International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Gordon Brown Excerpts

Friday 12th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gordon Brown (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Lab)]

Let me first thank the former Minister, the right hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Michael Moore), for introducing this important Bill. Let me say, too, that all Members deserve thanks for the way this country has met the target of contributing 0.7% of our national income in aid over these last few years. I hope the background to this debate is that we wish to keep the promises we have made for the future.

Anyone who goes to the children’s museum in Rwanda will see a photograph of a young boy called David. Below that photograph, people will see a number of words that summarise the problem that we have and are dealing with. It says only a few things about the life of this young boy: “David, age 10; favourite sport, football; favourite hobby, making people laugh; ambition, to be a doctor.” Then it says: “Death by mutilation; last words, ‘the United Nations are coming to help us’”. That young boy in his innocence and his idealism believed that the international community was coming to his aid. He believed that what we had said about what we would do in a genocide would lead to action. He believed that when we made promises, we in the international community would keep them. It is to our shame that that young boy died, believing that help would come when it never did.

Now it is too late to keep our promises to that young boy David, but what we are talking about today is how we keep the promises we have made as a country and as an international community. What we are talking about is whether the parties that signed pledges during the last few years—the coalition agreement contained those pledges—are prepared to uphold these pledges, which said specifically that the 0.7% target would be legislated for and put on the statute book by this House and by the House of Lords.

We have not even recently kept the promises that we made in another area. “Why have you abandoned us?”—the five words that a young girl from Syria said to me when she was pleading for help for her country and her family, now that she was exiled in Lebanon. That young girl had been forced out of her home in Homs, her family had been forced into exile and her disabled sister had been forced out on to the streets. She was now in a shack in Lebanon. Yes, she wanted food; yes, she wanted shelter; and yes, she wanted medicine for her sister, but she said to me that she also wanted to go to school. She thought she might be able to go to the schools in Lebanon, and she asked us whether we could make international aid available so that she and other exiled refugees could do that.

The Lebanon Government—I appreciate that the Minister of State, the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Mr Swayne) has just been there—offered to help. They said they would do a double-shift system in the schools by opening up the schools in the evenings so that young people from Syria would have the chance of being educated after the Lebanese children had had their own education earlier in the day. We devised a plan that would cost $200 million and would enable nearly 500,000 children to go to school. That is $4 a week per child—a cost-effective way of getting children back into school.

The British Government have put up money—I thank the Secretary of State for International Development, who is in her place today, for that—as have other Governments, but the brute fact is that 300,000 of these 500,000 children who could go to school are not able to do so because the international aid community has refused to put up enough money to make it possible. While we have achieved $100 million of the $200 million target, we have not been able realise the simple matter of providing $4 a week to get a child into education in Lebanon. It is not because there are no schools for them to go; it is not because we are ignorant of the plight; it is not because there are not enough people willing to help and make it possible: it is because there is a need for international aid, and that aid has not yet been met.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a very powerful emotional argument, which we can all understand and support. He will be aware, however, that serious academic studies, not least by the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee and the Centre for Global Development, question the effectiveness of this target. For instance, they say that

“the speed of the planned increase risks reducing the quality, value for money and accountability of the aid programme”,

and

“the right amount of aid for poor countries should not be based on the size of rich economies but on the needs of a particular poor country itself.”

Will the right hon. Gentleman reply to those serious academic arguments?

[Mr Brown]

First of all, I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that his party made a promise, and it is a duty of a party that makes a promise to try to keep it, to do what the party said and to legislate in law. The problem we face with the general public is that we make promises, but the public still do not trust us to keep them. That is why it is important that this debate leads to action and results. As for the cost-effectiveness of aid, let me provide the hon. Gentleman with another example, and then others might like to enter the debate.

I have recently been to Juba, the capital of South Sudan, the newest country in the world, which is trying to move forward. I went to a village school just outside Juba and I asked the women there—young mothers, many of whom had been child brides at the age of 12 or 13—what they wanted most. Of course, as I said about those in Syria and Lebanon, they needed food, protection, shelter and security, as they were in the midst of the threats and violence that come whenever there is a civil war, but they also said that what they wanted was education for their children.

I went to a small village hut school just outside Juba that was serving that village. There were 20 young children in that very small, one-hut school. What I remember seeing was 100 children outside the school looking in through a portal—one small window in this hut of a school—at something that they could not have because there were only 20 places for a village of hundreds of people.

