Gaza: Humanitarian Situation

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Leo Docherty]

The hon. Lady makes a painful allusion to the view of Save the Children; a large proportion of our increased aid budget is going to UNICEF to support children who have been affected. We would all like a de-escalation and ceasefire, but while Hamas remain intent on perpetrating another atrocity, like the one on 7 October, it is hard to see how there can be any other response than the military response of Israel defending its sovereignty.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has issued a call for evidence regarding possible breaches of international humanitarian law in Israel and Palestine. Is the UK Government in a position to contribute—indeed, will it be contributing—to that investigation?

[Leo Docherty]

Not at this stage, but we will continue to take note.

Israel and Hamas: Humanitarian Pause

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Gentleman speaks with wisdom about the position of civilians. All of us hope that the loss of life among innocent civilians can be minimised, but I would point out to him that the Israeli Government have an absolute right to go after the murderous terrorists of Hamas who perpetrated the dreadful events of 7 October.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I have heard from a number of constituents in Glasgow North who are concerned that weapons either manufactured in the UK or sold by UK companies are being used in this conflict. Can the Minister say how regularly the UK is assessing its obligations under the arms trade treaty to ensure that arms are not being transferred when there is a risk of their being used to commit or facilitate breaches of international humanitarian law?

[Mr Mitchell]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, the British rules for the export of arms, scrutinised by the Committees on Arms Export Controls, provide for the toughest regulations anywhere in the world. If he ever believes that those rules have been infracted in any way, he should of course inform the requisite authorities.

Debt in Africa

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Tuesday 21st November 2023 Westminster Hall

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I congratulate the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) on securing what I think has been a very thoughtful and surprisingly theological debate, at a very timely moment in the context of the UK Government publishing their new White Paper. That White Paper presents a very welcome change of tone and perspective on issues of global development. I hope that the language of aid being a giant cash machine in the sky is consigned to the past, and that we can focus on moving forward in a much more constructive and consensual tone. I think that that has been reflected in the debate today.

The same is true of the memories of the Jubilee Debt Campaign, which of course had very deep theological roots of its own, given the biblical concept of a jubilee. I might say again at the end that this is a concept that we perhaps need to come back to. Like the hon. Members for Putney (Fleur Anderson) and for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd), I worked with very committed campaigners, some of whom are now constituents, who wrote to whoever their MP was back in the day and who continue to write to me all these years later, because they are so passionate and so motivated. It was such an effective campaign in so many different ways. It went from being Jubilee 2000 to the Jubilee Debt Campaign, and it is now known, as we have heard, as Debt Justice. That is part of a wider movement for a fair economy, for corporate justice, and for climate justice.

It is interesting that whenever the word “justice” is used in the White Paper, it is in the technical, juridical sense relating to a country’s justice systems, rather than in the sense of striving for just, equitable and more peaceful solutions to the challenges that face the modern world. As everybody has said, debt is now one of those biggest challenges. Africa’s debt is at its highest level in over a decade. That is frustrating and disappointing, given all the work and effort that went into setting up the mechanisms for Jubilee 2000 and the Make Poverty History campaign. Progress and huge strides were made for a variety of reasons. Some of those were beyond individual control—such as the likes of the pandemic—but some were very much within our control, such as the way in which multilateral organisations have continued to work, avoidable conflict and, of course, the impact of climate change and the need to respond so quickly, leverage finance and look around to wherever that finance can come from.

That has led to a change in the structure and composition of the debt. Previously, the debt was owed to official creditors, high-income countries and multilateral lenders like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, but now we see China holding a huge proportion of that debt and private creditors making up an increasingly large proportion, as well. At the moment, the debt is not subject to the kinds of structures that were put in place around the millennium, and the effect of that is that the cost of servicing the debt has also increased, and so developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa paid about $84 billion simply in debt servicing in 2021, with countries in the middle east and north Africa paying a further $45 billion. We have heard the expression “doom loop” on a number of occasions, from a number of Members, because that just builds and compounds and then has all the effects that a number of Members spoke of so powerfully, affecting the infrastructures of the countries.

The hon. Member for Slough and I were both in Malawi this year—I refer to our entries in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—with the all-party parliamentary group on malaria and neglected tropical diseases. Malawi is one of those 21 African countries we heard about that are in, or at high risk of, debt distress. Its external debt effectively tripled between 2009 and 2021, and we can see the impact of that simply in the country’s inability to get moving; there is a need for infrastructure, and it is simply unable to leverage the resources.

As the hon. Member for Leicester East (Claudia Webbe) so powerfully said, we absolutely want countries to be able to realise the true potential of their riches. Africa is not a poor continent, and African countries are not poor; they are rich in resources and human potential, and yet that potential is not properly realised because they are not in a position to properly and fairly leverage that and they are tied to debt, especially unfair debt. As the hon. Member for Rochdale said, there is this idea of super-abundant extraction of resources through punitive interest rates and unfair deals, which simply compounds that cycle. The DRC should be the richest country in the world. Almost every single person in this Chamber walks around with a little piece of the DRC in our pocket, and yet it is one of the poorest countries in the world and, like so many other countries, it is saddled with debt.

We need fair trade, fair taxation, and a just and sustainable use of the continent’s resources. The responses that have been put forward so far clearly are proving to be inadequate. The analysis has shown that different mechanisms, such as the debt service suspension initiative that was set up in 2020 as a result of the pandemic, have not been fully utilised. The countries that applied to that scheme had an average of just 23% of their debts suspended. The remaining mechanism beyond the DSSI announced in 2020—the common framework for debt treatments—is also incredibly slow; only four countries have so far applied, and none of them has effectively seen any of its debt being cancelled.

Crucial to all of this, as we have heard from some of the contributions, is the lack of co-operation from private sector creditors, both blocking the progress of the countries that are applying and discouraging other countries from applying for those relief processes in the first place. Responsibility has to fall to the UK Government for a large part of this. There has to be multilateral initiative, and there have to be easier and fairer ways of accessing, financing and writing off or restructuring debt; but getting to the heart of this issue of how private companies are able to extract and apply debt is absolutely crucial. Even though the UK Government are not a massive creditor these days, some 90% of the bonds issued by countries eligible for these debt reliefs are governed by English law. The Government say in the White Paper that they want to pioneer new approaches to debt, so they should listen carefully to the proposals being put forward.

