Overseas Development Assistance

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Monday 3rd July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

My noble friend is absolutely right. Small organisations often bring innovation to the process, passion and low overheads, which are deeply needed in the way that we develop aid. As part of that process, the Secretary of State has announced that we are going to launch a small charities challenge fund aimed particularly at small organisations with a turnover between £25,000 and £250,000 for accountable grants of £50,000 each. We will be making an announcement about that next week but I will certainly make sure that all Members of your Lordships’ House, who I know follow these matters closely and have good links to many small charities doing amazing work around the world, have details of that fund.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, as part of this consultation will the Government publish an assessment of the impact of the changes that were made in 2016—they were indeed made to accommodate the sustainable development goals, as well as the UK priority of investment in conflict-affected and fragile states—before then asking for more?

[Lord Bates]

That is certainly something that we will look at once we figure out the exact routes that we are going down. We have identified a number of areas. For example, development assistance is available post-conflict to rebuild countries but when it comes to peacekeeping, only a small percentage of that budget is attributable to development assistance. When we want to help with training militaries in how to prevent sexual violence in conflict, we find difficulties in getting that element there. When we want to look at refugees providing vocational assistance here in the UK, that is deemed to be a benefit to the national economy and therefore is not allowed. So there are a few things here but the essential point, which the noble Lord is absolutely right about, is that we have to work together on this to resolve those differences with the primary purpose in mind.