Oral Answers to Questions

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Home Office have maintained a close working relationship on such issues throughout this situation. Entitlement for foreign nationals to settle in the UK is ultimately a Home Office competency, but we will continue to work closely with the Home Office on such issues.

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

The situation facing millions of Afghans right now is unimaginable—starving families lining up for food; parents selling their babies and handing teenage daughters to the Taliban for cash; a mother so desperate that she sold her kidney and two of her daughters. Yet amid this horror the UK Government slashed the overseas aid budget, actually cut their support for Afghanistan from 2019 levels and, with only two months to go, disbursed only half of the humanitarian aid and assistance they promised. With 5 million children now on the brink of famine, will the Government show leadership by releasing the remainder of the pledge and taking the action proposed by the UN, Save the Children and former Prime Minister Gordon Brown by convening a humanitarian pledging conference to raise the £5 billion needed? Failure to act will cost more lives.

[James Cleverly]

I remind the hon. Lady that the £286 million that we have allocated to Afghanistan was put in place in the autumn, and we are still ensuring that the money is distributed. She made the important point that doing so quickly can sometimes come at the cost of doing so carefully. We want to ensure that our money reaches the people who are in need and is not diverted to support the Taliban regime. The UK remains at the forefront of international efforts to support Afghanistan, and I am proud of the work that my Department and the whole UK Government have done.

Global Vaccine Access

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is my pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Murray. I thank the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) for securing this hugely important debate. I think this issue will define this year, and the way this pandemic is remembered in history. I thank Members from across the House for their contributions.

From the very start of the pandemic, Labour and I have been clear that achieving global vaccine equity is a moral and economic imperative, yet the Government have failed time and again to answer the calls from our partners abroad, and the result is a catastrophic disparity between the countries that have and the countries that have not.

The facts speak for themselves. In the west, 70% of adults have received a vaccination, but many people in the world’s poorest areas are yet to receive a single dose. Nowhere is the covid divide clearer to see than in Africa, a continent in which immunisation rates in many countries are below even 1%, and three in four healthcare workers are yet to receive a single dose. The EU, the UK and the US received more doses in the last weeks of 2021 than African countries received all year.

From our own struggles with the pandemic, we know how desperately important it is to get jabs into arms, and of course we encourage everyone to get vaccinated; it is the way that we beat this virus. Yet why is it that when it comes to the rest of the world, last year we lagged behind the EU, the US, France, Germany, Italy and Canada in the number of doses donated to low and middle-income countries? I know that the new Foreign Secretary is perhaps a bit distracted at the moment with her own leadership ambitions, but seriously, is this global Britain? The world is right to wonder why this Government have fallen so far behind. Although Britain could be once counted upon to be a dependable and trusted leader on the world stage, our reputation has been tarnished by the Government’s failure to heed warnings about the virus mutating in less vaccinated regions and to take decisive action.

With the COVAX facility falling short of its pledges last year by over a billion doses and revising down its forecast for 2021-22 by 25%, as well as revelations that many vaccine producers not only failed to prioritise deliveries to COVAX but violated their contractual obligations, now is the time for outward-looking nations to redouble their efforts to vaccinate the world. This is not a question of trying to achieve the impossible, nor is it a choice between jabs at home or jabs abroad. We have the expertise, the technology, the resources and the production capacity, so what is stopping us?

First, there has been a shameful level of mismanagement. It is an absolute scandal that despite repeated promises by the Government to distribute surplus vaccines, more than 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine had to be destroyed after passing their expiry date in August last year. In the same month, it emerged that the UK had taken 500,000 doses from COVAX that were meant for poorer countries. What on earth was going on? The reality of the global vaccination effort is that the increasing reliance on ad hoc donations from high-income countries to fill the gaps has meant vaccines arriving in countries late, with little notice and limited shelf lives. That makes it impossible for people in those countries to plan vaccination campaigns and increase absorptive capacity so that they can get those jabs into arms.

I note that of the 30 million doses that the UK pledged to donate last year, only a third had been delivered by November, with the Government leaving it until the absolute last minute to fulfil their promise. Life-saving health interventions must not be treated like essay deadlines. We must do better and give countries adequate notice, with transparent and ambitious timelines, as well as a good level of shelf life on doses when they arrive.