I was saying to a colleague earlier today that it is unlikely that legislation will come out of the White Paper, as it is really a statement of Government policy, but here we are in Westminster Hall a couple of hours later talking about firm proposals for legislation on the back of it, put forward by the Debt Justice campaign—the hon. Member for Putney spoke about those. They would have a number of practical effects, including easing the debt restructuring process by undermining the ability of minority creditors to hold out on agreements, easing financial settlements for debtor Governments in distress, increasing the speed of restructuring processes, reducing uncertainty for debtor countries and creditors, enabling borrowing Governments to access capital markets more quickly, and addressing the power imbalance between the single debtor country and often a large number of creditors.

It would be interesting and useful to hear the Minister commit at the very least to consult on what such legislation might look like and speak about how it could be taken forward practically. Of course, it would have to be taken forward in parallel, because there would not be much point in the UK legislating if all the debts transfer to another jurisdiction—New York is the other very popular area for binding these kinds of contracts. It would have to be an international initiative.

I wonder whether we need to think in the even longer term. The White Paper is supposed to take us to the sustainable development goals in 2030. The year 2000 was a jubilee year, which is a biblical concept—debts were written off and everybody had a fresh start—and Pope Francis has designated 2025 as a holy year of jubilee for the Catholic Church, but perhaps we need to think in the longer term about where we will be in the middle of the century. Will we continue in this doom loop, or will we seize the opportunity now to make progress towards the sustainable development goals and go beyond them to create a fairer, more just and more equitable system? Tackling pervasive debt absolutely has to be a part of that. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and others said—this is in the Debt Justice campaign material—people struggle with huge amounts of debt in the United Kingdom and other western countries. As the hon. Member for Leicester East said, we effectively end up in hock to incredibly powerful companies, and that affects the dignity of countries as a whole and the dignity and power of individuals.

If we do not rise to the challenge, the other goals—everything else in the White Paper and the sustainable development goals—will remain exactly that: goals and targets. They will never actually be realised because the money will continue to spiral and line the pockets of people who already have more than enough at the expense of people who do not even have enough to get by.

That is the challenge before us. This has been an incredibly thoughtful and useful debate, and I hope, in the new spirit of consensus that the Government have set today with the publication of the White Paper, that the Minister and the Labour spokesperson will respond appropriately, and that we can find just and sustainable solutions to the challenge of debt in Africa.

International Development White Paper

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Tuesday 21st November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the importance of AMR, and we certainly aspire to be a global leader in that area. As he knows, I spoke about AMR when I was in New York earlier this year, and we are guided specifically by Sally Davies, the master of Trinity College Cambridge and former chief medical officer, who is an expert on this matter. AMR is now the world’s third biggest killer after strokes and heart attacks, and we will be prioritising it in the way that my hon. Friend suggests.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

There is a welcome change of tone in the White Paper—the language about partnership, for example, will not be unfamiliar to those of us who have worked with the Scotland-Malawi partnership for many years. However, in all the “Britain is great” language, I cannot see much recognition of the incredible work that has been done over many years by the devolved Administrations, particularly the Scottish Government, who have ambitions further to the UK Government’s on the empowerment of women and girls and, indeed, loss and damage. Can the Minister confirm that the work of the devolved Administrations in international development, and particularly the work of the Scottish Government, is recognised, accepted and valued by the UK Government, given that they count that spending towards the ODA target?

Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Member has set out with great eloquence the issue before us, and it underlines the absolute necessity to get back on to a political track as swiftly as we can.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

The Minister continues to say that he wants the Government of Israel to respect international human rights law, but last week he said that the Government could not make a determination whether that was happening. He said it would be for courts and lawyers to determine, so which courts and which lawyers, and how and when should a determination be made about whether Israel is complying with international humanitarian law?

Occupied Palestinian Territories: Humanitarian Situation

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Wednesday 8th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will explain to our friends on Birmingham City Council the reason the Government and indeed his own Front Bench take the view that they do about a ceasefire, but he is right that the critical thing at the moment is to focus on the humanitarian pauses, which are designed to get food to those who need it. Nothing is more important in this context than that.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

The Minister said in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) that he wants the Government of Israel to comply with international human rights law and that he encourages them to do so, but he did not answer my hon. Friend’s question: have the Government made an assessment of whether or not the Government of Israel are complying with international human rights law?

[Mr Mitchell]

It is not for the Government to make such an assessment; it is for lawyers and a court to do so. The critical thing is that Britain makes it clear that all countries must abide by international humanitarian law and the rules of war.

UN Sustainable Development Goals

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Thursday 19th October 2023 Westminster Hall

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

Thank you, Ms Bardell. It is a genuine pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, and I warmly congratulate the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) on securing the debate. It provides an incredibly timely opportunity to reflect on the progress, or, indeed, the lack of progress, towards reaching the sustainable development goals as we approach the halfway point, and to look at the outcomes of the high-level meetings on the SDGs that were held in New York last month. Appropriately, this debate bookends the Westminster Hall debate that the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) led back in July on those high-level meetings. A number of Members present spoke in that debate as well. I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, because I will speak later about my visit to Malawi with the all-party parliamentary group on malaria and neglected tropical diseases.

The first debate that I led in Westminster Hall, back in 2015, was on the sustainable development goals. At the time, there was a real sense of optimism and consensus that the achievements that had been made under the millennium development goals framework could be continued, and that Agenda 2030 would provide a platform for even more progress. For several years, we would come into Westminster Hall debates and I would have to congratulate the UK Government and give them credit where it was due for achieving the 0.7% target and for showing leadership in shaping the global development agenda. But then along came Brexit and Boris, which upended the whole thing. It led to the merger of the Department for International Development and the FCDO, descriptions of official development assistance as a giant cash machine in the sky, and a really dismissive attitude to the entire development agenda. I hope that the presence of the new Minister with responsibility for development indicates that the wheel is turning again and that the Government are prepared to take their responsibilities in these areas as seriously as they did under previous regimes.

There was considerable debate about how the sustainable development goals framework should be established, and the SDGs in Agenda 2030 are part of a more complex and perhaps more complicated framework than the MDGs were, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. There was a slightly spurious debate at the time about how many goals there should be, but a development framework is not a marketing exercise. At the end of the day, there are 17 goals and 169 targets, because that is how many there need to be to quantify and measure progress in the interconnected strands of development policy. As the hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) alluded to, even that does not cover absolutely everything. Everyone will have different policy goals that they do not necessarily see fully reflected in the framework, but it does allow for both focus and specialisation, as well as a truly global perspective, and it represents a consensus at an international level.

Of course, it is important that the SDGs apply equally to all countries, unlike the MDGs, which were sometimes seen as things that were being done to developing countries by the so-called developed west. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, not everything in our country or society is perfect, so there are still areas, even in the UK, where progress needs to be made.

