Queen’s Speech — House of Lords, 2021-05-19
Topic: International Affairs
Jeremy Purvis (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I counted three references to values in the Minister’s speech. Former Secretary of State John Kerry said that "values spoken without actions taken are merely slogans." We are told that this Queen’s Speech implements the Conservative Party manifesto. In the middle of page 53 of that manifesto, in very large lettering, is the heading "Promote our values", under which it says that "we will end preventable deaths of mothers, new-born babies and children… by 2030… We will stand up for the right of every girl in the world to have 12 years of quality education", and unequivocally "will proudly maintain our commitment to spend 0.7% of GNI on development". This is of course a legal requirement, not a discretionary one, but the equivocation since the decision in the last Session to unlawfully break this requirement, and the reality of what the cuts in this Session mean, is becoming stark. Just today, the International Development Committee in the House of Commons published a Statement saying: "MPs condemn cuts to girls’ education" in poor countries, and of hiding other reductions. MPs questioned why aid programmes aimed at boosting girls’ education in low-income countries appear to have been slashed when they were described by the Government as one of their top priorities. The chair of the committee said that it was ridiculous that the Government trumpet their commitment to girls’ education but then appear to cut the programmes in this area by 40%, which we know only because of the valiant questioning by the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, who is pursuing this issue What of the other values in the manifesto? Support for preventable deaths of mothers and newborn babies has been slashed, especially in Yemen. Quite astonishingly and shamefully, it took a civil servant to admit that no humanitarian impact assessment had been carried out before that aid support was slashed. On malaria, support was also slashed. One of the richest countries on earth, at the height of a global health and humanitarian crisis, the likes of which we have not seen in a generation, decides that its global response is to cut global support by a third, and to do this, breaks domestic law. I say again: values When the fiscal situation allows, is this a value or a slogan? These fiscal situations do not exist. If they did, the Government would have said what they were over the last six months to questions in this House and in the Commons. The Minister should have said that they will return to the legal commitment when the political situation allows, when the Government believe that these cuts are no longer popular, because clearly, the Government believe that, unique across the comprehensive spending review, the level of cuts in aid is popular. No other areas are being cut, so let us have a little honesty from the Government on what the fiscal situation allows It goes beyond this, of course, because the Minister referred to global leadership. As one of the seven richest nations on earth convenes the G7 in a few weeks’ time, will we repeat what we said on the two previous occasions when the UK convened the G8 and the G7? I remind the House of what the communique drafted by the British Government said at Gleneagles in 2005: "G8 members from the European Union commit to a collective foreign aid target of 0.56% of GDP by 2010, and 0.7% by 2015." At Lough Erne in 2013, David Cameron told the other leaders that the UK had met its target and recommended that they do so also In 2021, we have breached our law; we are no longer meeting the commitment and we will have stopped a record for at least two decades of promoting the 0.7% to the other richest countries in the world. This is a retreat of global leadership, not a demonstration of it Let us not hear more of values when the actions speak against them. We are no longer in this area a leader in the world. The Government have abdicated that responsibility, and the tragic situation is that no other G7 country will meet that gap. Therefore, the consequence of the breaking of the law and the retreat of these values is that more mothers and children will die, we will have more people suffering from malaria, and global goals will not be met in a manner which we believe they should be.