Official Development Assistance: Vulnerable Children

Lord Callanan Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

The ODA budget faces a 40% cut because we have decided to spend more on the Ministry of Defence, and I think everybody here is aware of that. The best buy in education is actually not through programming or delivery of education; it is through policy change in-country. What we need, and what countries are telling us they want, is more of an emphasis on partnership rather than paternalism. They wish to undertake more of the delivery of education of their own children, and I think we can all understand and respect why that would be. We have huge amounts of expertise, we have our university partnerships and we have many, many ways in which we can support countries to deliver that quality education. In those most difficult circumstances that he refers to, we continue to support global partnerships focused on education, including Education Cannot Wait, which delivers that emergency education in refugee settings, in those places that are very difficult and where other agencies would find it very difficult to operate.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness has my sympathy. She confirmed in her opening Answer that being in government often involves difficult decisions, and that this Government have chosen to slash the international aid budget in order to help support the defence and security of our country. This is a difficult choice, which we support; a choice that we do not support was the deal to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. It has been reported that hundreds of millions of pounds from the noble Baroness’s already reduced aid budget are to be used partially to fund this deal. Will she tell the House if this is true and, if so, how much is being spent on this choice?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

We are here to talk about the impact on children. The noble Lord has every right to ask whatever he wants, but that is a slightly strange choice when we have had no end of opportunities to talk about that and we have a debate on it a week today. However, it is his choice. The deal with the Chagos Islands is about securing our nation’s relationship with the United States, and it is about our security and intelligence. This week of all weeks, he should not need me to explain to him why that matters so much.