This debate is an opportunity, as were the recent high-level meetings that took place in New York, to speak up about the importance of multilateralism at a time when many countries, and that includes elements here in the UK, are starting to look inwards and to narrow their horizons. The UN Secretary General said at those meetings that the outcome document from them represents a “to-do list” for the whole planet. Achieving the SDGs is the best route to achieving peace and security and to tackling the climate crisis around the world.

Sadly, the message from those meetings and today’s debate is that although we have the knowledge and resources to meet the SDGs, we are still significantly off-target for many of the goals. That includes goal 2 on hunger and food security, with 3.1 million children still dying of malnutrition each year. If people do not have enough to eat, nothing else will improve. Kids cannot concentrate at school, adults do not have the energy to work, people get desperate and they look for alternatives. United Against Malnutrition and Hunger says that for every 1% increase in food insecurity, there is a 2% increase in migration and population flows. The Government might want to reflect on that when they think about how to reduce migration into this country.

Goal 3 is on achieving healthy lives for all, and in particular, there is a target within that on ending epidemics. We know that that is affordable, transformative and possible. During our visit to Malawi, we saw people who had benefited from the elimination of trachoma in their communities. We met the very first child who had received a malaria vaccine—it was fantastic. We know that ending TB and even AIDS, as the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall said, can be done if we are willing to put in the effort and resources.

Goal 4 on education, which the right hon. Member for Chelmsford is particularly interested in, is so important. Education is the foundational goal, especially girls’ education, and it has that transformative effect. I was struck in Malawi by the young generation coming through—people in their late 20s and early 30s—who were among the first generation in the country to benefit from universal primary education, and by how it has raised the standard across the whole of society, with the employment opportunities, the research capabilities and the jobs open to people because they have had that investment in education right at the start of their lives. Holistic reform of the architecture that allows finance to flow into individual countries so that they can invest in their education systems is so important and is being called for by the different campaigns we have heard about, including the Global Campaign for Education and Education Cannot Wait.

Goal 6 on water, sanitation and hygiene—as the hon. Member for Hendon said and as we spoke about in great detail on Tuesday—is also so important. Water is life, and clean schools are better for education. Clean drinking water is better for nutrition and health. Clean hospitals and hand hygiene stops the transmission of disease and reduces antibiotic resistance.

Civil society was clear that the summits were a bit of a missed opportunity, especially for the United Kingdom. The Government must be much better at living up to their rhetoric by actually implementing their commitments and showing leadership at the highest level. Sadly, there is a story about the UK’s diminished and diminishing role in SDG leadership compared with the role that it played in 2015. Perhaps that is indicative of a slightly wider malaise affecting this Conservative Government—a Government who have wrenched us out of the European Union and are prepared to abandon key human rights frameworks.

We can compare that with the Scottish Government—one of the first sub-state Governments to commit fully to the SDGs—and the SNP’s vision, which would see 0.7% of aid as a floor, not a ceiling, of an independent Scotland playing its part as a good global citizen. The Government need to pay attention to the demands set out by Bond and others in civil society: to prioritise the SDGs and coherently integrate them into policymaking across Departments; to commit to another voluntary national review to check our progress; to champion reforms of the global financial system; to commit to the principle of leaving no one behind; and to engage with civil society so that it can contribute to the agenda as well.

The hon. Member for Strangford spoke about the generosity of all our constituents to civil society organisations that work in these areas, particularly those led by the Churches and other faith communities. That shows, as the Minister said before, the importance of demonstrating public support. That public support exists, and we all have a role to champion that here in the UK.

The other theme that has come out of today’s debate has been conflict. The hon. Member for Hendon spoke about landmines. The hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and the hon. Member for Strangford spoke about how conflict affects freedom of religion and belief, and the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall rightly spoke about the situation in Gaza. We cannot have this debate without reference to the humanitarian catastrophe now unfolding in Gaza. How different might the world be if the authorities in Israel and Palestine had focused on attaining the sustainable development goals for all the peoples of their territories, rather than descending into a spiral of violence and destruction?

In the modern world, development and peace are so closely tied together that Pope Paul VI was moved to say that

“development is the new name for peace.”

He also said:

“If you want peace, work for justice.”

In the last few days, his successor Pope Francis has been even clearer about the situation in Israel and Palestine, saying,

“Humanitarian law is to be respected, especially in Gaza. Please, let no more innocent blood be shed, neither in the Holy Land nor in Ukraine, nor in any other place! Enough! Wars are always a defeat, always!”

I hope the Minister can agree with that.

Conflict prevention is absolutely key to the sustainable development goals. That is why SDG16 is to

“Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development”.

That should also be the priority for the Government as a whole, not just in their words but in their actions. That is what constituents in Glasgow North, people across Scotland and people across the whole United Kingdom want to see.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Mr Andrew Mitchell)]

This is my first experience of serving under you, Ms Bardell, and I hope that there will be many more in the future.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) for securing this important debate and for her efforts to support sustainable development. She has a great deal of experience in this work. She and I talk often in the margins during votes and in the House of Commons, and she has done a service to the House today by expressing herself with such lucidity. I will address a number of her points. Because of the brevity and succinct nature of the contributions in this excellent debate, I have little excuse not to answer the many questions that have been asked.

Before I do that, I am conscious that this debate takes place against the grim backdrop of the horrifying attacks against Israel. Our thoughts are with all those who are suffering. Britain unequivocally backs Israel’s right to defend itself. We are stepping forward with humanitarian support, working to protect civilians from harm and striving to keep peace and stability alive.

To return to today’s debate, Britain played an instrumental role in establishing the sustainable development goals in 2015, and we are committed to achieving them by the end of this decade. However, seven years on only 15% of the goal targets are on track and nearly 40% are stalled or in reverse. We are currently on track to miss 88% of the goals. If that trend continues, it means that 575 million people will still be living in extreme poverty in 2030. We will have failed to limit global temperature increases to the 1.5° agreed in Paris, and we will have broken the collective promise we made in 2015 to other Governments and to our citizens.

At the halfway mark, with the clock ticking, we must rapidly accelerate progress on the goals, but we have some huge, complex and interlinked challenges to overcome: conflict, covid, climate change, the cost of living crisis and debt burdens increasing to unmanageable levels. It is no wonder that people are angry, particularly in the global south. Meanwhile, geopolitical divisions are making it difficult to address global issues together, and the international financial system is in urgent need of reform to ensure that, in the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), no one is left behind.

