East Africa: Famine

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

I can give that assurance; the noble Lord is absolutely right. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, will recognise, there is great thought and soul searching about whether to launch a second appeal on the back of Yemen so soon—normally there is a one a year. This reflects the fact that the situation is extraordinary. Stephen O’Brien referred to the situation in 2017 as being the greatest humanitarian challenge that the United Nations has ever faced. These are huge issues when Syria is included, and our response has to be there. There also has to be a recognition of the wider response needed in Nigeria.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, the UN estimates that £4.5 billion is needed to address urgent needs, but only 2% of that is in the pipeline. The noble Lord mentioned the need to mobilise the international community. He also responded to my noble friend a few weeks ago about taking up the idea of working within the European Union. Surely the time is now for the G7, the G20 and the World Bank to convene an urgent financial summit. Will the Minister commit the Government to making that call?

[Lord Bates]

I have taken my opportunity to do so. I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, for his excellent suggestion. I attended the EU Foreign Affairs Council for Development last week and made exactly those points and the plea. The Secretary of State also wrote to High Representative Mogherini on the same issue. Later today, the Foreign Secretary will be chairing the Security Council on this issue at about 8 pm GMT. That will be an opportunity to reinforce the need for the international community to do more—and do it quickly.

International Development: Forestry

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord is absolutely right that tying aid to trade benefits no one in the long run. We want to get the most competitive people who can deliver the best services to the countries that are in need of our help. We remain resolutely committed to that. That was set out again in the economic development paper.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

Global co-operation is absolutely critical, as the Minister mentioned, in achieving the SDGs. Can he tell us how we will ensure that co-operation post Brexit? How will we maintain a relationship with our European partners in delivering the SDGs, particularly on deforestation? I must admit that on days like this, hearing his responses, I wish he was the Secretary of State.

[Lord Bates]

Let me go straight to the points that the noble Lord has raised. As has been said many times from this Dispatch Box in recent years, we are leaving the European Union, not leaving Europe. We work with Europe around the world on delivering those sustainable development goals, and we will continue to do so. We also have other commitments. There is the New York Declaration on Forests, which is an international commitment of 190 NGOs, Governments and multinationals that contribute towards that effort. We will be working with everyone in pursuit of those global sustainable development goals.

Iraq: Displaced Minority Communities

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Thursday 9th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

I am sorry, I do not have details of our response, but I am very happy to write to the noble Baroness on that point.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, one of the impacts for internally displaced people is of course on women and children, whose future is affected because there is no access to schools or appropriate medical treatment. I know the Government have been supporting efforts in this field, but could the noble Lord reassure the House that where people are returning, we will put in the necessary effort on education?

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord is absolutely right to raise that point. Of course, there is a vehicle in this regard: the Iraq Humanitarian Pooled Fund, which the UK is one of the largest contributors to. People can draw down on it for specific purposes, particularly schools, education and healthcare, as well as rebuilding homes, which was mentioned previously. It is encouraging that even in areas just recently liberated in the west of Mosul, 30 schools have already reopened and 16,000 children were able to return to school. That has to give us hope in a very difficult and dark situation.

South Sudan: Famine

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising that point and for his work in the all-party group, which produced a valuable report just yesterday on the general situation in the region. He is absolutely right: many of the crises that we face are not man-made, but this one most certainly is. I have just left an emergency planning meeting with co-ordinating partners on the situation in Somalia, where some 6 million people are at risk because of famine. We are doing the best we can there, but in South Sudan the frustrating thing is that, although we committed £100 million, the UN Mission in South Sudan is in place on the ground and many humanitarian workers are risking their lives to deliver aid. Unless there is implementation of the existing peace agreement, the future of the people in South Sudan, particularly women and children, looks increasingly bleak.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I congratulate the Government on their immediate humanitarian aid response and welcome the Secretary of State’s commitment to engage with other donors, including the EU. This is all good news. However, in making that announcement, she referred to this crisis being caused by war and conflict. Last week, we debated Sudan in Grand Committee. The Foreign Office Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, referred to our work in support of the African Union. Can the Minister reiterate what we are doing to build sustainable peace efforts and trade? This comes back to our previous point that development is about not just humanitarian aid but building peace and sustainability, particularly in Africa.

