians around the world. It is our mission and their mission to get life-saving assistance to those in greatest need. They are some of the most remarkable people that I have ever had the privilege to meet. They are engaged in the noblest of causes in the most difficult of situations. There is really no better place to end my remarks than on that note, because we all admire and respect what they do, often putting their lives at risk through a desire to support others. It is the very best of humanity that they embody, and the UK Government will continue to support them in all they do.