Sustainable Development Goals

Philippa Whitford Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2015 Westminster Hall

[Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)]

I also would like to make a declaration. I am still a Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund ambassador for south-west Scotland, although I am not sure how long I will manage to do that along with this role. Through SCIAF, I had the opportunity to visit AIDS projects in Kenya and Tanzania in 2006. Others have referred to Make Poverty History, and I remember traipsing off to Edinburgh with my 11-year-old son, who is now a big 21-year-old man. Although some things have improved, they definitely have not improved enough. I commend the reference to the devolved Governments, where there is expertise. The issue is reserved, but certainly in Scotland we have been active and I would like to see Humza Yousaf, our Minister for Europe and International Development, included in the summit, because devolved Administrations have things to say.

How we deal with other people matters, as well as our understanding of aid for trade and aid for defence. We have been talking about TTIP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, for the past couple of years, but we now have a TiSA, a trade in services agreement, that tries to ensure that developing countries, and indeed developed countries, are forced to have a more private basis of service provision, so they could not emulate the health provision that we have here. In developing countries it needs to be done in the simplest, cheapest way. Setting up private systems means the wealthy getting healthcare and illness lying at the bottom levels, so that we never eradicate polio, never control malaria and certainly never control Ebola.

[Stephen Phillips]

I do not know where the hon. Lady got from my remarks that I was advocating private healthcare in the developing world. I am advocating a robust healthcare system supported by donor countries and non-governmental organisations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Whitford]

I am sorry; I did not mean to imply that that was coming from the hon. and learned Gentleman’s comments. I was respecting his comment that such countries need help to have a robust health system. But TiSA is out there. It is not very much on our horizon, but within Europe people are already beginning to see it coming and seeing the impact it would have in Europe and developed countries and also in developing countries. We should look at the unsustainable debt and at the terms that are often laid down when a country has to borrow: we need to ensure that we are not, as it were, shackling both its ankles and one arm together and then sending it off to do things.

One important thing not within the sustainable goals is climate change. We must recognise the absolute disaster that is coming. We are currently dealing with refugees coming from north Africa and the near east because of conflict, but the Sahara is expanding. Current wars have been about oil; future wars will be about water. As the Sahara expands in both directions, populations will be driven into other territories. What we see in the Mediterranean at the moment will pale into insignificance compared with what we will see in future. That needs to come into our policies. It needs to come into everything we do; it must not just be the international development group, which is not included in anything else.

We absolutely need to look at our own behaviour, how we generate power, how we produce things and what we use. We take some weird approaches in looking at how we produce energy. We make the world price of food go up so that we can put it in cars and go on driving bigger cars. We say that nuclear is the solution to the carbon dioxide problem, despite the massive CO₂ released in the production, building and commissioning of a nuclear power station. We must look at these things in the round. Individuals, and the Government who lead individuals, need to look at our obsession with consumerism. We think sticking in a low-energy light bulb lets us off the hook, yet we are obsessed with stuff. Do we really need more gadgets? Do we really need up-to-the-minute fashion? Unless we look at every level, led by and promoted by the Government, we will not change quickly enough. It is poorer people who pay the price, through climate injustice, for our behaviour.