Sustainable Development Goals
Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Sugg (Con) [V]
My Lords, one of the core missions of the FCDO is to end extreme poverty, while also ensuring that all our programmes are reaching the bottom billion—the people most in need of the support that we give through our development programmes. We will continue to develop our programmes, making sure that we are reaching those most in need so that we do not leave anyone behind.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD) [V]
My Lords, the World Bank has said that, post recovery, we will need to reschedule debts, tackle climate change more energetically and promote livelihoods. Do the Government agree with that assessment? If they do, will they still ensure that we prioritise gender equality and poverty reduction in achieving those objectives?
Baroness Sugg (Con) [V]
My Lords, we agree with that assessment and I assure the noble Lord that we will continue to prioritise tackling gender inequality.
Covid-19: Foreign Aid
Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Bruce of Bennachie
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, what assessment they have made of (1) their foreign aid, and (2) their development spending, commitments.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Baroness Sugg) (Con) [V]
My Lords, like nations around the world, the UK is experiencing a severe economic downturn due to the pandemic, which will affect the amount we spend on overseas development assistance this year and in future years. In light of this, we have prioritised our aid spending to respond to Covid-19, focus on poverty reduction, tackle climate change and champion girls’ education.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD) [V]
I thank the Minister for her reply. Integrating development and diplomacy is a major challenge, so how long will it take to achieve that and enable us to build back better post Covid-19? Since poverty is rising, as the Minister acknowledged, the impact of climate change is increasing and we have had cuts to date of £2.9 billion, will the Government publish a strategy for the new department to provide clarity for development partners, some of which are fighting for survival and all of which face an uncertain future? Will that strategy and the Government’s official development assistance be subject to scrutiny by the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, working with a dedicated parliamentary committee to ensure that we maintain the UK’s global leadership in international development?
Baroness Sugg (Con) [V]
My Lords, we plan to set out a strategy in the near future as part of the integrated review. The aim of the new department is to bring the weight of our diplomatic network to support our development expertise and our development programming dealing with the rise in poverty and the climate change that the noble Lord points to. We are committed to working with our partners as we move through the merger, and I assure him that we are indeed committed to independent scrutiny and confirm that we will be keeping to ICAI.
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts(3 years, 8 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, I regret that I totally disagree with the noble Lord. The coming together of the two departments as a merger will strengthen the global reach of our development capacity and capabilities. Yes, I can confirm our continued commitment to the 0.7% target. It was a Conservative-led coalition Government who brought that into law.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD) [V]
I urge the Government to make an early statement of coherent development policy objectives for the new department. I am glad that the Minister has reaffirmed the 0.7% but the Government have given conflicting messages on this issue, implying that the already slashed budget may be diverted elsewhere. The Secretary of State gave an evasive answer to my colleague Layla Moran yesterday, so I am glad that the Minister here has given a straight answer today. The workload of monitoring development and working with ICAI is surely beyond the effective capacity of one committee, so will the Government recognise that we need a dedicated committee to deal with this, which happened when the ODA was within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in the time of the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
Parliamentary committees are very much a much a matter for Parliament, but certainly my right honourable friend the Prime Minister’s view is that they should reflect departments. The noble Lord mentioned ICAI and that will continue, although this provides an opportunity to review its governance and ensure that it is fully aligned with the new department.
Aid Impact
Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts(3 years, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Sugg (Con)
My Lords, we are committed to increasing and improving our work on climate. We are doubling our funding to the International Climate Fund and, as the noble Baroness says, we are hosting COP. We are also absolutely committed to making sure that that funding is spent effectively.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD) [V]
My Lords, I welcome the Government’s decision on ICAI. I worked with Andrew Mitchell on its establishment and the set-up agreed then has proved successful. ICAI is subject to confirmatory hearings by the International Development Committee and, through the committee, reports its programme and findings. This needs to be maintained if the UK’s global reputation is not to be risked. Therefore, I urge the Government to support a dedicated Commons Select Committee to monitor ICAI and UK aid, and to maintain the credibility of the great work that has been done to date.
Baroness Sugg (Con)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for welcoming the commitment to keep ICAI. On the Select Committee point, the Government agree that Parliament has an important role in scrutinising UK aid spending, and Select Committees are of course fundamental in scrutinising the Government’s spending and policies. We acknowledge that, as a consequence of the merger, the House of Commons might have to reconfigure the Select Committee structure, but the Government’s view is that normally the committee structure mirrors the departmental structure.
Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations 2020
Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Bruce of Bennachie [V]
My Lords, as a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe from 1999 to 2005, I saw the Russian delegation emasculated, changing from a pluralistic group, with liberals, Yabloko and opposition MPs willing to speak freely, to a block of Putin clones. When the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, as rapporteur on Chechnya, was refused a visa to visit the province, the assembly suspended the Russian delegation’s voting rights—yet, sadly, a week later Tony Blair took Putin for tea with the Queen. Subsequently, the conservative group in the assembly teamed up in the same group as Putin’s MPs and served under the leadership of one of his acolytes.
I became involved in supporting Mikhail Khodorkovsky after Yukos was crushed by the Kremlin and he was arrested in Siberia in 2003 and prosecuted and imprisoned, in reality for his support for opposition parties and his challenge to Putin. At that time, I tried to secure support for the plight of Svetlana Bakhmina, a lawyer advising Yukos who was imprisoned on trumped-up charges and denied access to her young children. Disappointingly, UK MPs and the British media were impervious to her plight. I attended a seminar at Columbia University, where a session was entitled “Are We Back in the USSR?”—to which the answer was, “No, it is much worse, there are many more KGB-trained personnel running Russia than ever was the case in the Soviet Union.”
I then came into contact with Robert Amsterdam, Khodorkovsky’s lawyer, and Bill Browder, whose successful business in Moscow was targeted by the Kremlin. I learned how they were exposing high-level activity and fraud, for which Sergei Magnitsky, as Bill Browder’s lawyer, paid the final price of his life, dying in agony having been denied effective treatment for pancreatitis. The names of those responsible were well documented, and campaigns were begun to ban them from visiting or engaging with democratic countries.
So the Government came late to this process, and it was only with the murder of Alexander Litvinenko that our leadership finally woke up. Today’s instrument is therefore welcome and necessary but, I would suggest, late. I appreciate that the Government make much of unilateral action, but I trust that the Minister will acknowledge that co-ordinated efforts are much more effective. These regulations need to pave the way for further measures against agents of the Kremlin and other hostile agents.
Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Department for International Development: Merger
Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD) [V]
My Lords, why is the Minister being so evasive about the role of ICAI? It has been a huge success. It was introduced by Andrew Mitchell. Working with the International Development Committee—which I had the privilege of chairing for 10 years—it has proved an effective way of demonstrating real accountability for UK aid and giving confidence that we continue to be world leaders. Do the Government not recognise that dismantling that arrangement will not leave them with the trust of the aid community or the poor of the world?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I have already answered the issue of scrutiny. I have dealt with ICAI specifically. It has made recommendations on briefs and parts of my portfolio, including PSVI, which we discussed earlier. We continue to respond to all levels of parliamentary scrutiny, as we will with the new department from September.