In the face of such challenges, the UK is genuinely making an important contribution to reforming the system and ensuring that the voices of the poorest and most vulnerable countries are heard. This year, we launched an 18-month campaign to restore our credibility on international development, accelerate progress on the sustainable development goals and build modern partnerships with developing countries. The campaign has already made progress, and I want to reflect on three aspects of it.

First, there have been some significant pledges on the world stage. At the G7 leaders summit in May, the Prime Minister announced that British investment partnerships will mobilise $40 billion by the end of 2027 for high-quality, clean, green infrastructure and investment. In turn, that will attract further investment from the private sector. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford for her eloquent comments on British International Investment. At the G20 leaders meeting in India, our Prime Minister pledged $2 billion to the green climate fund, which places Britain right at the top of support for that vital engine of combating climate change.

That brings me to the second aspect: support to reform the international financial system. During this year’s United Nations General Assembly, we announced new guarantees for multilateral development banks, to help our overseas aid to go further and multiply our impact by unlocking more affordable finance for key SDG priorities. Through one such guarantee, Britain will unlock up to $1.8 billion of climate finance, thereby supporting vulnerable people across Asia and the Pacific to adapt to climate impacts. It will also accelerate their transition from fossil fuels to low-carbon energy sources, demonstrating how sustainable economic growth and development can go hand in hand.

Britain also announced £180 million for the International Finance Facility for Education, which includes up to £95 million in grants and paid-in capital, along with a contingent guarantee of up to £85 million. This guarantee is an incredible multiplier and will unlock up to $1 billion in new financing, through the Asian Development Bank and the African Development Bank, for education for lower middle-income countries, where an estimated 70% children under 10 are unable to read a simple story. The funding will help countries to use education as a tool for sustainable development, focusing on improving literacy, numeracy and social skills, including the training of teachers and development of curricula.

Britain is also leading the way on making the global financial system more responsive to shock. For example, we were the first to offer climate-resilient debt clauses in loans from our export credit agency, thereby pausing repayments when natural disasters strike—I hope to return to that subject before the end of the debate. Countries need to be able to identify the main risks they face, with access to the right tools and finance to respond. We are scaling existing mechanisms, such as the regional insurance risk pools, and strengthening the global architecture for disaster risk financing by working through the global shield against climate risk. The City of London is an extraordinary inventor of good ideas across the financial-engineering sector, but particularly in insurance.

The third aspect on which I shall reflect is the effort to build a healthier, more prosperous future, including through £17 million of new UK funding, announced at the UN General Assembly, to improve tax systems so that developing countries can stop revenues leaking and invest in their sustainable development. We also supported the political declarations on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, on universal health coverage, and on tuberculosis—to which the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) referred and to which I shall return—all of which were adopted. We committed up to £500 million for the advancing of global health, which will help to tackle future pandemics, boost research into vaccines, reduce deaths from infectious diseases and end the preventable deaths of mothers, newborns and children, as the hon. Member for West Ham (Ms Brown) emphasised.

We are determined to capitalise on the momentum generated at the UN General Assembly. Our White Paper on international development, which has been referred to and which I hope the Prime Minister will launch at the global food summit on 20 November, will set out how we will accelerate progress on the SDGs, eradicate poverty and tackle climate change. This is not about the UK acting alone: the paper will draw from the voices of our partners around the world and set out how we will work with international partners, and across His Majesty’s Government, for the greatest impact. Ministers will continue to use their engagements with international counterparts to drive forward this agenda, including at the AI summit and the food security summit later this year. We will continue to collaborate with Governments, civil society, academia, businesses and others to champion and deliver the goals.

[Patrick Grady]

The Minister said he hopes the Prime Minister will launch the White Paper at a global food summit on 20 November. I very much hope that the House will have sight of it at the same time as, if not before, external participants in a summit somewhere, and that the Minister—or perhaps the Foreign Secretary or, indeed, the Prime Minister himself—will present it to the House so that we can ask questions about it.

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely good point, to which I shall come back, if I may. It is a most unusual White Paper that depends on wide agreement across the political parties.

Let me turn to some of the comments made in the debate. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford made an important point about the role of the private sector. In particular, she mentioned BII, formerly known as the Commonwealth Development Corporation, which invests risk capital in Africa. It is important to recognise the extraordinary contribution that BII makes. Last year, it invested approximately 67% of its investments in Africa—more than £700 million. We should bear in mind that Africa attracts about 3% of world investment, so for an organisation such as BII that is a tremendous commitment. It employs directly and indirectly something like a million people through those investments—that is food on a million tables—and over a three-year period it paid tax into the exchequers of the countries in which it invests of about £10 billion. Not all that money will necessarily be spent to the best effect, but it is absolutely the foundation of building up the ability of a country to meet the aspirations and needs of its citizens.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford mentioned Education Cannot Wait, to which Britain is a huge contributor. I have seen on the ground in Africa the way that Education Cannot Wait makes a tremendous difference to children caught up in emergencies and disasters who are having to move and who are displaced, and how it has real effect.

My right hon. Friend asked me for an update on the White Paper. It will address the two key issues of how to get the SDGs back on track—I talked earlier about how far off-track they are—and how we have a quantum leap in the amount of funding required. The White Paper runs to 2030; were it to be just for this Parliament, it would not have attracted the interest and engagement of not only the brilliant and bright civil servants across Whitehall but the 50 countries that have already contributed to it. Because it runs to 2030, it will need to be a through-train through the result of the election. Of course, I am confident that my party will win the next election, but it is possible that that will not be the case. That is a matter for the electorate to decide. For that reason, it has all-party characteristics, and we are engaged in talking to all the other parties.

On the question from the hon. Member for Glasgow North, I happen to know that this morning a meeting was being fixed with his party’s development spokesman, to show them what we are thinking of doing and take account of their views and advice. I assure the hon. Gentleman that when the Prime Minister comes to launch the White Paper, we hope that it will be a British contribution to driving forward the two objectives that I set out and will not be seen in any way as a party political contribution. We are at our best in driving forward the goals that we all share when we do it on a British basis.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford referred to the Bridgetown agenda and to Marrakesh and the World Bank. Under the new president of the World Bank, Ajay Banga, the Marrakesh meeting was a tremendous success. It also avoided the fears expressed by many that it would be divisive between the north and south. It lived up to President Ruto’s call in Kenya, at the time of the African climate summit, that we should not allow ourselves to be divided into east, west, north and south, and that we should focus on investment and the private sector as the key ingredients for building our way through the climate crisis.

