UK Development Partnership Assistance
Debate between Lord Lemos and Baroness Northover
Lord Lemos (Lab)
I do not think I have anything to add. There is a long history of the use of the term “donor” to characterise providers of overseas aid, but we are not debating that now, if the noble Lord will forgive me. I do not really recognise the characterisation he is putting forward.
A number of noble Lords mentioned conflict and diplomacy. Conflict in the world, as we all know, has become ever more deadly and complex, and the UK’s diplomatic, development and security levers are more than the sum of their parts. We are working very closely alongside our international partners, old and new, wherever we can. This work expands effort to prevent conflicts as well as to resolve them.
A number of noble Lords stressed the need for conflict prevention, and that too is part of what the Government are committed to. We want to stabilise fragile places for the long term, not just to respond to conflicts once they have arisen. We also want to protect our shared security online—that has not had much attention in this debate, but it is important nevertheless—and improve our ability to identify and assess risk and strengthen the systems. We need to issue early warnings of conflict—a point that my noble friend Lord Browne emphasised.
Above all, our commitment is to save lives. We also want to uphold international law. We want to break the vicious cycles that blight so many lives with appalling violence and cause people to flee their homes. We must work to strengthen democratic structures and civil society organisations in exactly the way that my noble friend Lord Barber has been working in Palestine. This commitment to both preventing and helping to resolve conflicts and stabilising the situation sits alongside our efforts to target life-saving humanitarian relief in a deeply troubling world. The UK remains a leading humanitarian actor, and we will continue to support those in crisis, especially in Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan.
The noble Lord, Lord Callanan, asked me to set out the Government’s approach to UNRWA and Palestine, and I am very happy to do so. Following the US-led ceasefire agreement, there have been some improvements in the level of aid co-ordinated by the UN entering Gaza. It remains insufficient and needs upscaling rapidly to ease the suffering. The UK has provided £81 million of humanitarian and early recovery support as part of our £116 million programme for Palestine this financial year. The UK is doing all we can to alleviate suffering. Quantifying how much UK aid has entered Gaza is difficult due to the complex operating environment. Despite the restrictions on access, we know that UK aid is having an impact. The Foreign Secretary met UNRWA Commissioner-General Lazzarini in November and was clear that the UK continues to support UNRWA politically and financially, recognising its vital role in delivering essential services such as health and education to millions of Palestinian refugees across the region. This financial year the UK has committed £27 million, which will enable UNRWA to scale up life-saving aid including food, water, shelter and medical care for Gazans facing famine conditions.
A number of noble Lords mentioned women and children. The UK is a long-standing leader in preventing sexual violence in conflict, and we are setting a gold standard globally for engaging survivors through our survivor advisory group and survivor champions. The International Alliance on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict, which the UK helped to create, remains at the forefront of global action to prevent sexual violence. Importantly, as well as supporting services we are backing global efforts to make sure that perpetrators of appalling violence are held to account.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, kindly warned me of her question—so I am prepared to answer it—about what the UK will do during our presidency of the UN Security Council. I can confirm that we will embed women, peace and security considerations across the council’s work. As the Foreign Secretary set out in the high-level event commemorating the 25th anniversary, which the noble Baroness referred to, the UK is committed to amplifying women’s voices, participation in building peace, stepping up efforts to end impunity for sexual crimes in conflict, and ensuring that our humanitarian work goes further to address the particular impact of crisis on women and girls. This work will be underpinned by the UK’s refreshed approach to women, peace and security, including our ongoing work to strengthen delivery, accountability and cross-government co-ordination.
Lastly, on conflict, I draw attention to something that I do not think anyone has mentioned, which is our amazing worldwide demining and action groups, the Halo Trust and the Mines Advisory Group. The UK has done more than any other country on demining, and it represents an extremely important building block in conflict, security and stabilisation.
I turn to soft power. The UK regularly appears near the top of the league tables on soft power, but we are not complacent and we are obviously aware of the rise of other global actors. Soft power is about people-to-people relationships, going beyond government to government, as the noble Lord, Lord St John, and others noted, and our soft power assets allow us to reach the people that government finds it difficult to reach. We will be saying more about the links between development soft power and ensuring the UK’s security when we publish the soft power strategy later this year, which I hope will answer some of the questions that noble Lords have asked. Our work in soft power, as a number of noble Lords have emphasised, is stressed by the British Council, and I should declare my interest as the longest-standing trustee of the British Council for many years.
Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, I realise that the Minister is running out of time, but can he assure us that he will write to us with the answers to questions that he has been unable to give in his speech?