Nutrition for Growth Summit

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Wednesday 13th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend raises a very important point. I assure her that we are talking to all our allies. Indeed, this has been part of our feature—talking about tackling, for example, famine, as part as our leadership under the G7 agenda. I hope to travel to the United States shortly to meet some of the new members of the State Department team and this will certainly feature in those discussions as well.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, I remind noble Lords that the ODA specific nutrition spend from 2016-19 was almost £110 million; this year it is projected to be only £37 million. Does the Minister not agree that maintaining good nutrition is one of the easiest and best ways to ensure a healthy population? This cut is not just drastic but extremely short-sighted. Once again, food has been penalised over other areas. Can the Minister tell the House when this budget will be restored and, indeed, increased to £120 million, which is what global experts recommend?