My right hon. Friend mentioned Sudan and Darfur, on which she and I are in agreement. There are signs of ethnic cleansing taking place in Darfur, and the world must react to that. I hope tomorrow to speak to Mr Hamdok, who has played such a leading role in civil society in Sudan. We very much hope that the forthcoming meeting in Addis Ababa will be helpful in moving this issue on. My right hon. Friend is right to say, as others have, that the situation in Sudan is desperate. This is not a fight about ideology: this is a fight between two generals seeking power, and it is a fight being conducted at the expense of that great country and the people who live in it.

The hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) made a very good point about TB and, in particular, about malaria. That point was also made later in the debate, so I will come back to it in just a minute. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) also asked about the White Paper. I hope I have answered most of her questions, but she will want to know that the White Paper will underline the importance of defending freedom of religion and belief for all—and it is not just because she occupies an office next to me in the Foreign Office that I can give her that reassurance.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—who is really my hon. Friend—spoke as the conscience of the House of Commons, as he so often does. I will come to the points that he made in a moment, because they were also made by others.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) was absolutely right to speak about SDG6 and the need for access to water. Britain has always previously been in the lead on WASH and ensured that we prioritised that, but I think our efforts have slipped a bit in recent years. Ten years ago, we were securing clean water for the same number of people as live in the United Kingdom —more than 60 million people. It is a vital part of international development, and I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. Our right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) is just about to publish a book on water and its implications around the world. On the basis that we authors must stick together, I hope that book will tackle and set out some of the difficulties to which my hon. Friend referred.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon also spoke about de-mining. I speak as a former ambassador for HALO in recognising the work that the Mines Advisory Group and HALO—two brilliant British organisations—are doing in conflict zones around the world. I can tell my hon. Friend that de-mining will feature in the White Paper, and that he is absolutely right to put his finger on it. It is not just about lifting ordinance out of the ground; it is also about extending the reassurance for people who are farming, and building up stronger communities in areas that have suffered greatly from conflict.

The hon. Member for Glasgow North, quite apart from speaking about the importance of the White Paper taking a wide account of the views of the House, also mentioned Malawi. I pay tribute to the Scottish Government for the work that they have done in focusing on Malawi. In the Foreign Office, we are very conscious of the importance of that country, which faces so many challenges, and the very good work that is done by many different parts within the United Kingdom.

The hon. Gentleman made the point that the SDGs should apply to all countries, and I agree with him. He will know that Britain conducted its own audit in 2019 and we came out of it extremely well, as he and I would both expect. We will do another audit in due course, but we are loth to engage officials in doing it too soon because that would be likely to replicate what was said back in 2019.

The hon. Gentleman also spoke about conflict prevention, which is at the heart of international development. Preventing conflict from starting, stopping it if it starts, and reconciling people subsequently, is the first of the key hallmarks of international development. The second is building prosperity, which is inextricably linked with the first as well.

Finally, I turn to the hon. Member for West Ham, who also asked about the White Paper. I repeat my comments about the fact that I had an extremely constructive meeting with my opposite number in the Opposition team, the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), earlier this week.

The hon. Member for West Ham talked about the critical nature of the climate change disaster that we face, and she is right that it is the existential crisis of our time. The world is burning up. We have seen these extraordinary extremes of weather. The oceans are dying, with the chemical changes that have taken place because of the rise in temperature. The hon. Lady will know better than me, as a London Member, that, last year, there were brush fires in London for the first time. There is no doubt that this is the existential crisis of our age, which is why we are putting so much effort into ensuring that the British contribution is as good as it can possibly be.

The hon. Lady talked about food and starvation: she is right that it is obscene that some should starve in the world today when there is plenty of food for everyone. I am pleased to say that next year, because we now have the budget under better control, we are able to allocate ahead of time £1 billion for humanitarian relief. The White Paper will have more to say about how we can build greater resilience and adaptation into that process. She will know that the global food security summit takes place on 19 and 20 November. That will be not so much a pledging conference, but will look more at the way in which technology, science and artificial intelligence can drive forward our objectives.

The hon. Member for West Ham also raised the issue of Sudan, and rightly asked about sanctions. We have sanctioned people; we do not normally talk about it on the Floor of the House because, as she will know, it is a process. We are conscious, however, that it is a powerful tool in the armoury for making change. The hon. Lady also raised the important issue of debt. She is right that the principal instrument is the G20 common framework, but we need to do far more than that. We have learned lessons from the negotiations that Zambia and Ghana—two close friends and allies of the United Kingdom—have been through.

I briefly mentioned climate resilient debt clauses. It is important to understand this British invention, which is a real benefit for countries under stress. It means, for example, that a country such as Ghana, faced with a pandemic or an extreme event, does not have to use its liquidity to pay off capital and interest on debt. There is a two-year holiday so that the money can be used to help their own citizens. It is an important contribution by Britain. UK Export Finance, our export credit guarantees agency, is using it, and we hope that before long everyone will be.

Finally, both the hon. Members for West Ham and for Ealing, Southall raised the issue of malaria and TB. In the case of malaria, the new vaccination that was announced a fortnight ago, which is the second vaccination —again, British technology—is a very welcome moment. I was in Mozambique recently with the head of the Global Fund, and together we saw how climate change is leading to an uptick in the number of people affected by malaria. In Mozambique, the amount of malaria had been driven down below 50% among children, but is now rising again for the first time in many years because of climate change and the amount of flooding.

Let me be clear that the first announcement that we were able to make once the Prime Minister came into Government last October was about a replenishment for the Global Fund of £1 billion. It is a very significant commitment by Britain, because we know the Global Fund is so effective when it comes to HIV, TB and malaria. I hope that the hon. Members for West Ham and for Ealing, Southall will accept that this is a powerful British ambition in all three of those areas, and that our support for the Global Fund is a reflection of that.

I end by saying that despite the setbacks we have faced, there is hope that the world can deliver the SDGs, and the UK is determined to play its part. The world needs the goals because they are an approach that recognises the interlinked nature of the global challenges that we face, and sets out our shared vision for overcoming them. That matters now more than ever. Together, we must mobilise the finance required to deliver them, including building a bigger, better and fairer international financial system that addresses both poverty and climate change. We must ensure that money is spent with maximum impact, working closely with country partners to boost economies, create jobs and build a greener and healthier future. I hope that we can all unite to champion and deliver the SDGs over the next seven years for the sake of people and planet.

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene: Sustainable Development

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Westminster Hall

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Latham; as others have said, it is very appropriate that you are in the Chair. I congratulate the hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) on securing the debate, and I am proud to serve as a vice chair of the all-party parliamentary group for WASH, which he and the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) so ably co-chair. I also refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests regarding a visit to Malawi earlier this year with the APPG on malaria and neglected tropical diseases.