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord is absolutely right and I appreciate his remarks. On the specific points that he mentions, we have supported and encouraged the work of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development—IGAD—which has led a lot of this work, and have worked through the UN Security Council on that. We have worked with international partners. We are part of the troika with Norway and the United States, which is key in intervening in this area. My noble friend Lady Anelay is looking at the work we are doing across the border, because, although some 3 million people are internally displaced, increasingly, as refugees flow across the border in search of support, that is destabilising other countries in the region. My noble friend Lady Anelay was in Uganda visiting one of the refugee camps. We have committed another £50 million of support in that regard. A huge amount has been done, but the UK cannot do this alone; the international community must step up to the plate. We need to see more action there.

Girl Effect: DfID Funding

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The review which took place was begun before that. We undertake reviews of how taxpayers’ money is being spent to ensure that we get full value for money. That is very important, because if we did not do that, announcements such as that made by the Secretary of State this morning of £200 million in urgent humanitarian aid which will save millions of lives in Somalia and South Sudan would not be possible.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sure the noble Lord appreciates that the Daily Mail story was a part of a general narrative to undermine the good effect that development can have. It is not just about humanitarian aid but about changing culture and making a secure world. Will he respond to the question I asked before? Will he ask the Prime Minister to put a full page article in the Daily Mail explaining why development creates a more secure and safer world?

[Lord Bates]

In many ways, I am sympathetic to what the noble Lord says. The Secretary of State wrote an op-ed piece this morning about giving that £200 million of British taxpayers’ money to those people in desperate need in South Sudan and Somalia, and it is very difficult to see where that is picked up. It is pointless criticising the media. We have the media we have because we are the people we are, and the truth is that the misspending, or ineffective spending, of potentially £4.5 million in Ethiopia is deemed more important by them than the £10 billion that we spend very wisely in saving lives around the world.

Nutrition: Women and Girls

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, for initiating this debate, which, I think, follows on from Questions. There is a consensus in this House on the 0.7% aid target and enshrining it in law. The reason for that is very practical: it allows the United Kingdom to support long-term sustainable development projects which really make a difference to the lives of the world’s poorest and most marginalised people. The UK’s commitment to improve the nutrition of 50 million people by 2020 is a good example of this, and is the example I would like the Prime Minister to write about in the Daily Mail. It is exactly these issues that we need to be focused on, and I therefore very much appreciate the noble Baroness’s initiating this debate.

As we have heard from my noble friend and from the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, good nutrition is the foundation of sustainable development, and of building health and resilience. Twelve of the SDGs agreed in New York have indicators relevant to nutrition. Without strong nutrition, other health interventions are less effective. Nutrition interventions also promote economic development. Every $1 invested in nutrition achieves a $16 return in benefit. That is the key message of our overseas development work, which we should put into the media in order to respond to some of the ridiculous arguments that have been made. Countries lose at least 10% of their GDP because of malnutrition. It stagnates personal, societal and national development. That is why it is so key that we make progress on this. As we have heard, for women and girls, who are often most vulnerable to under nutrition, nutrition interventions are crucial for supporting their full development potential.

The second SDG is to:

“End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition”.


Its second target is:

“By 2030, end all forms of malnutrition, including achieving, by 2025, the internationally agreed targets on stunting and wasting in children under 5 years of age, and address the nutritional needs of adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women and older persons”,


as the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, pointed out. Older women are particularly vulnerable to malnutrition, and attempts to provide them with adequate nutrition encounter many practical problems. Their nutritional requirements are not well defined and ageing affects nutrient needs—some requirements increase while others decrease.