Striving for vaccine equity is not only a moral imperative, but wholly in Britain’s best interests. We know from painful experience that viruses evolve and mutate. Our country’s heroic efforts in the fight against covid have been seriously set back not once, but twice, with the emergence of the more transmissible delta and omicron variants. Neither of those variants originated in the UK, but once they arrived here they quickly swept the country. That is why it is so important that our fight against covid is global.

We know, with great sadness, that another strain of this deadly virus will emerge if we continue down our current path. That is why it is unbelievable that the Government cut by 70% research programmes that track variants. As Gordon Brown so rightly pointed out:

“The grim truth remains that until no one anywhere lives in fear, then everyone everywhere will have to live in fear.”

Simply put, the current pandemic is not something that we can booster our way out of. As the emergence of omicron has shown us, as soon as a booster is administered in the west, another strain of the virus may mutate elsewhere, most often in the fertile breeding grounds where vaccinations are difficult to access.

We must remember that striving for global access to vaccines also makes economic sense. Covid is not just a health emergency but an economic emergency, and instead of being preoccupied with how much global vaccination would cost, we would be better served by considering how much it would save.

Will the Minister therefore confirm how much it costs us per dose to procure vaccines, and will she tell us at what price doses are currently being accounted for on the Government ledgers? Does she agree that donations to low and middle-income countries should not be counted towards the 0.5% ODA target? The sooner we can put an end to the health crisis, the sooner we can put an end to the economic crisis. Only when we can confidently say that the pandemic is over will global supply chains be able to adjust, our economy recover and businesses have the confidence to invest and thrive.

As the managing director of the International Monetary Fund put it, the costs of ensuring global vaccine equity would be

“dwarfed by the outsized benefits”,

with economies likely to see

“the highest return on public investment in modern history.”

This is not rocket science. It is the common sense that Opposition Members have been pleading with the Government to adopt since the pandemic first began.

If the Government are serious about global Britain, they also need to be serious about global health. If we are to have any chance of stamping out this virus once and for all, we need to work with national Governments to ensure that those with the greatest need can access vaccines, regardless of their location or the depth of their pockets. Labour has led the way on this issue, setting out the steps that the Government should take. I encourage the Minister to look at the 10-point plan that the former shadow International Trade Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), and I laid out in May last year.

In particular, I urge the Government to show global leadership by working with other Governments to negotiate a temporary patent waiver with the World Trade Organisation to allow developing countries to speed up their own vaccine production. The UK is out on a limb on this now. The majority of countries around the world have expressed support for the TRIPS waiver. It is backed by hundreds of human rights lawyers, IP scholars, civil society organisations, economists, medical experts, scientists, most Commonwealth countries and the First Ministers for Scotland and for Wales, as well as by India, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and the US. Only the UK, Switzerland and the European Union are still blocking this. There are more than 100 manufacturers across Africa, Asia and Latin America with the potential to produce mRNA vaccines. Let us give them the tools to manufacture more of the vaccine and get the world jabbed as soon as we can.

Finally, I urge the Government to leverage the UK’s world-leading expertise and work in close co-operation with national healthcare providers and trusted partners on the ground to ensure that systems are in place to allow vaccines to be distributed in an efficient and swift manner. After all, there is little point in turbocharging global vaccine production if those vaccines cannot be distributed to the people who desperately need them.

As we enter the new year, the Government have an opportunity to finally do the right thing. As a proud, outward-looking nation, we simply cannot continue down our current path, looking on as spectators while the world suffers vaccine apartheid. To do so would be not only grossly unjust, but catastrophic to the UK’s interests—our reputation, the world economy and our security.

The Government must commit here today, without qualification, to taking the urgent steps that Labour, Gordon Brown and so many more have urged all along: to look beyond our borders, recognise our mutual common interests and do the right thing. Let us make 2022 the year that we close the great covid gap and do our part to vaccinate the world.

Oral Answers to Questions

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am pleased that Labour has recognised that International Development must remain a Cabinet role, and it is an honour to be able to continue our work to tackle poverty and inequality around the world.

The UK has blocked international agreements to increase the supply of vaccines, has only donated a fraction of the promised doses to low-income countries, and continues to stockpile doses. As a result, hundreds of thousands of doses have expired and have been destroyed, including 600,000 in August alone. In addition, the Government slashed the aid budget for programmes tracking new covid variants. Labour Members warned of this repeatedly, knowing that the virus would continue to mutate unchecked.