Malawi is a country very close to my heart. There is a popular saying in that country, “madzi ndi moyo”: water is life. That probably encapsulates everything we have heard in this debate. As the hon. Member for Putney said, lots of interventions and policy areas are often cited as key to sustainable development and ending poverty, but access to clean, safe water is inarguably right at the very top. A human being can survive several weeks without food but only days without water. Access to water is a basic human right, and yet 2.2 billion people go without ready access to safe drinking water, and more than half the world’s population do not have access to safe sanitation. We take access to clean water so much for granted here in the west—particularly in this country, where it falls out of the sky with such frequency—that is can be hard to comprehend just how difficult life can be without access to safe water.

If water is life, the inverse must be true. Lack of access to water deprives people of life—sometimes quite literally, with 13% of all deaths among children under five attributed to inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene. If unsafe water does not kill, it certainly makes life much more difficult. Water-borne diseases cause terrible sickness, particularly diarrhoea and fluid loss, as the Chair of the International Development Committee said. That can make recovery from illness and the ability to retain nutrition from food even more difficult. Experiencing such illnesses in childhood can have long-term consequences for mental and physical development, which reduces life expectancy and life chances.

Lack of access certainly impacts quality of life: as we have heard, 29% of schools globally do not have access to clean water. I have taught in some of them. About 443 million school days are lost every year because of water-related diseases. As others have said, that disproportionately affects women and girls. Girls are more likely to miss school because of a lack of sanitary facilities—frankly, that is as true here in the United Kingdom as anywhere else in the world—and it is women in developing countries who bear the largest burden of water collection needs, as the hon. Member for Hendon said.

Water Aid estimates that more than 77 million working days could be freed up for women if there were universal access to water and sanitation. The hon. Member for Putney spoke passionately about the difference that that can make. Again, I have been in exactly the same situation; I have travelled to villages and communities in Malawi and other parts of Africa, where water has transformed the lives of the whole community, particularly empowering women and allowing them to assume leadership roles.

The climate crisis is also increasingly experienced as a water crisis. In many places there is either too much or too little or it is too contaminated. That is not just in developing countries. In the United Kingdom, we are experiencing both floods and droughts, and the situation puts massive pressure on our sewerage system. Where efforts are made, benefits can be seen by all, and the potential for benefits can be predicted.

Earlier this year, I and other members of the APPG on malaria and neglected tropical diseases had the privilege of visiting Malawi. We met people in communities where trachoma had been eliminated, thanks to the adoption of WHO’s SAFE strategy: surgery to treat blindness; antibiotics to clear infection; facial cleanliness and hand hygiene to reduce transmission; and environmental protection to stop the infection spreading. Malawi has now been declared a trachoma-free country—something that many other countries in that part of the world aspire to.

As we have heard, the WASH APPG published an important report earlier this year—I took part in some of the evidence hearings—that demonstrated how WASH interventions as simple as cleaning hands and hospitals with soap and clean water can decrease demand for antibiotics, break that chain of infection and remove the opportunity for resistant diseases to become dominant. The hon. Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) spoke of the importance of cleanliness in hospitals in particular.

A few months ago, Lord Boateng hosted a really inspiring event, appropriately enough in the River Room, celebrating the work of Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor, a charity that he is very closely involved with. It works to improve the delivery of clean water to increasingly densely populated areas of towns and cities in developing countries in Asia and Africa. Many stories were featured of lives transformed as a result of putting in sometimes quite complicated and sometimes very simple infrastructure. Again, that has a transformative effect on people’s lives.

The Scottish Government are investing, again, in Malawi in its Water Futures programme, supporting Malawi’s National Water Resources Authority and the Malawi Environmental Protection Authority to map, monitor and enhance that country’s water infrastructure.

I can see that the Minister shares the enthusiasm and inspiration that many of us do on this matter, and it is clear from this debate that water, sanitation and hygiene flow through the development agenda. Making sure that people have access to clean, safe water and a water infrastructure that protects them against floods and droughts helps to unlock so many other aspects of the sustainable development goals. We know that there will be a wider debate on progress towards those goals later in the week. I do not know whether the Minister for Europe will respond to that debate with the same enthusiasm with which he is gearing up to respond to this one.

Questions arise for the Government about how they can support the kind of positive interventions that we have heard about today and what action they will take to overcome the many challenges that remain to ensure that everyone around the world has access to water, sanitation and hygiene. We have heard about the level of public support for these kinds of interventions that exist here in the UK. That needs to be reflected in the White Paper when it is published and it needs to be heard more clearly, as the hon. Member for Putney said, at the highest possible level when the Government make representations on these matters on an international level.

The Government’s own statistics show the dramatic reductions to WASH funding since the ODA cuts were announced. Many of us said at the time that effective aid cannot be turned on and off like the taps that we all take for granted. Government cuts have a long-term impact, so even if funding is slowly being increased and bilateral aid is being increased in some countries, that does not change the fact that there has been a loss of capacity and a loss of progress resulting from the previous cuts. That will not be easily undone.

I do not think we can allow the debate to conclude without addressing the question of access to water in Israel and Palestine—as the Chair of the International Development Committee did—and particularly at this moment in Gaza. Denying people access to water is a fundamental breach of their human rights. Cutting off water supplies to hospitals in Gaza will condemn to death innocent people who have nothing to do with the terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas. The Government of Israel must not use the denial of civilian access to water as part of siege or any other military tactics. I hope that the Minister will echo that statement.

Water is life and, in this part of the world, all too often we take it for granted. The Government have to do more—much more—to make sure that everyone has the access they need to water and to the life that it brings.

Freedom of Religion and Belief

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Tuesday 19th September 2023 Westminster Hall

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. As everyone else has done, I want to congratulate the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) both on securing the debate and on all the work she does in this area. She made a very powerful and considered opening contribution and that was followed by six equally well-informed and impassioned contributions from Back-Bench Members of different parties.

Looking back, we seem to have a debate like this about this time of year. I do not know if that is deliberate or not, but it seems to be becoming a bit of an annual tradition. That is quite appropriate because on 22 August, during the summer recess, we marked the International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief and, in about a month, on 27 October we will mark International Religious Freedom Day. Those days have been designated by international bodies to reflect the fact that freedom of religion or belief is a fundamental human right. As the hon. Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) said, that is enshrined in the universal declaration of human rights, which will be 75 years old on 10 December. It is also recognised, as the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) said, in many other global treaties and conventions.