As we have heard, good nutritional status reduces maternal deaths, improves school outcomes, and contributes to delayed marriage and pregnancy. It saves lives, improving potential and promoting progress, alongside intergenerational health and prosperity. The onset of menstruation in adolescent girls results in a much higher demand for nutrients. Not receiving them can lead to anaemia, which compromises growth and causes fatigue, dizziness, weight loss and reduced immunity. The impact of poor nutrition on maternal health is irrefutable: deficiencies of essential micronutrients and energy during pregnancy can cause maternal complications and haemorrhages and, in many cases, as we have heard, mortality. Nutritional deficiencies can also contribute to foetal birth defects and foetal or new-born mortality. There is no doubt that improving nutrition, alongside good antenatal care, can improve these numbers dramatically. Good nutrition is crucial for unlocking the potential of women and girls across the life cycle and for giving them the best opportunity to become active members of their community.

As my noble friend highlighted, around half of under-five deaths can be attributed to underlying malnutrition. Malnourished children are nine times more likely to die from common childhood infections such as pneumonia and diarrhoea, and improved nutrition is key to changing the prospects of many. In low-income countries, 37.6% of children aged under five are stunted. They are likely to grow into stunted adolescents. For girls, this means they face a higher risk of pregnancy-related complications. Stunting is one of the leading causes of death among this demographic. Over 2 billion people suffer from micronutrient deficiencies. Anaemia, often a result of iron deficiency, affects 500 million women of reproductive age and is responsible for nearly 20% of maternal deaths. In 21 countries out of 41 with data on anaemia prevalence, more than one-third of adolescent girls are anaemic. Undernutrition has a devastating impact on the physical and development potential of girls. Malnourished adolescents go on to lose around 10% of their lifetime earnings as adults. This affects the economic development of these countries which is so vital if we are to change and challenge poverty in our world.

As my noble friend Lady Thornton and the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, said, we can be proud of the United Kingdom’s leading role in the world in the fight against malnutrition. Certainly, this commitment was renewed in the recent bilateral development review, about which we have spoken in this Chamber, following on from 2013 when the UK hosted the inaugural nutrition for growth conference in London and made financial commitments—£655 million for nutrition-specific interventions and £604 million for nutrition-sensitive interventions until 2020. As the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, said, the Government, as part of their 2015 manifesto, pledged to improve the nutrition of 50 million children aged under five, women of child-bearing age and adolescent girls in developing countries by 2020, which is the N4G commitment.

However, despite these commitments, the world is not on track to achieve the 2025 global nutrition targets. We need to fundamentally address these issues. I welcome DfID’s plan to improve the nutrition target by 2020 and I urge the Minister to commit the Government to invest a further £530 million after 2020. DfID should rapidly disburse its 2013 commitments to nutrition and increase its ODA to nutrition, because it is the key to development; £530 million of new money should be invested between 2016 and 2020 because good nutrition, as we know, has a significant impact on improving women’s economic development, as well as on health.

We need an integrated approach which delivers nutrition as part of a package of wider health and poverty reduction intervention and improves the value for money of health investments. I hope the Minister will support the scaling up of nutrition-specific interventions to tackle all forms of malnutrition and the integration of these interventions into the design and delivery of reproductive, maternal, new-born child, adolescent and other health programmes.

In 2015 the Government made a commitment to leave no one behind in their development work. DfID should ensure that nutrition programmes target and improve nutrition for the most vulnerable and hardest to reach. Does the Minister agree that to do this, DfID should produce disaggregated data for prioritising investments, with a focus on high burden irrespective of low/middle-income status, and allocate resources to strengthen national information systems to ensure that we have that proper and adequate data?

US Overseas Aid: Global Gag Rule

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

We are certainly leading by example. We continue to be the biggest funder of organisations such as Marie Stopes. The noble Baroness is absolutely right to say that this measure is different, that it contains some different elements and that we do not quite understand how they work. That is why it is important to keep a good relationship with the United States Administration, particularly USAID, so that we can work through these issues and find out how we go forward in a way that does not put more lives at risk.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, the Dutch Government have announced that there is a possible £600 million shortfall in funding. They have had a response from 20 countries. Can the Minister confirm whether this Government have responded to the direct call of the Dutch Government? Will he reassure the House that at the London conference they will make sure that this shortfall is a priority discussion among our partners there?