Can the Minister tell the House how many surplus vaccines the UK will have by the end of 2021, and why the Government have repeatedly refused to speed up the process of donation to other countries? Will she ensure that we airlift those vaccines immediately?

[Vicky Ford]

Not only did we set up COVAX, but we are one of its largest donors. We have committed ourselves to donating 100 million doses, and that is part of the G7 commitment to sharing 870 million by 2022. Furthermore, we are helping many countries to set up their own vaccine manufacturing. Last Thursday I visited the Institut Pasteur de Dakar in Senegal, which, thanks to help from the UK with the delivery of a business plan, now has the necessary investment to ensure that it will be one of the first manufacturers of covid vaccines in Africa.

--- Later in debate ---

[Amanda Milling]

British people who are currently in red list countries should check the Department’s travel advice for the latest rules on returning to the UK. If they need to change their travel plans, they should speak to their airline or travel agent. Consular staff are available 24/7 to provide assistance to any British national who needs help overseas, through a call to their local consulate, embassy or high commission.

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Government promised that they would not abandon the Afghan people, yet millions are teetering on the edge of famine, with winter fast approaching. Will the Minister stop with the meaningless pledges and start with meaningful action? She will have seen the harrowing report from John Simpson and the powerful words of David Beasley, from the World Food Programme, who said:

“imagine that this was your little girl or your little boy, or your grandchild about to starve to death…We let any child die from hunger. Shame on us. I don’t care where that child is.”

A failure to act is a betrayal of those people. So will the funds be disbursed to save lives in Afghanistan today?

[Amanda Milling]

Afghanistan faces one of the largest food security crises in the world. We are aware that the crisis is approaching levels where there is severe, acute malnutrition, which is why we have doubled UK aid for Afghanistan to £286 million this year. In addition, between April and November this year we have disbursed more than £55 million, including life-saving humanitarian support for emergency food, health, nutrition, shelter and water sanitation. We are providing a lot of support.

Ethiopia, Sudan and Tigray: Humanitarian Situation

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Bardell. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) for securing this debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), the hon. Members for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) and for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), and my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson), who have contributed to an excellent and timely debate on recent events in both Ethiopia and Sudan, and the first anniversary of hostilities in the Tigray region of Ethiopia.

These issues have, sadly, received far too little attention globally. I want to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), who could not be here today, and other Members for all that they have done to raise awareness of these issues, challenging the UK Government on their response over many months. I cannot emphasise enough the moment of peril we face in the region, or the ordinary civilians who, as ever, bear the brunt of instability and conflict and, indeed, of the wider risk to peace, prosperity and stability in a crucial region of Africa.

We have a long and complex history and responsibility with both Sudan and Ethiopia and a strong interest from the British people in both countries. The human-made famine in Ethiopia in the 1980s is seared in the hearts of the British people, as stated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North. Sudanese and Ethiopian communities across the UK are right to be deeply frightened and concerned by recent events and what they may mean for their loved ones, as stated by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham, who is Chair of the International Development Committee. The Labour party stands in solidarity with them for peace, democracy, human rights and the humanitarian principle, and urges the UK Government to do all they can to ensure that that is upheld, rather than cutting our aid, our influence and our international leadership at such a crucial time.

I begin with the situation in Ethiopia, in Tigray and beyond. I am deeply concerned about events in recent days that appear to suggest a further descent into conflict and instability, which can only harm the people of Ethiopia, regardless of their politics, ethnicity or regional origins. Reports of the conflict widening, a state of emergency and the risk of conflict reaching the capital, Addis Ababa—the home of the African Union—should be a wake-up call to the world.

I want to state, as I am sure the Minister will, our desire to see, first, a return to peaceful dialogue; secondly, full humanitarian access and an end to attacks and restrictions on humanitarian personnel and operations; thirdly, urgent, full and independent investigations into the atrocities that have been committed, and the full force of international justice brought to bear on the perpetrators, whoever they may be, including the use of targeted UK sanctions under the Magnitsky regime.

