Official Development Assistance

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

The announcement that the Government plan to merge FCO and DFID has rightly been met with widespread concern from global aid organisations and poverty charities to former Prime Ministers. As a member of the International Development Committee, my position is no different. I pay tribute to the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), my fellow Committee members and, most importantly, the Committee staff, who are going through a turbulent time.

The merger will almost certainly end Britain’s ring-fenced £15 billion aid budget, not to mention the fact that the timing is incredibly poor, given that we are in the middle of a global pandemic, when such funding is essential to alleviating the impact on some of the vulnerable people in the world. That is before we even take into consideration the Whitehall redundancies that the merger makes inevitable, without any form of consultation, despite what the Prime Minister claims.

Most worryingly, it appears that the Government are using the current crisis to railroad through their long-held plans to scrap DFID. The proposed merger would be catastrophic on many levels, leading to the reversal of the progress made by successive Governments, in the more than two decades since it was first established in 1997, in everything from health and education to poverty.

Several former Prime Ministers who understand more than most the role that Britain plays on the world stage with its aid commitment have been critical of the Government’s decision. Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron have called this move a “mistake”, which will result in

“less expertise, less voice for development at the top table and ultimately less respect for the UK overseas.”

The charity sector is equally outraged by this decision. Appearing before the International Development Committee last month, Oxfam UK’s chief executive communicated his fears that with half a billion people at risk of being pushed into poverty as a result of covid-19, the move was unbelievable. Similar comments were expressed by Save the Children, Christian Aid and Concern Worldwide.

The Fairtrade Foundation has also hit out at the planned merger, with its chief executive labelling this move a “backward step” that reduces

“Britain’s aims and ambitions on the world stage.”

The Fairtrade Foundation is also concerned about the real intention of this merger, and it has stated that UK aid

“must remain focused on poverty reduction, not diverted for security interests or in return for favourable trade terms.”

Our aid not only helps save lives, but creates opportunities for people to improve their circumstances and life chances. It has lifted millions of people out of poverty, educated them and saved millions more. To cite one example of DFID’s importance, since 2015 the Department’s nutrition programme has reached more than 60 million women, under-fives and adolescent girls, who are among some of the poorest people when it comes to hunger and malnutrition.

I appreciate that time is running out, so I will finish on this point. It is vital that DFID be allowed to continue and that the scrutiny mechanisms that go alongside it, such as the International Development Committee, are kept in place.

Bahrain: Prisoners Under Sentence of Death

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

My hon. Friend is right; human rights are absolutely at the heart of this Government’s foreign policy. They are a topic that I discuss regularly with my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and my noble friend Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, who leads for Her Majesty’s Government on human rights. We will continue to push for improvements on human rights around the world with all our friends and partners internationally. I assure him and the House that that will remain absolutely at the heart of foreign policy. It is a point on which the Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary are rightly proud.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

Following on from the question from the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden), the UK’s College of Policing continued to provide training to the ombudsman of the Ministry of Interior and the Bahraini special investigation unit in 2019. Will the Minister inform the House what the College of Policing’s training covers on the treatment of prisoners, the use of torture and the threat of the death penalty against prisoners?

[James Cleverly]

As I have said on a number of occasions, the United Kingdom strongly opposes the use of the death penalty and the use of torture. Our technical assistance to those oversight bodies is to ensure that they improve their effectiveness and transparency. That is what the work of the UK Government, in conjunction with the Bahraini Government, is seeking to achieve, and we will continue to push for the improved accountability, transparency and effectiveness of such oversight bodies.

Covid-19

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I will of course look at the case of the hon. Gentleman’s constituent very carefully—a number of other Moroccan cases have been raised—and get back to him with as clear a steer as possible. He is right to raise all those issues about supply chains; again, that was one of the issues I discussed with the Transport Secretary. The hon. Gentleman will have heard that the changes I announced to the travel advice will not apply to freight. We are very mindful in everything we do about keeping supply chains open, and we will continue to look at that. He also makes an important point about food supply and, frankly, the opportunities for UK-based suppliers to rise to meet some of the demand as supply is curtailed as a result of covid-19.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

I have written to the Secretary of State regarding a constituent stranded in Austria. I am told that there is a lack of testing kits and there are issues with travelling back. There is already chaos with repatriation, even before the majority of countries move into emergency lockdown phases or close their tourist venues. Can the Secretary of State confirm that the Foreign Office has all the resources it needs to provide extra consular support, and that it is very likely that UK nationals will be caught up in these fast-moving situations?

[Dominic Raab]

We will of course look very carefully at any case. The hon. Gentleman has written to me all about constituents in Austria. There is no doubt that the Foreign Office, as with the rest of the Government—most obviously the NHS—will come under pressure. The key thing is that we have the means and the agility to prioritise, to ensure that dealing with covid-19 is the top priority as we go through this challenge. I am very clear that the Foreign Office will do everything we can to protect our constituents—UK nationals abroad—and ensure that we work with our international partners to rise to this challenge, get through it and then move on, so we can get back to some semblance of normality.