[Lord Bates]

A couple of weeks ago I was with the Dutch Development Minister here in London at the Nordic Plus Group meeting and this issue came up. It is fair to say that we believe in a constructive engagement approach with USAID to find out all the details of what the measure actually means before we move forward. But certainly, as I mentioned to the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, we will attend the She Decides meeting in Belgium next week. Of course, we are open to taking work forward on this important issue.

Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 9th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, in this House there has been strong support for the 0.7% aid target and Britain’s role in international development. There is also a broad consensus around the role of the CDC, as we have heard in this debate.

Job creation is one of the best ways to reduce poverty; it is important that the Government have a development investment arm that will help poorer countries to create new and innovative jobs. However, the focus for such work must be on the poorest, least developed and lowest-income countries, and on ensuring that the work is consistent with the sustainable development goals agreed by the UN.

As we have heard, the CDC made significant changes following the 2008 National Audit Office report and—as the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, reminded us—following the 2011 International Development Committee report, in line with recommendations to move towards a focus on the alleviation of poverty. This shift in focus is a major achievement of Diana Noble. She has done a terrific job and will be sorely missed. The changes were reviewed recently by a further NAO report released just before the Second Reading of the Bill in the House of Commons in November 2016.

The report was mostly positive. It noted that the 2012 to 2016 investment strategy shifted the CDC’s investment focus, which is clearly welcome. It noted that the CDC had exceeded the targets agreed with DfID relating to financial performance and development impact. However, it also said that the CDC should do more to measure the development impact of its investments. This would not only provide a better basis for investment decisions, but increase the transparency of the CDC.

Poverty alleviation is absolutely central if we are to make a success of the SDGs and Agenda 2030. As the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, said, the adoption of SDGs has resulted in an international consensus that the private sector needs to play an even greater role in delivering a sustainable future for everyone, by integrating the aims of the goals into its business practices.

Developing countries currently face an annual investment gap of $2.5 trillion to achieve the global goals by 2030. The goals can be achieved only by working with the private sector, including with DFI organisations such as the CDC. The CDC states that it is committed to helping to achieve the global goals by focusing on those where it can have most impact: goal 7 on affordable and clean energy—as we have heard, we know there is an infrastructure need, particularly in Africa—as well as goal 9 on industry, innovation and infrastructure, and goal 8 on decent work and economic growth. Noble Lords have made the point that the CDC is investing in areas where labour standards are a key issue for its investment. In the most difficult countries, I know it has even built in proper workplace representation, which is vital in terms of delivering on our SDG objectives.



We are told that the ending of extreme poverty by 2030 is central to the CDC strategy. The 2012 to 2016 investment plan has, as we have heard, expired and we are yet to see the 2017 to 2021 investment plan. Like many noble Lords, I am disappointed that Parliament is being asked to raise the investment threshold before seeing the plans for the next four years of investment.

In terms of measuring the development impact of its investments, I ask the Minister whether he can assure the House that in the new investment strategy a more robust approach to measuring development impact will be implemented. Like my noble friend Lord Boateng, I also hope the Minister will be able to reassure us that Parliament—this House in particular—will have the opportunity to debate and consider the new investment strategy. There is no doubt that the CDC has become more transparent, but more can still be done to ensure that money is being spent as well as possible. One way this could be achieved is to allow the Independent Commission for Aid Impact to play a bigger role—for example, by carrying out a regular assessment of CDC investments, allowing scrutiny so that we can ensure the full effectiveness and value for money of the programmes in which the CDC invests.