Sadly, as we have heard throughout this debate, the denial of those rights is on the rise around the world. Perhaps one of the most frustrating and disappointing aspects of this is that the persecution of people for their religion or belief is most often carried out by people who hold or practise a religion or belief of their own. Yet a core teaching of almost every major world religion is the golden rule of the ethic of reciprocity, which is that we should treat others as we ourselves would wish to be treated. Peace and justice are preached, but too often violence and oppression are practised.

We have heard a number of references to various reports about the rise of threats to freedom of religion or belief, including that of the UN special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Nazila Ghanea. Her report earlier this year stated that challenges to FORB were “alarming”, and were undermining efforts on conflict prevention, other human rights such as freedom of speech, and the ability of minorities to participate in public life. I think all Members have drawn out this link between the fundamental principles of freedom of religion or belief and all the other human rights on which the world order is supposed to be based.

We have heard about various countries where apostasy or blasphemy are still criminal offences—in some places punishable by death—including a number of Commonwealth countries, despite the Commonwealth’s proclaimed shared goals of prosperity, democracy and peace. We have also heard reflections on the Pew Research Centre’s published assessments on these issues. It has assessed that the number of countries with high or very high Government restrictions on religion has increased steadily from 47 in 2014 to 57 countries by 2020. It is clear from contributions that threats to freedom of religion or belief also come from non-state actors that are allowed to act with impunity while the state either turns a blind eye or actively supports or encourages them.

At the same time, we should recognise and pay tribute to the work of the many organisations that advocate for freedom of religion or belief and monitor the situation around the world. I am thinking particularly of Open Doors, which publishes its annual world watch list—that is of interest to many constituents in Glasgow North, and I am sure to the constituents of everyone here—as well as Aid to the Church in Need, Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and many others. The staff, researchers and partners of these organisations often put themselves at risk collecting the evidence and testimonies that inform our debates, so we should be very grateful for their work.

I hear regularly from constituents in Glasgow North who raise their concern about the oppression and persecution of faith communities around the world. They are concerned about the increasing oppression of Christians in Pakistan, which the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke about, and have cited a recent example where Christians were forced to flee the Punjab town of Jaranwala after violence broke out following accusations of blasphemy against one of the local cleaners. The Ahmadiyya Muslim community in Pakistan also faces severe persecution by the state, which I think makes the determination of that community to live by their precept of love for all and hatred for none all the more inspiring.

The struggle for peace and justice in the Holy Land, which has been mentioned, is incredibly complex, but respect for freedom of religion has to be at the centre of any just and lasting solution. Yet extreme elements of the Government of Israel are pushing for arrangements and territorial designations that will make access to holy sites for Christians—not just residents, but potentially tourists and pilgrims—much more difficult.

We are marking the first anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini in Iran, and the start of the demonstrations for women, life and freedom that began in the wake of that tragedy. Women should have the right to wear religious dress as they see fit, but they should also have the right to choose not to, and no Government or state body should be punishing them for that decision. That is also true in Afghanistan, where the Taliban’s treatment of women is abhorrent, and many people who belong to religious minorities have fled the country. We have also heard case studies about China, where any religion not sanctioned by the state can be subject to severe repercussions, including the appalling treatment of the Uyghur Muslims that many argue is tantamount to genocide.

All of this demands a response from the UK Government. They must consider how seriously they can live up to the principles they say that they support. The hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) made that point powerfully in a fitting closing speech from the Back Benches.

We cannot pretend that cuts to the aid budget have happened in a vacuum. Funding for conflict resolution projects in some of the world’s most volatile regions—including Nigeria, mentioned by the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers), and Myanmar, mentioned by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill)—was cut to the tune of around £12 million in April 2021. Those cuts do not help the UK’s global influence or its ability to be taken seriously when speaking about these matters on the global stage. The solutions proposed by the hon. Member for Congleton, the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham and others for how the Government can take FORB seriously and ensure that it is front and centre when Ministers travel overseas and have the opportunity to raise it with international partners are absolutely correct. The Government need to step up their work on atrocity prevention and introduce a whole-of-Government approach.

Constituents in Glasgow North and people across Scotland want to do their part to promote and respect harmony between people of all religions and none. I have spoken before about the excellent work of the interfaith movement in both Glasgow and Scotland more widely, and the practical work it does to bring together people of different communities. The Scottish Government continue to lay out their vision for independence, including a written constitution that will enshrine respect for human rights in the foundation of a new Scotland. That way, hopefully, we can all play our part together to continue to promote freedom of religion and belief, and respect for human rights, around the world.

Climate Finance: Tackling Loss and Damage

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2023 Westminster Hall

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. Although Members may not have used all the time available, all the contributions have been substantial and this has been a worthwhile debate, which I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee West (Chris Law) on securing. I recognise his commitment to, and passion for, climate justice over many years. I think he has the distinction of attending the most UN framework convention on climate change conferences of parties of any serving MP—if not, he is certainly close to the record—so he speaks with an experience and authority to which we all, especially the Minister, ought to listen.

We have just returned from a summer recess during which the UN Secretary-General said:

“The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived”.

Only a very small minority of people anywhere in the world would now be prepared to argue that the extreme weather being experienced across the globe is not evidence of the impact that human-driven carbon dioxide emissions since the industrial revolution have had on the planet’s climate. Sadly, some of that minority still inhabit the Conservative Back Benches—although none of them has been brave enough to come to this debate to articulate that—and that has regrettable consequences for Government policy.

As every Member who has spoken in this debate has said, the reality is that climate change poses an existential threat—not necessarily to all human life, but certainly to the lifestyles to which we in the west have become accustomed and to which we encourage others elsewhere in the world to aspire. In 2015, when my hon. Friends and I were first elected, we would come to Westminster Hall debates and say that climate change threatened to undo the progress that had been made towards meeting the millennium development goals and driving down global poverty. Eight years later, we can say with certainty that climate change is undoing that progress and is in fact driving up hunger, poverty and disease in many parts of the world. That is why addressing the issue of loss and damage is so important.

The concept of loss and damage and the need for additional finances to repair loss and damage caused by climate change is not new; it dates at least to the early 1990s when the Alliance of Small Island States first brought it to the table of the existing UN framework. The hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) spoke powerfully about the threat that small island states face. They are among the first to experience the impact of climate change and face the prospect of their islands being literally wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels or becoming uninhabitable as marine ecosystems break down. My hon. Friend the Member for Dundee West asked the Minister to imagine if this country was threatened with being swamped—it is! Not far away, there is a tidal barrier that increasingly cannot cope with the tidal surges and rising sea levels, so this country is going to be affected. Low-lying areas of this island will be affected by climate change.