It is nothing short of a tragedy, and we need an immediate ceasefire. Ethiopia had been a global success story, moving towards a democratic society, lifting millions out of poverty and acting as a bastion of stability. Ethiopia had been one of the largest recipients of UK aid, which has grown steadily along with our partnership in trade and other areas.

It is approaching a year since the clashes broke out in Tigray between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and the federal Government. Ethiopia now risks falling into a lethal civil war, undoing decades of peace and prosperity, especially for those in the regions of Tigray, Afar and Amhara. Tens of thousands of refugees have already spilled over the border into Sudan, whose own Government have now been hijacked by a military coup, or have been coerced back into Eritrea, the very country so many were running from, given the history of conflict between the two countries. I am also deeply alarmed by reports of disappearances and targeted attacks on Tigrayans outside of Tigray.

This comes on top of existing economic and health crises and a growing food crisis, with tens of thousands facing the risk of famine. Thousands of Tigray’s children face life-endangering acute malnutrition, a condition that will likely affect their development if they survive. 100,000 could die from the condition in the next year alone. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recently stated that in one week in early October, only 52,000 people were reached with food, or 1% of the 5.2 million

“targeted population in Tigray, in which half of them received only one or two food items.”

Some 400,000 people in northern Ethiopia are now facing famine-like conditions, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Putney. In addition, thousands face the prospect of no banking services: no cash, and complete disruption to commercial activities. Little fuel has gone into Tigray since August; organisations cannot work without fuel as they cannot travel to more remote areas. Medicines have not been going into the region either.

I therefore welcome the Government’s announcement that they have increased aid to Ethiopia by another £29 million, but the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs has reported that it still faces a funding gap of some £270 million. Staggeringly, UK aid to Ethiopia has in fact decreased by 64.3% between 2018 and 2021 estimates, as stated in the FCDO budget reports.

Would the Minister say what financial assistance the UK has provided to Ethiopia since the onset of the crisis? Has that support been part of the regular official development assistance budget? Will the Government further increase their support, given the worsening situation? As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth has repeatedly asked Ministers, has total support for Ethiopia gone up or down?

We have also heard shocking reports of 10,000 rapes—an estimate that does not take into account the past several months—in a region where only around 9% of health facilities are functional; of those, only a third have the capacity for clinical management of rape. Amnesty International’s recent report on sexual violence in Tigray is damning. It highlights the sadistic brutality that is being inflicted on women by parties to the conflict, including members of the Ethiopian national defence force, the Eritrean defence force, the Amhara regional police special force, and Fano, an Amhara militia group. In the report, Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general, says:

“It’s clear that rape and sexual violence have been used as a weapon of war to inflict lasting physical and psychological damage on women and girls in Tigray. Hundreds have been subjected to brutal treatment aimed at degrading and dehumanizing them,”

Yet this is only the start of the crisis facing Tigray and other affected regions.

Ethiopia is also facing the fifth largest covid-19 outbreak in Africa. OCHA reports that only 3% of Tigrayans have been reached with essential sanitation and hygiene messages. Since Members last met to discuss this disaster, little has changed in terms of the human suffering other than that its extent has worsened. The UN recently stated that, from 18 to 28 October, no trucks with humanitarian supplies were able to reach Tigray, and from 1 July to 28 October, only 15% of the trucks needed were able to enter the region. Senior UN staff have been denied access, including the country heads of UNICEF and the head of OCHA. The UN recently announced that it has cancelled flights to the capital, Mekelle, and suspended aid delivery activities as a result of Government-led airstrikes in the area. UN aid chief Samantha Power has said:

“This shortage is not because food is unavailable, but because the Ethiopian Government is obstructing humanitarian aid and personnel, including land convoys and air access.”

I ask the Minister what assessment she has made of humanitarian access for civilians caught up in this conflict, and what consideration is being made of the growing evidence of serious human rights abuses and crimes against humanity? How is evidence such as that brought to public attention by the BBC World Service and human rights organisations being used to ensure that those responsible do not escape justice? She will know that the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has now released a joint report with the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission that investigated abuses between November 2020 and late June 2021. Given the continued gravity of this situation, we call on the UK urgently to support the establishment of an independent investigation by the UN Human Rights Council.

