Sustainable Development Goals — House of Commons, 2015-01-28
Topic: International Affairs
Thomas Clarke (Labour, Centre-left): I welcome the debate and have no difficulty in supporting the motion moved by my right hon. and hon. Friends. I think the House is in danger of being a bit hard on itself. Some very good points have been made already. I have to say, as somebody who has been very interested in international development since I came to the House, I have heard debates that I have found much, much more disturbing than today’s one It is right for the Opposition to use the time available to debate these issues. The Government could be encouraged to give more time to them, if only because it would give an airing to the Secretary of State and her ministerial colleagues—that cannot be a bad thing. I want to see more debates of this kind. I cannot join the criticism of my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) that, after seven weeks in her role, she has not been abroad. My heavens, it is a difficult enough issue to master! For heaven’s sake, let us give the House a bit more time to focus on the issues before us I welcome, in the spirit of the debate, the Government’s achievement of the 0.7% of GNI target. I have said that previously, and I have made no secret of my view that DFID is one of the better Government Departments. However, I believe it is perfectly reasonable for the motion to invite the Government to put before the House a commitment to that target in legislation. That has not happened, and because it has not happened we were able to debate an excellent Bill promoted and guided through Parliament by the right hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Michael Moore). He knows—I served on the Committee and am one of the Bill’s sponsors—that the Bill had my full support. I also supported the excellent Bill promoted by the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), who is not in his place. I have to say to the Secretary of State—I hope this will not be seen as unduly controversial—that it is not enough to say we have had debates initiated by Back Benchers—through them introducing, rightly, good Bills—without accepting that the Government, too, have a responsibility to introduce transparency on these matters by encouraging debates in the House The Bill from the right hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk was debated in another place last Friday. I read the debate, which I thought was excellent. It was the kind of discussion I would like to see, and have heard, in this House. I pay tribute, in particular, to the speeches of Baroness Royall, Baroness Williams, Lord Judd, who has great experience with Oxfam, and Baroness Chalker. I shadowed Baroness Chalker, although it was a bit difficult because she was in the House of Lords as the Minister in the Department. Our ability to discuss these matters has improved tremendously, but there is still room for improvement, as the need for today’s motion suggests I would like to pay tribute to my constituents, who have given me great support on the international development issues I have raised over the years. In particular, I pay tribute to Charles Fawcet, a retired teacher, for his work in Malawi, which I shall visit in a few weeks with him. It would be churlish of me not to thank DFID, particularly its office in East Kilbride, and the Secretary of State for the support they have given to Charles and his team as they have built up relationships between my town of Coatbridge and the people of Malawi. I hope to see some of that work when I am there I recognise that not everything I am saying is popular. I received some awful e-mails after the Third Reading of the Bill introduced by the right hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk. One came from a man in Harrogate who challenged me to defend our giving money to India. I urge the Government to take a role in development education. Does this man really believe—it might comfort Conservative Members that he plans to vote for UKIP—that the starving children and the people dying of tuberculosis whom I saw when I last visited India had the slightest input into the decision of their Government to send rockets into space? Of course, they did not, and they should not be punished for their own poverty I am proud of the efforts of the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund and the Catholic Agency For Overseas Development—I am chair of the all-party parliamentary friends of CAFOD group—but a lot more has to be done, particularly on climate change. It is right that we address this challenge, and I am glad we are doing that in this debate.