International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Friday 12th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

I hear a challenge from beside me about where that is substantiated. For the record, according to the 2012 ComRes survey, 61% of adults supported the increases in overseas development assistance spending that enabled the Government to meet their 0.7%. Indeed, a third of those thought that 0.7% was too low. It is clear that the Bill has widespread support among the public and the third sector. The Turn Up Save Lives campaign is backed by 40 groups, including Oxfam, UNICEF, Tearfund, Christian Aid and Islamic Relief, to name but a few. I join the former Secretary of State for International Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), in applauding the work of those aid agencies working in some of the most difficult circumstances, particularly where their own lives are threatened, as we have seen this summer with hostage taking in centres of conflict.

Some would ask: why should we give aid at all? Some Members will undoubtedly question giving 0.7% of our GNI, but DFID’s budget for this financial year is about £13 billion, which equates to about 1.6p in every pound in the United Kingdom. According to Tearfund, of which I remind the House I am a vice-president, that figure is also less than the amount we spend on takeaway food in this country every year. It sometimes helps to bring percentages of GNI down to an incredibly practical level, so next time hon. Members order a takeaway, I ask them please to remember that our average spend on takeaways is more than we spend on overseas aid.

There is also an absolute moral argument that I do not think we can get away from. Given the recovery of our economy, there is some dispute about whether we are the world’s seventh richest nation or whether we are rising up to be the sixth richest nation. Sixth or seventh, we are among the richest nations in the world and I believe that means there is an absolute moral requirement on us to help the world’s poorest. As the Archbishop of Canterbury has said, critics of aid all too frequently

“ignore the transformative impact that aid can and does have in fragile countries struggling to meet basic human needs”.

The Turn Up Save Lives campaign points to the recent example of the civil war in Syria, where the combination of Government aid and contributions from the British public have enabled more than 1 million children to be reached with blankets and other supplies. Such figures provide a mere insight into some of the ways in which aid is having a transformative effect on people’s lives.

On a visit to Bangladesh earlier this year, I saw flood resilience that had been built through the capacity building of an aid agency, which gave me the idea that some of our own flood-affected communities at home could have done with such simple capacity building. I shall never forget visiting the huts of women in rural Bangladesh who were not able to read or write, but who, as a result of capacity building, had been taught how to generate an income for their village. As a result, they had built latrines in the village and had enough money to put solar panels on the roofs of the huts to provide internal lighting. As those women told me, with a real sense of empowerment in their eyes, “Maybe we can’t read and write, but some of our daughters are now able to go to university because they are able to study, even in the hours of darkness.”

If anybody in the House is still in doubt about the transformative nature of development assistance and about the way in which it creates not dependency but sustainability, I for one would be somewhat surprised. In the words of the former managing director of the World Bank, the current Finance Minister of Nigeria:

“Aid can be a facilitator. That is all aid can be. Aid cannot solve our problems. I’m firmly convinced about that. But it can be catalytic.”

I agree that the Bill will be a catalyst.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I ask whether it is appropriate for the House to reflect on the sad news of the death of Lord Bannside, who served in this House for so many years, with such character and colour, as the Rev. Ian Paisley? Hon. Members will know that, belonging to a different party, I had many differences over the years with Ian Paisley and with his views and stances. However, in all the dealings I and everybody else had with him, he was a man of considerable personal grace. He was also someone who, in spite of the fact that he opposed agreements and institutions, actually came to a position where he helped to ensure that we have a settled process, and even more agreement on those arrangements and institutions. I know that the members of his own party—the party he founded—are, unfortunately, not able to be here today. I want to express my condolences to them. Because the House is going into recess, we will not have the normal opportunity that may have arisen for hon. Members to pay their respects. I do not wish to interrupt or impede the important debate on the Bill of the right hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Michael Moore), and if there is one thing I know about Ian Paisley, in terms of his sympathetic world view, it is that he would not wish the Bill to be impeded by how the House responds to this sad news.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising the point of order and for bringing this very sad news to the House. The death of Lord Bannside—known in this House for many years as the hon. Member for North Antrim, the Rev. Ian Paisley—will be a great loss to Parliament and to the political body as a whole. He was a man of great principle: a big parliamentary personality in every way. He was always kind, and always ready with a witty and amusing word to lighten a dark hour. He will be greatly missed in this House, in the other place and generally. I am sure that the House will wish to give its sympathy and thoughts to his son, the current hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley), and the rest of the Paisley family.