Sustainable Development Goals

Seema Kennedy Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)]

I thank my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) and the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) for securing this important debate. The sustainable development goals are truly ambitious. The awesome target that the world is setting itself—getting to zero on extreme poverty and preventable child deaths—if achieved, would be a first in human history. We should be proud to be part of a generation aiming to achieve that. The mantra of “No one left behind” is a call to arms for all of us, forcing us to turn our attention to the poorest and most dispossessed in the world, including the most marginalised in our own country.

Compared with the millennium development goals, which allegedly were drafted by a few old men in a basement, the sustainable development goals have been shaped and agreed by all participants in a transparent process that has taken over three years. Indeed, they were said to be the “most participatory in UN history”—although I do not know whether that is a particularly high bar to reach. We can only hope, therefore, that that will mean better involvement by all the countries taking part and that by 2030 we will have made good progress on the goals. Britain has been strong in implementing the millennium development goals, and I hope that other countries will follow our lead. I was initially troubled by the fact that the number of goals has more than doubled, from eight to 17, but I am glad that goal 16, which deals with governance, has got a look in.

The sustainable development goals reflect a change in the development and aid landscape, with developing countries no longer seen as passive recipients of charity, which has been a common criticism of the UK’s aid budget. In that regard, I echo the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman), who is no longer in his place, on how we, as legislators, must communicate how important our international aid is, both for citizens of this planet and for Britain’s national interest. We are aiming for everyone to become active participants in their own growth and success. International aid needs to come out of the charity silo and be seen as part of a developmental means of incentivising and encouraging enterprise all over the world.

The concept of globalisation, and of a truly global world, is better understood in 2015 than it was in 1999 and 2000. This interdependence is present in the internet, for example, but also in global terrorism and guerrilla wars that do not respect national boundaries, and in diseases such as SARS—severe acute respiratory syndrome—and Ebola. These subjects are of more immediate concern to my constituents, and those of all right hon. and hon. Members, than they were in 1999 and 2000. It is up to us to show our constituents that our aid money is being spent well. I would be interested to hear from my right hon. Friend the Minister how his Department plans to communicate what it is doing, making it part of the national conversation.

To my mind, the most essential goal is the one relating to governance and transparency, because it will bring real change for the long term. I have a particular interest in the issue of property rights—for two reasons. First, before coming to this place I was a commercial property lawyer. Secondly, my family, who were forced from Iran by the Islamic revolution, have spent the past 35 years trying to reclaim land that was stolen because of an inadequate system of land registration. When there is no proper system of land registration and property rights, both economic and democratic reform suffers. We know from our own history that it was the emergence of secure property rights that laid the foundation for the industrial revolution and the subsequent explosion of per capita incomes. It is absolutely essential that an individual’s rights to property are sheltered from predation by the state.

As other Members have quite rightly pointed out, the key element of successful implementation of the SDGs is having proper data. We can leave no one behind only if we know who they are, where they live, and what they need. Data are absolutely key. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) highlighted cases of discrimination against women, the rural poor and indigenous peoples, so I will not reiterate what she described very well. I would be interested to hear from the Minister the Department’s plans for encouraging British companies to improve data capture and analysis in countries where DFID money is spent. The idea of “no one left behind” applies as much to the UK as to the rest of the world.

I would like the Minister to give some examples of how the Department will implement the SDGs immediately following their coming into force into January 2016, particularly in relation to its goals in ensuring real, long-term, sustainable changes and prioritising property rights, transparency and the democratic process in our overseas development goals.