As we all know—and my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North raised this—the Sudanese transitional Government have been hijacked by a military coup, and I welcome the common view across the House and the international community condemning these events. For Labour, I repeat our complete condemnation of this coup, joining the Government, the UN and other international partners. This is nothing short of a betrayal of the hopes of the Sudanese people after decades of repression and the denial of human rights.

This comes at a critical time for the people for Sudan, after reports that heavy rainfall has led to hundreds of thousands of people being affected and that relief stocks, especially of WASH—water, sanitation and hygiene—products, are depleting. The country currently has 9.8 million severely food-insecure people and 1.1 million refugees. In addition, we know of at least 60,000 refugees from Ethiopia who have fled a war zone to those famine-like conditions. Can the Minister comment on the condition of those refugees, and what humanitarian support and assistance is being provided?

Last Monday, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan took power from the Sudanese transitional Government and declared a state of emergency. Thousands have taken to the streets to protest against this attack on democracy, and reports suggest that several people have been killed and hundreds injured in clashes with armed forces in the capital. Live ammunition has reportedly been used on civilian protesters. Can the Minister confirm whether contact has been made with the general since the urgent question last week, and what action is being taken?

While UK overseas development aid depends on the recipient country upholding its people’s rights—and this military Government have not done so—millions are in need. It is shocking that the UK Government have in effect cut Sudan’s aid by £580 million for 2022, based on estimates, so will the Minister now reconsider those cuts to vital humanitarian assistance for both Sudan and Ethiopia? What assessment has the Minister made of the risk to international judicial processes against former President Bashir for crimes committed in Darfur and elsewhere, as well as against those responsible for more recent massacres?

While the Government pivot to the Indo-Pacific, cut our development budget and weaken our alliances and influence, the situation in east Africa and the horn of Africa goes from bad to worse, with consequences reaching far beyond the regional environment. If we are to avoid catastrophe for the ordinary women, men and children of Ethiopia and Sudan and avoid a descent into even worse consequences across the region, the Government must end their retreat from the world stage, step up, and show some desperately needed moral and political leadership.

Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Wednesday 27th October 2021 Ministerial Corrections

The following is an extract from topical questions on 26 October 2021.

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the Secretary of State to her place. Yesterday, it emerged that the Prime Minister’s pleading at the G7 and the United Nations to deliver £100 billion of climate finance has failed. With that, we had another example of the waning global influence of this Government in retreat. I had hoped that the new Foreign and Development Secretary would have put a stop to that, but her first act was to sign off on savage aid cuts to climate programmes and climate-vulnerable countries, disproportionately impacting women and girls, weeks before the most important climate summit of our lifetime. Does the Secretary of State agree that cuts to programmes such as the green economic growth initiative to preserve Papua’s 90% forest cover, and cuts to the aid budget, have actively undermined the UK’s ability to deliver not only at the conference of the parties, but on the world stage, exposing global Britain as little more than a slogan?

Oral Answers to Questions

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

Iran has no credible civilian justification for its nuclear escalation. As I made clear to my Iranian counterpart, Iran urgently needs to return to the negotiating table and, if it does not engage meaningfully in negotiations, we will reconsider our approach. All options are on the table.

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the Secretary of State to her place. Yesterday, it emerged that the Prime Minister’s pleading at the G7 and the United Nations to deliver £100 billion of climate finance has failed. With that, we had another example of the waning global influence of this Government in retreat. I had hoped that the new Foreign and Development Secretary would have put a stop to that, but her first act was to sign off on savage aid cuts to climate programmes and climate-vulnerable countries, disproportionately impacting women and girls, weeks before the most important climate summit of our lifetime. Does the Secretary of State agree that cuts to programmes such as the green economic growth initiative to preserve Papua’s 90% forest cover, and cuts to the aid budget, have actively undermined the UK’s ability to deliver not only at the conference of the parties, but on the world stage, exposing global Britain as little more than a slogan?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I do not agree with the hon. Lady’s analysis at all. We are making very positive progress on COP26; only this morning, we heard Australia’s announcement about its commitment to net zero. I am looking forward to attending COP in Glasgow next week and presenting a very ambitious finance package. Only a few weeks ago, when we were in the United States, we saw it commit to over £11 billion of climate finance. There are trillions available in the private sector that we will be unlocking to deal with the climate crisis.[Official Report, 27 October 2021, Vol. 702, c. 2MC.]