The plan was drawn up for $200 million to be spent on educating the children of South Sudan. Only a third of children are at school and there are only about 60 girls in the final year of secondary education. The plan cost $4 a week—$200 a year—for these children to get education. The problem was not the willingness of the Government to do it or that there were no plans to do it; the problem was that nobody in the international community was able to come up with the extra $100 million—for a cost-effective project that, at $4 a week, nobody could doubt would be worth the money—despite efforts by this Government and others. Nobody in the international community was able to bring together the $200 million that might have brought children to school.

If anybody is in any doubt about other services, let me say this about education. Education unlocks the future. Education unlocks opportunity. The reason why we can cut child mortality and maternal mortality is that the death rate for educated people and educated mothers is half that of others. If anybody is in any doubt about what education has been able to do, there are 400,000 children who have been brought into school as a result of the aid budget of this Government and the previous Governments, in a way that did not happen before 2000.

[Mr Gray]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Brown]

I will, but I think I am responding to the points.

[Mr Gray]

We are, as the right hon. Gentleman correctly says, spending 0.7% now and not achieving the various things that he has listed. We all support international aid—of course we do; there is no question about that at all. The question is simply whether there is any advantage in writing the figure of 0.7% into the law of the land. If so, why should we do that for children around the world when we do not do it for British children with cancer, for example?

[Mr Brown]

We can talk about other areas of policy, but let me remind the House that every party made a promise. Every party debated and discussed this, and every party decided that they would legislate so that aid was a requirement at 0.7% and that the Government would honour that, so the hon. Gentleman is saying to his own party that it made a mistake in doing so. If that is his view, let him have the debate with his own party.

Let me respond to the point about cost-effective aid. I do not think the hon. Gentleman knows this figure, but the average amount of aid for education—I will come to health in a minute—for a sub-Saharan African child, in all the poorest countries of Africa, from the international aid agencies, Britain and America, put together is $13 a year per child. We spend £5,000 a year on the education of a child in Britain. The average amount of aid for a child in Africa, at $13, is barely enough to pay for a second-hand textbook, and he is somehow suggesting that this is not cost-effective and is too much.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Brown]

I will give way once more and then I will move on.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

If we take a leadership position on this and enshrine it in law and then other countries follow suit, would that not also give the NGOs working on the ground much more clarity and predictability on spending and planning for smart aid for all the good causes that the right hon. Gentleman talks about?

[Mr Brown]

The hon. Gentleman puts absolutely the right argument, which I will now come to. By legislating in this House, we could be a catalyst for other countries to do more. We would be in a position for the long term to say to countries and Governments who are not spending enough domestically on education, health and anti-poverty programmes that we will match whatever extra money they give over a longer period of time. We would be giving certainty to our aid budget for many years ahead. It seems to me that those who are protesting today also ignore the fact that on average we spend only about £1.50 per child—all aid agencies put together—on the vaccination programme in Africa.

[Philip Davies]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Brown]

It is so tempting to be back in this House and to deal with some of my former—okay; I will give way.

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful; it is good to hear the right hon. Gentleman being so shameless about promises when he broke one on the Lisbon treaty.

On the point that if we spent 0.7% of our GNI on aid, every other country would follow us, how is it that as we have increased our aid budget, other countries have reduced the proportion they spend on aid? Is it not the case that they are using our increased spending as an excuse to reduce theirs? The right hon. Gentleman is giving the CND argument of the 1980s that if we were to get rid of our nuclear weapons, every other country would follow.

[Mr Brown]

We know we are on a filibuster when a Conservative Member starts mentioning the Lisbon treaty and then mentions CND in the 1980s.

Why does the hon. Gentleman not get to the heart of the issue? Let us take one country—Sierra Leone: one health worker for every 5,000 people; the UK: one to 77. Sierra Leone has 100 doctors for a population that is bigger than Scotland’s, and 200 nurses and 100 midwives. Do we say as a result of that that the small amount of aid we give—the $12 per person for education and the $50 per person for health in sub-Saharan Africa—is too much? Do we say that it is too generous or too wasteful?

