Sustainable Development Goals

Stephen O'Brien Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

I have the greatest respect for the right hon. Lady, but she too led an Opposition day debate on trade justice in 2002—I read the report of it in Hansard only last night—so I shall take no lessons on having Opposition day debates on this matter from her.

[Mr Stephen O'Brien (Eddisbury) (Con)]

rose—

[Mary Creagh]

I am going to make some progress.

There is nothing wrong with supporting the private sector and infrastructure investment in poor countries, but we Opposition Members have grave concerns about the lack of transparency over where this funding for private sector development is going. That area will account for £1.8 billion—nearly one fifth of the Secretary of State’s budget next year.

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[Mary Creagh]

A total of £700 million is being spent in one fund over three years, and the Secretary of State is unable to answer a single question asked by ICAI, by the NAO, or by me about where and how that money is being spent. Presumably—as in the case of the huge increase in the funding of PIDG—that is because she does not know. The Public Accounts Committee has now examined PIDG’s investments. Its report will be published tomorrow, and we await it with great interest.

[Mr O’Brien]

As I am sure the hon. Lady is aware, the amazing, incredible leadership of the United Kingdom, straddling both parties’ times in office, is much admired around the world. I happen to have just come back from speaking at an event in Davos, where our leadership, through a unity of approach across the House, was greatly admired because of our ability to get things done and our amazing achievements in relation to international development. The coalition Government have been no exception, in that we have always ensured that we include the other side. Is the hon. Lady not as saddened and disappointed as I am by the churlish nature of her motion and the tone that she is adopting? Surely we should act together to deliver the greatest possible public good internationally.

[Mary Creagh]

I make no apology for demanding transparency when it comes to where the taxpayer’s money is being spent. There is nothing wrong with working with the private sector. These are funds that were set up by a Labour Government. However, when funds are scaled up so quickly without changes being made to governance and oversight, the National Audit Office—not me—is concerned about where and how the money is being spent.

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[Justine Greening]

Countries such as Burundi do still get support from the UK, but it often takes place through the global funds that we support—funds to support health, education or the work that we do on the humanitarian agenda.

[Mr O'Brien]

As the Secretary of State knows, I had some involvement in the decision on Burundi. The shadow Minister cites Burundi. She should be aware that there was a specific project on which we were asked to deliver on a bilateral basis. It was a very effective project, because we delivered to the Office Burundais des Recettes—the inland revenue—so that it could start to mobilise some of its resources to support development. In addition, we enhanced our multilateral aid, which we put through a transparency process. Far from criticising what we did, the shadow Minister should understand that not only did President Nkurunziza and the others in Burundi welcome our approach, but they were particularly grateful that we encouraged the Belgians to step up to fill the bilateral gap. I hope that that is useful information.

[Justine Greening]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. He has huge credibility in the international development arena. He has been a Minister, and his work both then and now is hugely valued not just in this country but worldwide. He is absolutely right to say that there were a number of reasons behind the decision on Burundi. Rather than seeing a fact and then drawing her own conclusions, I urge the hon. Lady to dig a little deeper.

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[Mr Stephen O’Brien (Eddisbury) (Con)]

I welcome this debate and am enthusiastic about the opportunity to discuss what should come after the success of the MDGs and SDGs in galvanising the world in this regard. I was naturally saddened by the tone of, and some of the expressions in, the motion, which are unnecessarily divisive. I had not intended to use up any of my six minutes on that point as I do not wish to descend to that level. The right hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Dame Tessa Jowell) was right to say that it is the duty of the Opposition to question the Government—I was an Opposition Front Bencher for 11 years so I understand that—but it is not the Opposition’s duty to adopt a tone that is both churlish and deeply divisive. That was unfortunate and I hope for some reflection after the debate on that unnecessary move.

The UK carries huge authority because we have delivered practically what people across the House, the nation and indeed internationally have so aspired to for many years. I declare my interests which, as it happens, are all pro bono and go back 35 years since I first started combating malaria. I sit on the board of Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, I am the global advocate for Roll Back Malaria, the UN and World Health Organisation partnership, and I am the Prime Minister’s envoy to the Sahel. I am in no doubt about how it is critically in this country’s interest—across all political views and none, as well as for the whole international community in an increasingly globalised world—for us all to be totally focused on how to build on the success of the MDGs and the SDGs.