We should be proud. The CDC has been a world leader among development finance institutions in publishing details of its investments since 2012 under the International Aid Transparency Initiative. But it would improve transparency further if it published similar details on its entire active investment portfolio, including those investments made prior to 2012. That would enable greater scrutiny of the CDC’s entire portfolio and hopefully provide assurances to the public that all CDC investments are focused where they need to be—on the goal of poverty reduction.

My noble friend Lord Judd and the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, as well as other noble Lords, highlighted two particular areas of concern: first, the volume of the Government’s proposed new investment for the CDC and, secondly, the CDC’s continued use of tax havens. Regarding volume, a critical issue, which noble Lords have raised, is whether the CDC can absorb this funding—does it have the capacity to deal with it? I hope the Minister will be clear today about the schedule for this spending. What is his idea of the number of years over which the increase would be spent before we might require another Act to increase it even further?

On tax havens, it is disappointing that, despite the Government’s stated objective in cracking down on tax evasion, the CDC continues to use them, including the Cayman Islands and Mauritius. I met the chair and the chief executive of the CDC recently and raised this concern with them. They responded in the way that we have heard about in this debate, by stressing the importance of stable financial arrangements for investments. In some countries—this is pretty obvious—it is clearly not possible to set up arrangements within their legal structures to ensure that the right duties and controls are in place.

Surely a way for the Government to address legitimate concerns would have been to include on the face of the Bill standards for the CDC to meet, in terms of the commitment to transparency, value for money and tracking development results. Since this opportunity has been missed, I ask the Minister whether the CDC will be asked—in the strategy that I hope your Lordships’ House will have the opportunity to debate—to improve its transparency and reduce the volume of investments it routes through tax havens.

While I believe that it makes sense to increase the CDC’s investment threshold, we need to ensure, as with any area of government spending, that every penny is going where it can have the greatest effect—the right places and the right people delivering value for money for the taxpayer. One way in which to achieve that would be to ensure that we could have regular scrutiny and proper debates in Parliament on the CDC’s activities.

Refugee Camps

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Wednesday 8th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

I accept that, but also in this context, the Foreign Secretary has been to a refugee camp, and the Secretary of State for International Development was in one of the camps just last week. Perhaps even more importantly, the Prime Minister was at the Valletta summit last week, where she announced an additional £30 million package for the very people the noble Lord and I care so much about.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I would be much happier if the Prime Minister spent time writing a full-page article for the Daily Mail explaining why international development is so important and why aid is so important to host nations in the Middle East whose own countries are suffering as a consequence of the influx of refugees. Will he urge the Prime Minister to do that?

[Lord Bates]

It behoves all of us who are strong advocates and supporters of the 0.7%, as I know that the noble Lord and his party are as well, to do everything we can to highlight the benefits that the UK is bringing around the world to those areas most in need. We have been able to help something approaching 20 million people in the region as a result of the generosity of British taxpayers, and our money is genuinely saving lives. That is the point that we need to make loudly and clearly to the British public and the media.

Syria: Refugees

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

As my noble friend will be aware, this was looked at and examined, but it would require a level of international agreement in this sphere which has simply eluded us in the core area of trying to reach a solution in Syria. We remain absolutely of the opinion that the best way to deal with movement and migration is to get a political settlement. That is why we are hopeful and supportive of the UN Security Council resolution which brought about the current ceasefire, but we believe it needs to work beyond that to provide a lasting peace under the Geneva communiqué.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, the most important thing which the Minister has referred to is the host countries in the region and their sustainability under the weight of such numbers of refugees. Can he reassure the House that the Government will commit further support and aid to those economies, as well as to the refugees, which are under such pressure through the violence that has been occurring in Syria? Unfortunately, international development has a bad press at the moment, but this is such a strong case and we should support it.

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord is absolutely right, and £1.1 billion of the money which I mentioned has gone to areas in the region—most notably, Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. That money is being focused on economic development, by helping people to find work, and on schools, by helping children who are currently out of school to get into it so that their learning does not suffer. The noble Lord is absolutely right that we should focus on that.