We all need to act, and that is what loss and damage is about. It recognises that some of the impacts of climate change will be literally beyond repair and certainly beyond prevention and mitigation. That in turn means that support for people and places affected by loss and damage also has to go beyond existing support. If climate change is undoing progress towards the sustainable development goals and poverty reduction, by definition the support to make up for it will have to be additional to what has already been pledged or assessed as required.

In 2022, the Vulnerable Twenty, or V20, which is a group of the Finance Ministers of countries vulnerable to climate change, estimated that

“Climate change has eliminated one fifth of the wealth of the V20 over the last two decades: initial evidence shows that the V20 would have been 20% wealthier today had it not been for climate change and the losses it incurred for poor and vulnerable economies.”

Therefore, there is an important economic argument. Free marketeers and capitalists who see trickle-down economics as the rising tide—ironically—that floats all boats should be paying attention to this. It reminds me of Lord Stern’s description of climate change in 2006—17 years ago—as

“the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen.”

So let the free marketeers come up with their solutions if they want to—some of that has been addressed, and we will come back to it. It is crucial to understand that this issue must not be ignored. A price has to be paid to deal with the impact of climate change. The question is, who will pay it and how?

The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) made important points about the role of future generations and our responsibility towards them. He was right to say that those who have done the most to cause climate change, and who have benefited from the extraction of the earth’s resources and the pumping of pollution into the atmosphere, now have a moral responsibility to support those who are most affected by climate change. That is the concept of climate justice, which has been adopted by the Scottish Government, and many other Governments and climate campaigners around the world, but the UK Government conspicuously avoid even acknowledging it, let alone accepting or committing to it. We will wait, I suspect again in vain, to hear the Minister say that the UK Government accept that climate justice is an important concept that exists and ought to be lived up to.

The important symbolism around the concept of reparations and reparative justice should not be allowed to get in the way of the urgent need to mobilise new additional funding to support countries and communities experiencing loss and damage from climate change. One key point that everyone has made today is that that funding has to be additional, which is also why we have to consider new and innovative ways of leveraging funding. Private sector companies, particularly those that make vast fortunes from the extraction and consumption of fossil fuels, clearly have to be a source, either through direct contributions to global funds or through taxation or levies at a country or international level. That is the “polluter pays” principle, which was raised by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and others who have spoken. There have been long-standing calls for a financial transaction tax, or Robin Hood tax, which could raise additional capital for fighting climate change.

It is particularly important that funding is disbursed in the form of grants and not loans; the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) made that point. There might be other ways, including insurance-based models—there is a lot of innovative thinking in this area—but we must not drive developing countries even further into debt.

[Deidre Brock]

Indeed. Those most likely to be affected by the adverse impact of climate change are already burdened by debt, which cripples their economies. My hon. Friend agrees that loss and damage funding should be additional and in the form of grants, not loans, but does he support the proposal that finance should be mobilised through the cancellation of existing debt? The SNP has spoken about that for a long time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady]

Yes, that is a hugely important concept. We think of all the work done around the Jubilee 2000 campaign, 23 years ago, and the huge global effort and consensus about the need to take action because developing countries were being crippled by the debt they had incurred. That is not good for anyone; it is not good for us either. Progress was made, but again we seem to be going backwards on a lot of that, and the changing climate seems to be a driver. That has to factor into the discussions. The work begun at the most recent COPs, including COP26 in Glasgow and the commitments made last year in Sharm el-Sheikh, must be followed through, and a new governing instrument must be agreed at COP28 this year. The hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), the Chair of the International Development Committee, made important points about the Santiago Network and some of the other mechanisms that exist.

What is needed above all is political will: decision makers who are prepared to take bold and innovative action. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee West said, that is exactly what the Scottish Government have done: first, way back in 2012, when they established their climate justice fund in addition to the international development fund; then at COP26, when Nicola Sturgeon pledged £2 million for loss and damage, making the Scottish Government the first western Government to do so; and now just recently when they committed a further £24 million over the next three years to respond to climate change in Rwanda, Malawi and Zambia. Malawi’s President, His Excellency Dr Lazarus Chakwera, said in February that the Scottish Government’s loss and damage fund for projects in his country

“has made huge differences in the people and their livelihoods because they are given a hand up, so the resilience we talk about becomes a practical issue.”

He went on:

“This fight belongs to all of us and I believe that this example will serve as a prototype of what could happen.”

Perhaps now the UK Government will start to play their part. Perhaps they will begin to see, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) said in an earlier contribution, that the savage cuts to the aid budget are a false economy. All the evidence that we have heard in this debate shows that more funding is needed, but this Government are determined to spend less. In the end, it will cost more. The hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) and others spoke about population movements. Home Office Ministers themselves stand at the Dispatch Box and say that hundreds of millions of people are on the move and that they all want to come to the United Kingdom, but instead of—

[Sarah Champion]

I apologise for interrupting the hon. Member in full flow. He is making a strong speech and is absolutely right to make this point, because the ODA spend is designed to help people stay safe and prosperous in their own homes, which is what they want. The Minister is taking away the money that would enable people to stay at home and then spending it secondarily when they turn up on our shores.

[Patrick Grady]

Yes, the hon. Lady is exactly right. Rather than housing people in barges or hotels, or chasing them back into the sea, it would be considerably cheaper if we helped to build resilience in their countries of origin against climate change that we have caused and that our lifestyles are continuing to make worse. That would save money in the long run.

I do have to say that there is also a challenge here for the Labour party. It would be useful to hear the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton), commit to the principle of climate justice and a return to the 0.7% target, because voters, particularly in Scotland, will be listening carefully.

The Scottish Government’s actions have already shown that it is possible to make decisions and show leadership in this area and to encourage others to follow suit. In an independent Scotland, 0.7% would be the floor, not the ceiling, for our spending responsibilities to the poorest and most vulnerable people around the world. It would be the morally right thing to do, as others have said, but it is also in our enlightened self-interest.

Normally I would make a point about the spending being preventive, but the whole point of loss and damage is that it is now almost impossible to prevent some of the effects of climate change that we are already experiencing. Even as we speak, it is unseasonably warm; it is the start of September and we are once again experiencing record temperatures outside. But we can prevent loss of life and livelihoods with the right kind of investment and support for those who need it most. If we do not, it will cost more in the long term and we will all pay the price.