Oral Answers to Questions

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend can be rightly very proud of the role his constituents have played. It is not only Wockhardt employees, but the wider AstraZeneca collaboration with Government and the £90 million of support that the Government put in for research and development and for getting capacity up that have meant that we not only have this world-beating domestic vaccine roll-out, but have supplied 98% of the vaccine to the poorest and most vulnerable countries around the world delivered by COVAX.

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

Less than 1% of sub-Saharan Africa has been fully vaccinated, leaving the Prime Minister’s claim that he would vaccinate the entire world hanging by a thread and his credibility in tatters. Having sneaked out cuts to the aid budget, which his Government have now made permanent, he has made the UK the third lowest donor in the G7, and in the middle of a pandemic, this Foreign Secretary has presided over the largest drop in humanitarian aid of any major donor country, apart from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It is clear that the Foreign Secretary’s claim that the UK’s reputation has not been diminished under his watch is unfounded in reality. What does he say in response to the damning comments last week of the former President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf? He said that this Government’s cuts will have

“a negative impact on millions of people in less wealthy nations”.

If this Government have a conscience, they will want to know how many lives have and will be lost as a result of these cuts. I urge him to publish the impact assessments immediately so that more lives can be saved, but will he do it?

[Dominic Raab]

What I would say to the hon. Lady is that Labour promised it would hit 0.7% in 1974. That was the year in which I was born. Labour has never once hit 0.7%. It only twice hit 0.5%, so we will take no lectures from the Labour party when we are the third biggest G7 donor when it comes to aid.

Oral Answers to Questions

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I think that that was pretty unsavoury from the hon. Lady, but I will tell her how we sleep at night. We sleep at night because we are the third biggest ODA budget contributor in the G7. We sleep at night because we have just made the biggest global commitment on girls’ education ever, of any Government ever in the UK. We sleep at night because we are doubling the average annual spend on international climate finance. We sleep at night because we led the way with the 100 million doses that we are providing from excess surplus because of the money that we spent on the AstraZeneca vaccine: of the doses that the poorest countries have so far received via COVAX, 95% have come from AZ. In relation to humanitarian spend, bilaterally, we are the third biggest as well. We continue to be a global leader, but I think that our constituents would be asking some pretty serious questions if, at a time when we face the biggest contraction in our economy for 300 years, we were not also making or finding savings from the international as well as the domestic budget.

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

COVAX aimed to deliver 2 billion doses of vaccine to countries around the world in 2021. Six months in, less than 5% of that total has been shipped. To rapidly vaccinate health workers and older people in low-income countries, we must address global shortages with a global plan to increase production of vaccines and equitable access. Instead, what we got this weekend from a Prime Minister who has been in perennial retreat from the world stage was a commitment to 5 million doses by the end of September, and a vague commitment to more at some point over the next 12 months. Does the Secretary of State agree that cutting the aid budget while most of his counterparts were increasing theirs made it harder for the Prime Minister to play a leadership role at the G7, and that the cuts are a key reason for the Prime Minister’s abject failure to deliver a comprehensive strategy that accelerates global vaccine access so that we can achieve at least 70% coverage in all countries and end the pandemic as quickly as possible?

[Dominic Raab]

I am afraid that the hon. Lady is just mistaken and clearly did not pay attention to what the G7 agreed. We agreed 100 million doses on the UK’s part by the middle of next year. That was not some kind of loose commitment; it was a very clear one, and comes on top of the 1 billion doses that we secured through our financial commitment to COVAX. As a result of our commitment, we have now raised the ability, through the G7 and the other contributions, to secure 1 billion extra doses, so there are new doses. What that will mean in practice is that rather than the world being vaccinated by 2024, as in the current trajectory, it will happen by the middle of next year. I would have thought that if the hon. Lady really cared about the issue, she would recognise that that is a massive step forward.

ODA Budget

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Monday 26th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

I completely understand the passion with which my right hon. Friend speaks, but the simple truth is that the UK economy is 11.3% smaller than it was last year and is undergoing the worst economic contraction for 300 years. The coronavirus has put in place a unique set of circumstances to which we are forced to respond. Yet despite these difficulties—despite this economic impact—the UK will remain in both absolute terms and percentage terms one of the largest ODA donor countries in the world, and will remain the third largest ODA donor in the G7.