I am struck by the success of the coalition Government, which does indeed build on some of the work and successes that went before—I am happy to acknowledge that. The Secretary of State and her team have shown an absolute dedication and commitment, as well as a very real practical application to what makes for good results in international development. That includes the whole spectrum, from humanitarian intervention and rapid response to sustainable, resilient and good economic developments.

As we know, the best way to deliver people out of poverty—the top goal we all want—is to help them have an economic future. They will not have that without good education, with an emphasis on girls. I am proud of the fact that I started the FGM debate in Dakar in 2011, which was then taken forward by my successor. I am glad that has been supported across the House. It was all the more powerful because a bloke was doing it. We should not have divisive debates where one side tries to claim the credit. We were totally united on the issue and it is a deep sadness to me that this debate has been set up in the tone that it has.

I welcome our authority in the area of international development, which comes not just from practical delivery and the 0.7% of GNI. It has been hard won, because it has been coupled with scrutiny and transparency. Ministers set up the Independent Commission for Aid Impact to be a rod to beat ourselves with. It reports directly to the Select Committee and ensured that the shadow Secretary of State had the ammunition she has used today. Its role is not to attack the whole basis of international development, but to make sure that every single pound we spend of taxpayers’ and constituents’ money is well spent and properly targeted. That is why I was happy to put the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) right on her rather superficial approach to Burundi.

The Government, with leadership from the Prime Minister and technical ability and fantastic support, are totally committed to this agenda. We have also had some magnificent successes that give people confidence that the money has been well spent. DFID is technically superb and a world leader, and our thought leadership is also driving into the mainstream of thinking about international development. That is all at the service of the one thing that, post-1945, we have all wanted to support—the UN, which is the greatest peace deliverer on the planet. The UN has set the agenda. The Prime Minister has been part of the leadership and significant goals have been proposed on climate change, as well as the economic and human development indices.

We have had the draft 17 goals from Ban Ki-moon, which will now be debated. It would have been a worth while debate today if we could have decided how—through results and trying to set up real responsibility and accountability—we could narrow the focus of those goals so that they become deliverable and we can get them financed by the international community. That is vital, because at the moment there are too many goals and the effort could be too diffuse. We could end up losing some of the successes of the MDGs. That would have been a worthwhile debate, and Ban Ki-moon and our colleagues at the UN would have been deeply impressed had we been able to offer such help. But no, that was not the tone of this debate, sadly.

Unity of approach has put good governance, security, humanitarian development, resilience and sustainability together as part of a holistic approach, with great NGOs, great technical support from donor nations, finance and an emerging clarity of partnership. That is what I have been doing in the past two and a half years in the Sahel—another pro bono position. As recently as last Tuesday, I was sitting in Niamey in Niger, which is the poorest country in the world. The people there are desperate for food, but what is really important is to make sure we get security right—they are more fearful of Boko Haram coming across the river in the Diffa region. It is therefore much more important to tie security with humanitarian development, good governance and transparency.

While I was in Davos, it became clear that what the UK thinks was considered instructive. As we move from MDGs to SDGs, it is clear that we have leadership and we should be grateful to this Government for delivering it. I hope that unity will now break out.

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[Michael Moore]

I apologise for surprising the right hon. Gentleman with my tone. I do not want to say that the Opposition started it, but there really is a different kind of tone to the debate today. I thank him for his contribution to the Bill, and for his own track record as a Minister and in piloting the earlier legislation through. He is right to draw attention to the nay-sayers, who I must point out opposed the Bill from both sides of the Chamber—

[Mr O’Brien]

It was Lord Lipsey who opposed it. Labour!

[Michael Moore]

None of them is in the Chamber this afternoon; that is the important point.

The point is that we have now, happily, got the Bill into another place, and I want to pay tribute to my great friend the noble Lord Purvis who is piloting it there. There were two speeches against it on Friday—one from a Conservative peer and one from a Labour peer—so let us please put this nonsense behind us. It is entirely legitimate to scrutinise legislation in that way. It is entirely fair of the hon. Member for Wakefield to ask challenging questions of the Secretary of State, and it is entirely fair of the hon. Member for Llanelli to add to that list of questions. Let us have more time to debate and scrutinise, just as the International Development Committee, chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce), has done, with cross-party support, and just as the Independent Commission for Aid Impact is doing within the Department. All those things matter, because outside this Chamber the consensus is not as wholehearted as we believe it to be. It is therefore important that we can show what aid is for and show that we, as custodians of taxpayers’ money, are looking after that money properly. We have a proud position in the United Kingdom. We can claim international leadership in this regard, but it is a joint endeavour; let us not squander it.

