UK Foreign Aid Programme — House of Lords, 2021-07-01
Topic: Government Operations
Peter Fowler (Independent, Unknown): My Lords, this has been an important debate and, first and foremost, I thank everyone who has taken part in it. It may have been truncated but it showed quite clearly the concern that there is on this issue The Minister said that the debate had attracted a large number of speakers—which was true; it had—but he rather failed to mention that, of the 43 Back-Bench speakers whom it had attracted, not one of them supported the Government’s position. That is perhaps of some significance and might be fed back to the Government. I might just add that I get the distinct impression that the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, was not exactly knocked over in the rush of Ministers to get to the Dispatch Box—but that is perhaps an unworthy thought There was one part of the Minister’s reply that I entirely disagreed with: namely, when he said that it was perfectly sensible for the Government to be acting in Parliament in the way that they are. Perhaps he will explain one day, if that is the case, why, in November of last year, the two most senior Ministers in the Government—the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Foreign Secretary—both pledged that the Government would introduce legislation. The Chancellor said that "we do intend to look at bringing forward appropriate legislation in due course."—[Official Report, Commons, 25/11/20; col. 870.] and, the next day, we heard the Foreign Secretary say that "we will need to bring forward legislation in due course."—[Official Report, Commons, 26/11/20; col. 1018.] I think that those count as pledges and I am not quite sure how the Minister thinks that they have been carried out I will pick out just one or two speeches from what has been said—an impossible task. The noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, had the courage to resign from the Government over this issue, which is a very brave act for a young politician. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, that the person we miss most at the moment is Lord Judd, and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, on bringing the Act to the statute book The effect of the cuts has been fully explained. I will not even try to precis them but the effect on malaria was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman; the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, raised the needs of Nigeria and Sudan; the noble Lord, Lord Patel, raised science and research; the noble Lord, Lord Herbert, raised the human losses through TB; and the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, raised the impact on children. The list goes on and on In the end, we come back to the point raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, with all his authority. He said that the parliamentary process on this proposal of the Government has been ignored and ground into the dust. It is very difficult to disagree with that—it has, and the Government have a great deal to answer for on this. As I said in my opening speech, it would be better if this does not go to law but if it is not to, it would be much better if the Government now—at this 11th hour—changed their stance. They must have got an impression from today’s debate of how it is going. It is not going well. If I was the Whip sitting there, I would not be saying, "This is a great debate and all our policies have been endorsed"; none of their policies on this have been endorsed. I have to tell the Whip, and the Minister in particular, that this is not untypical What is needed now is a debate in both Houses and a vote in each of them, and I hope the Government will agree to that. I do not often call in aid the Speaker of the House of Commons but that is exactly what he was calling for as well. I cannot see that, morally, the Government can do anything other than that. The way in which they are behaving at the moment is neither satisfactory nor acceptable. If they want a further incentive, I say to them that we will not give up on this issue—we will not just go away. This issue will continue because everyone in this House feels very strongly about it. I hope that that message is registered by the Government and their Ministers I thank everyone for their contributions. This has been a very important and valuable debate. It was made so by the contributions made here, however brief they were.