My right hon. Friend speaks of the areas where the UK wishes to be a force for good in the world. We are still absolutely committed to making sure that we use our ODA spend in areas such as girls’ education, the environment and climate and others, but with our diplomatic efforts as part of the joint Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office as a force multiplier to ensure that the money we spend is amplified by our diplomatic efforts both bilaterally and on the world stage. I remind him that when the fiscal circumstances allow, we are committed to returning to the 0.7% of GNI which he, others and indeed this Government are so rightly proud of.

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

Last week the Foreign Secretary exposed his fear of scrutiny by trying to sneak out a written statement on his callous aid cuts. Today, having been forced to come to face up to his decisions by the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), he has once again evaded scrutiny and hidden behind one of his Ministers instead.

Make no mistake, slashing humanitarian support in the middle of a global pandemic is callous and incredibly short-sighted. People will lose their lives as a result of the cuts, and we will all be less safe. As the only G7 nation to cut aid, it is a retreat from our moral duty and will weaken our position on the world stage.

The statement published last week was light on detail, so will the Minister tell us whether ambassadors have been informed of their allocated budgets and the date when all FCDO country office budgets for 2021 will be made public? Will impact assessments be conducted for each country? When will they be forthcoming? Will he explain the Foreign Secretary’s comment:

“Nobody is going hungry because we have not signed cheques”?

Sixteen million Yemenis and 12 million Syrian people are on the brink of famine. How does the Minister think the respective 60% and 30% cuts in aid will impact people in those countries?

The impact of the cuts on the Government’s own stated priorities are stark—from education, which has been cut by 40%, to health programmes such as the International Rescue Committee’s Saving Lives in Sierra Leone, which has helped more than 3 million people and has now been cut by 60%. In a year when Britain will be hosting the G7 and COP26, the cuts are a shameful act and part of a pattern of retreat from the world stage by this Conservative Government. Rather than continuing to treat Parliament with contempt, will the Minister commit to putting the cuts to a vote at the earliest opportunity?

[James Cleverly]

The hon. Lady speaks about my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary attempting to avoid scrutiny; that would carry a bit more credibility had it not been for the fact that he specifically put the written ministerial statement in the public domain ahead of his appearance at the International Development Committee so that the Committee could grill him on that statement.

The hon. Lady made a point about our commitment to overseas development and assistance; I remind her of the answer that I gave a few minutes ago: we are facing an unprecedented set of circumstances. I also remind the hon. Lady that this is one of, if not the, most difficult economic years that the country has faced in a number of centuries. Even against that backdrop, we are committed to 2.5% of GNI—a proportion that previous Labour Governments managed to hit only a couple of times in the most benign economic circumstances. I am proud of the fact that this Government remain committed to being one of the most generous aid donors in the world and, as I say, to linking our diplomatic efforts with our development efforts to maximise the force for good in the world that we can bring about.

Oral Answers to Questions

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Duddridge]

Certainly everybody, especially those emitting the most, needs to make those reductions. We are no longer investing in fossil fuels. Various organisations clearly have a historical book of fossil fuel investment that can be managed down over time, but we are very exercised to do the right thing as individuals and as Government, and, through COP26, to be leading and ambitious and ask others to be ambitious as well.

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

To galvanise global support to avert the climate catastrophe, tackle poverty and improve global health in a year when the UK will host the G7 and COP26, we must bring countries together. Instead, this Government are the only one in the G7 to have taken the callous decision to cut their aid budget, which weakens our ability to bring countries together to tackle the global challenges we face. The Government’s cuts to the aid budget will remove a lifeline from hundreds of thousands of people and damage our planet, leaving us all less safe. Rather than hiding behind written statements, will the Foreign Secretary face up to his decision, make a statement to the House on his spending plans for 2021 and put his Government’s cuts to a vote?

[James Duddridge]

The Foreign Secretary is attending the International Development Committee on Thursday, which will allow for a forensic examination of everything that he says, but we are here at the Dispatch Box answering questions. I myself am answering seven or eight questions. Far from running away, we are engaging in this debate, and we have a good story to tell. We are one of the best contributors in the G7 in relation to our GNI. We have the pledge of 0.7%, and we will get back to that when the economy allows. We should be proud, but we need to live within our means.