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[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

In 1983, shortly after being elected to this House, I went with an all-party team to Ethiopia to witness a famine of almost biblical proportions. Over the past 30 years, Parliament has moved considerably when it comes to all-party consensus on supporting the need to invest in international development. It is also fair to observe that throughout those 30 years, under Governments of different dispensations—for a time, I was Foreign Office Minister with responsibility for overseas development aid—we always had an aspiration to use 0.7% of our GDP to fund overseas development, but not until this Government has that been achieved. In both 2013 and 2014, we reached that target, and we were one of the few leading economies in the world to do so.

Like other Members, I am disappointed that we have had to have this debate in these terms. It must have been difficult for the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) to take up a Front-Bench brief so near to a general election, and I can understand her wanting to make her mark. However, it would have been perfectly possible for the usual channels and the two Front-Bench teams to have produced a motion for today’s debate on which we could all agree.

As everyone who has taken a close interest in international development issues will know—as indeed you, Mr Speaker, will know, because we served together on the International Development Committee—there are more critics of international development outside the House than inside it. One only has to look at the editorials of some of our national newspapers to see continuing criticism of our spending funds on international development. We should be totally up front about our position. We should explain not only that it is morally indefensible that billions of people in the world are living in grinding poverty on less than $1 a day, but that it is in our national interests that we support international development. We should be proud, collectively and on both sides of the House, of what we have achieved.

With all due respect to the shadow Minister, all those who listened to her speech—and all those who read it in Hansard—will have got the impression that she was slightly spoiling for a fight because she needed to find something to disagree about. When it comes down to it, one report by the National Audit Office does not add up to any policy differences.

We should focus on the sustainable development goals, which the Prime Minister has played a big part in leading—he co-chaired the UN Secretary-General’s high-level panel on post-2015 goals together with the President of Sierra Leone and the former President of Indonesia. It is absolutely right that the basic concept should be of no one being left behind: we must make it clear that no goals or targets are considered achieved unless they are met by all relevant economic and social groups. It is important that the social development goals are clear, concise, relevant and communicable. We should not have too many goals. Sometimes, there are so many goals that people forget what they are and they get lost.

[Mr O'Brien]

My right hon. Friend will be aware that the proposals from the panel the Prime Minister co-chaired included 12 universal goals and national targets, which have been taken forward in the brief that Ban Ki-Moon issued six months later. My right hon. Friend will be aware, given the point that has been made by the Opposition, that three or four of those goals refer specifically to energy and climate change. As a Minister, I was privileged to support Ban Ki-moon in the conference that he convened on energy support for renewables in the developing market.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

I would hope that no one in the House believes that tackling climate change is not important. It is important that the sustainable development goals give priority to environmental sustainability to tackle climate change—that is an essential prerequisite of poverty eradication—and go on to deal with issues such as disaster risk reduction, water and food security, and nutrition. All of those are tied up with climate change. The House should not spend time being concerned about climate change deniers—we have moved on from that.

The sustainable development goals highlight aspects of governance that the millennium development goals left out. If we go back to the heady days of 2000, it was a frabjous time when the whole international community came together. There was a feeling that just by announcing millennium development goals they would happen but, as we have seen, there are still issues with transparency, corruption, the rule of law, property rights, peace and security, all of which are important.

The hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) and I are both officers of the all-party group for Somaliland and Somalia. Earlier this year, the Foreign Office allowed me to go to Mogadishu for a single day—it was a very long day visit—because security is so bad in Somalia that that was all that I was permitted to do. Two days after I returned, there was a mortar attack on the presidential house in Mogadishu, in which, sadly, a number of people were killed. It is incredibly difficult—how does one manage a country that has been undermined by terrorists and insurgents? Likewise, when I went to Juba last year—how does one run country that is locked in civil war? So it is absolutely right that the sustainable development goals are going to focus on issues such as corruption, transparency and trying to bring security.