UK Aid Policy: Global Funding Trends

Debate between Tom Hayes and David Mundell

Tuesday 7th July 2026 Westminster Hall

[David Mundell]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I commend him and others for bringing the debt issue back to the debate. Obviously, it was a focal point of debate a number of years ago. It appears to have slid down the agenda, but it remains a vital issue, as he has highlighted.

Another vital issue in reference to the Child Nutrition Fund is public support. We all have to acknowledge the need to rebuild public support for development. I put my hand up to being complacent in that regard, as I think many in the sector were assuming that the support would remain. It is still there, but it is all about the questions that people are asked and the context in which they are asked. That is why, for example, the Child Nutrition Fund commands public support: because people see that an intervention by the UK can have the direct effect of saving children’s lives. What detracts from public support is where interventions are less easily explainable or there is an inability to be clear that interventions are not wasteful. It was therefore surprising that the Government were at one point proposing to get rid of the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, the body that reviews the effectiveness of ODA. Thanks to the cross-party effort of the International Development Committee and others in Parliament, that decision was reversed, at least in part.

I am the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on HIV, AIDS and sexual health, and in the multilateral/bilateral debate—a debate we need to have—I was very supportive of additional funding for the Global Fund. The fund has done a huge job not only in tackling AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, but in providing the backbone of many countries’ health systems. That backbone would not be there were the Global Fund not providing support for other issues. I welcome the Government’s £850 million contribution to the fund. That amount is a lot more than was previously touted, although it is less than the £1 billion that my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield provided. However, of course, there were smoke and mirrors, as the funding is back-ended and the bulk of it will come at the end of the three-year period. That will have an impact on the Global Fund’s capacity to carry out its job, which again has direct consequences.

I commend Bel Trew and The Independent for highlighting the impact that cuts have already had in the fight against HIV and AIDS.

[Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)]

It feels to me that there is scope for the UK and European Union countries to work together more closely to tackle the rising global anti-rights movement. Given the progress in Hungary, it feels like there is an opportunity to start to push back on the age of impunity. Does the right hon. Member agree that we should put human rights—especially sexual and reproductive rights and health—on the agenda of the upcoming European Political Community meeting, which will be held in Dublin in October?

[David Mundell]

I agree with the principles that the hon. Gentleman has set out; I will come on to that topic now. We need to see UK leadership in co-ordinating a response to such issues. Because of political decisions taken in the United States, certain groups will be deprived of help and support. We need to have a role in ensuring that there is co-ordination so that the support goes in, whether through country donors, philanthropists or non-governmental organisations. LGBT communities, for example, will not get that support unless we are proactive in ensuring that co-ordination. Although I welcomed the announcement that the Foreign Office still has an LGBT budget, I do not see the issues that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned being proactively tackled at this time, and we need to be at the forefront of that.

I will draw my remarks to a close, as other Members wish to contribute. I was going to touch more on British International Investment—perhaps my International Development Committee colleague, the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Noah Law), will do so—but I will make the point that BII has to play a much greater role in alignment with UK Government policy, whatever the policy is. That does not mean that BII should not be independent in making investments, but the position of equivalent bodies in other countries is to be aligned with Government policy. I am not convinced that BII is at the moment, and given the scale of its investment, it needs to be.

I have tried to range over the issues of the moment, and I look forward to the contributions of other Members. As I said at the start, there have been one or two good things in the last couple of years, but I do not think this is a glorious part of the Prime Minister’s legacy. I hope that, going forward, we can have that reset.

Farming and Inheritance Tax

Debate between Tom Hayes and David Mundell

Wednesday 4th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)]

I commend my near neighbour, the hon. Member for Penrith and Solway (Markus Campbell-Savours), on his brave contribution. It is hard to come to this Chamber and tell the truth when the pressure from the Whips and the party is to defend the Government at all costs. He made it absolutely clear that this measure will have a devastating effect on farms and the farming industry in his constituency if it goes through as currently set out.

The hon. Gentleman’s constituency and mine have something in common in that, in the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak, which devastated the farming industry, we saw for sure how important farming was to the whole community. Because farming was shut down, business was shut down. Shops were shut and lots of businesses including garages and all the services in rural areas could not function because farming was not functioning. That showed me the great importance that farming has.

Ironically, however, the outcome for my constituency of this measure from a Labour Government will be the further acquisition of land by private equity companies. This is because, thanks partly to the Scottish Government’s lifting of restrictions on land that can be afforested, good farming land in my constituency is under huge pressure from private equity funds buying it up to plant trees for carbon capture reliefs. It often seems that it is a great thing to plant trees and that we should all be in favour of it, but the reality is that these trees are Sitka spruce trees that are planted very close together. There is no light or environmental content within these forested areas. No creatures can survive in them. They are not environmentally friendly or sustainable, but they are financially attractive. They employ nobody. There is no employment once the forest has been planted.

When farmers come under pressure, as they will, to sell land to meet the inheritance tax, this is who the buyers will be. It will be these private equity firms, and if it is not them, it will in many instances be those who want to develop solar panels in a farming scenario, as other Members have highlighted.

[Tom Hayes]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that even the most ambitious estimates show we could cover only 1% of agricultural land with solar farms? Does he agree with Tom Bradshaw, the NFU’s president, who told journalists 85 days ago:

“What I do want to say is that an individual solar farm is not something which risks national food security”?

And does he agree with the CLA, which said in 2022:

“Solar is also a valuable diversification and cost reducing land use for farms—helping to shield exposure to volatile agricultural markets”?

[David Mundell]

No, I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman’s proposition. I do not think that viable prime agricultural land should be used for solar farms. I believe there is plenty of other brownfield land, or land that is not prime agricultural land, that could be used for solar farms. I am, therefore, not supportive of some of the huge developments proposed for my constituency.

I will now touch on one or two other points that have been raised but not expanded on. First, a lot of this discussion has been as if the sole structure of a family farm is mother, father, son and daughter. Brothers and sisters, or cousins, are often involved in the farming business, and it is quite wrong to suggest that some of the reliefs that can be applied would work in that situation. I have constituents who are in exactly that situation. A family farm is not just mum, dad, son and daughter. It is brothers, sisters, cousins and extended family.

The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) touched on tenant farmers. Tenant farmers in Scotland, in particular, are in a very difficult position because they cannot sell a couple of fields to pay their inheritance tax. They will have to give up the whole of their business, if they cannot find the money in other ways to pay these bills. We need to understand the issues that face tenant farmers.

I also commend the right hon. Gentleman’s suggestion that there should be a much wider debate about farming finance. The way to secure farming finance, and to secure our farmers, is not to destroy the family farm.