Sustainable Development Goals — House of Commons, 2019-06-11
Topic: International Affairs
Preet Kaur Gill (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend for that important contribution, which I fully endorse. I hope that the Government will take that on board. As I was saying, local government and local councils matter. That is why last year I worked with Birmingham City Council, my local council, to approve a motion on the sustainable development goals, with cross-party support. It was the first council to agree formally to play its part to achieve those important goals. I hope that other councils across the country will follow Birmingham’s lead and adopt their own motions, and I hope the Minister will join me in encouraging Members from across the House to support similar motions in their constituencies Will the Minister also agree to speak to colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to ensure that councils and communities across the UK are playing their part? I am concerned about the leadership role that DFID appears to be playing in a programme that should be both global and domestic. DFID is specifically tasked with addressing poverty overseas. Its limited resources should not be diverted to tackling issues in the UK that are the specific responsibility of other Departments Those concerns were recently raised by the International Development Committee, which said: "Cross-government engagement with the SDGs—up to this point—has been woefully insufficient. Outside of DFID there is still very limited knowledge of the Goals amongst Whitehall officials." The Committee went on to say that it was "not convinced that DFID should be leading on the coordination of the VNR" I agree with its comments. I should like the entire Government to take the SDGs far more seriously. According to analysis by Saferworld, only three of 76 conflict, stability and security fund programme summaries refer publicly to the 2030 agenda and SDGs as guidance for context analysis or programme direction Will the Minister update the House on whether the proposed departmental champions have now all been appointed? Will she clarify what their role will be and what meaningful reporting process they will follow to ensure that the UK does deliver on these important goals? Will she—this is a related question—give concrete assurances that the voluntary national review of the UK’s progress towards achieving the goals domestically will not take any time or resources away from the Department’s international work to eradicate extreme poverty overseas I have heard concerns from a number of NGOs and civil society groups that feel that their involvement in the review process has been chaotic, disorganised and last minute. Given that the original deadline for the report’s submission to the UN is this Friday—a deadline that was confirmed in response to one of my recent written questions—civil society groups will be rightly alarmed that they will not have had a proper chance to feed back on the VNR before it is submitted. What are the Government doing to ensure that there is meaningful engagement with those groups? Will the Minister clarify how the input sought from the recent consultations will feed into the final review, and will she give a commitment to seek Government time for a debate following the submission of the VNR, so that we can discuss the content in greater detail We cannot afford to fail to meet the SDG targets. The challenges that we face are vast. Across the world, one in nine people still go hungry, one in five children live in conflict, 40 million people are displaced from their homes, and the world is facing an ecological breakdown. The world may be at its wealthiest overall, but inequality is at its highest: 26 people now own the same wealth as 50% of all humanity—3.8 billion people That is symptomatic of a global economy that is rigged in favour of the few at the expense of the many and a system that accumulates private wealth and power in the hands of a few individuals at the expense of public goods As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden), the picture in the UK is bleak as well. More and more children live in poor households, and according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, an unacceptable 7% rise in child poverty is likely between 2015 and 2022 It is right that we have had time today to debate the UK’s own performance against the sustainable development goals and the voluntary national review. I trust that we will respect the truly universal nature of the SDGs, so that we see a far greater focus on how we achieve them both globally and here in the UK, as that will give us a global blueprint for dignity, peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and in the future.