Let us project into the future. We know that this has been a summer of conflict—six wars around the world—and a summer of carnage for children. When we have 1.5 million child refugees displaced from Syria, with refugees in Iraq, Gaza, the Central African Republic and also South Sudan, how can we possibly justify not making a law that suggests that the small amounts of money that are given by the international community, which can make an absolutely huge difference, should continue? My claim is based not just on the success of what we have done and the enormity of what we still have to do, but on the cost-effectiveness of most of the aid that I see delivered by DFID and many other aid Departments round the world.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman is speaking with great authority. Having been in Jordan just last month and seen the schools operating there, partly funded by us, I do not think anybody can doubt the necessity of what continuity and sustainability of funding brings to education for those displaced people. On health, Ethiopia was the first place I ever visited as a Member of Parliament, where I learnt the shocking statistic that there were more Ethiopian doctors in New York than in the whole of Ethiopia. Do we not need to ensure the continuity and sustainability of aid, so that we build up a force of professionals who can stay in those countries to bring the health, education and business development that they so desperately need and with which this Bill can help?

[Mr Brown]

The hon. Gentleman makes the argument for a long-term commitment to aid—for building up the capacity of health care systems in those countries; for encouraging them to invest for the long term; and for paying the doctors sufficient salaries in those countries so that they stay in them. Does he not also make a point that Government Members who oppose what we are doing should listen to—that if we can be a catalyst for other countries, if we can make a long-term commitment to aid and if we can honour our promises, we have a chance, as a large country, of influencing the rest of the international community?

[Naomi Long]

rose—

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

rose—

[Mr Brown]

I am going to move on and finish so that other people can speak.

Is this Parliament really prepared to send the message to the rest of the world that, after 40 years of fighting to reach the 0.7% target—it was 0.27% in 1997; we moved it to 0.3% by 2000, then to 0.4%, to 0.5% by 2006, and to 0.6% by 2010, and then, to the credit of the coalition Government, to 0.7% by 2013—and all this time spent climbing to the top of the mountain and reaching this elevated view, we are going to slide down again by making no commitment in law that in future we will meet the targets we have set?

[Mr O'Brien]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Brown]

I will, although I have given way enough to hon. Members, some of whom are trying to filibuster rather than address the issue.

[Mr O'Brien]

I just want to reinforce the point about the predictability of funding. In support of the right hon. Gentleman’s argument, we are privileged that we can now see the impact of this policy, which proves that this is worthwhile spending and very efficient, not least when we look at malaria, in which I know he has been seriously engaged, and it goes above all politics and across this House. We have managed to reduce the number of deaths in sub-Saharan Africa from malaria over the last 18 months from 2 million down to 672,000. What more proof do we need about the predictability of funding?

[Mr Brown]

I apologise; I should have allowed the former Minister to intervene earlier, and I congratulate him on the work he did. He makes a very big point, which in my view is also an answer to the point made by the Scottish National party. Without bringing politics into this, it is absolutely clear that the only reason we were able to secure debt relief of $200 billion, which meant that about 20 to 30 countries were able to spend money on health, education and anti-poverty programmes, where they were previously spending it on interest, is because we had the power of the large countries coming together in the G7 which were forced to make a decision that other countries were prepared to follow. If Britain had not proposed that at the G7—Scotland could not, as an independent country, have been at the G7—and if the big countries had not got together, we would never have achieved the $200 billion reduction in debt as a result. We have said that aid is cost-effective. I am suggesting that aid can also be thought of as long-term by building the capacity for the future.

I am saying that we can be a catalyst for other countries, but I also want to say one thing in conclusion. It is said that we can survive for 40 days without food, for eight days without water and for eight minutes without air, but we cannot survive for a minute without hope, and this debate is also about hope.

A friend of mine was at an international conference in Africa and she was making the point, which perhaps we would all have been tempted to make, that aid is not about pity; it is about empathy. It is not just about having sympathy for people; it is about helping people, because we think the same way as they do about their responsibilities to each other. She said that people would do everything for their children. But after her talk someone quietly took her aside and said one of the most devastating things I think I have ever heard. He said, “I can’t love my children as much as you love yours in the west. I can’t allow myself to, because then it would destroy me when I lose them.”

How can we continue to live in a world where in a country such as Ethiopia families did not register the births of their children for months because of the fear that they were going to die in their infancy—where a father or a mother can say that they cannot love their child too much because of the fear that they are going to lose them? How can we live, therefore, in a world where there is not hope and expectation that things could get better?

Let our debate today be a message that there can be hope for the future, enshrined in law. Let us ensure that we can say that to millions of people who thought things were hopeless and that we not only kept our promises, but we kept hope alive.