Overseas Aid: Child Health and Education

I beg to move,

That this House has considered overseas aid, child health and education.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in today’s debate about this important subject. I want to start with a moment’s reflection. All of us here today are lucky to live in the developed world, and in the United Kingdom in particular. So many people around the world face such enormous challenges, and it is important to remember that many of those challenges are getting worse, as far too many people struggle with the effects of the climate emergency, war and natural disaster. It is our responsibility in the developed world to help those who have not had the same opportunities that we have had. Indeed, that is a duty for all of us.

That duty has been thrown into sharp relief by the recent tragic events in Turkey and Syria, and I turn first to the earthquake before addressing longer-term development issues. It has been simply heartbreaking to watch the horrific images of the earthquake in Turkey and northern Syria. The recent quake was the worst for nearly 100 years, and measured 7.8 on the Richter scale. It was, quite simply, an incredibly powerful natural disaster, and sadly the effects seem to have been made worse by what can only be described as apparent shoddy building practices and lax regulation.

I pay tribute to all those taking part in the response to this dreadful disaster—both those in Turkey and Syria, and those across the whole world. The Disasters Emergency Committee in Britain, local branches of charities, local communities and local residents who have taken part in collections are all doing their bit to help those in need at this most awful time. It falls to us to help, both in emergencies such as the earthquake or the recent floods in Pakistan and over the much longer term. I am sure that everyone in the United Kingdom shares those concerns and that commitment to help.

Let me turn to wider development issues, which are the subject of today’s debate. There is no doubt that the world is changing, but although many countries are developing, there is still enormous economic and social inequality across the world. It is truly sobering to consider the scale of this enormous problem. Even today, nearly one in 10 of the world’s population lives in extreme poverty, despite considerable steps forward in the last 40 or 50 years. That poverty is found in many countries, and in particular blights the lives of people living in rural areas and many of those who have migrated to the enormous cities that are emerging around the world. There remains extreme inequality in health and education, as I will return to later.

I want to make some broader points and recap the recent direction of Government policy. Turning to recent history, the last Labour Government made real steps forward. They brought in the 0.7% target for aid, so that the proportion of GDP spent on aid matched the amount recommended by the UN—picking up on work that went as far back as the Brundtland commission in the 1980s. It is important that Britain led on that policy, and there were very real results: 1.5 million more people received improved sanitation and water services, and this country helped 40 million children go to school. I also acknowledge the very important work that Cameron’s Conservative Government did in continuing that policy.

Sadly, the 0.7% target was scrapped by more recent Conservative Governments, which has left the UK presiding over a declining aid budget. Worse still, there have been attempts to rebadge other spending as aid, including the deeply mistaken plan to spend £3 billion from the development budget on the cost of housing refugees. That mistaken approach has knocked down the pillars on which the UK’s international leadership was built, and it has damaged Britain’s credibility around the world. Added to that, a botched merger of the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has undermined delivery.

Development spending is not only a force for moral good, as I mentioned earlier, but sensible policy. Aid from the developed world is helpful and important, and although it is not the only answer, it can be a significant force for good. British aid has played an important part in helping those in need around the world. Our contribution has declined, and our influence and ability to be a force for good are in retreat.

I commend the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate; he always brings very important subjects to Westminster Hall and the main Chamber. Does he recognise that, although the Government have a role to play, there are many non-governmental organisations and charities—I think of many church groups in my constituency—that come together to make significant contributions to health, education, job opportunities and ensuring that young girls have an equal opportunity to young boys? I can speak for the Elim church mission in my constituency as one example. We cannot ignore what they do in Zimbabwe, Malawi and Swaziland. They make a contribution alongside Government, and that cannot be forgotten.

I commend the hon. Gentleman for his words. Of course, the work of community, voluntary, church and other faith groups is so important and makes an enormous contribution, and in many ways plays a leading role in aid around the world.

As I was saying, I am afraid that our influence is in retreat, as is our ability to be a force for good. That sad reality should be—and I hope will be—a cause for reflection and a much-needed reassessment by the Minister and his colleagues.

I might expand on this point later. I was struck in a conversation I had with someone working in one of our embassies who remarked that, from their perspective, the D in FCDO is currently silent. They were worried about their ability to do other things in that country as a result. Is that similar to conversations the hon. Gentleman has had with others in this space?

The hon. Member makes an excellent point. There is a real risk that the development work of the Government gets downplayed due to the reorganisation. As I said earlier, there are also issues with delivery and capacity in the new merged Department.

I would like to spell out what this retreat means in real terms on the ground for the very poorest. We now know that bilateral aid on education fell from £789 million in 2019 to just £545 million in 2020. That is a reduction of nearly a third. Final spending in 2021 was just £457 million. That falls way short. The UK’s £430 million pledge for the Global Partnership for Education for 2021-25 was an increase on previous commitments, but lower than many had expected. Further analysis by charities indicates that education programmes were cut by 30% in the first round of cuts in 2020. Those are severe cuts.

Many local and international NGOs have spoken about the impact of cuts on children’s education and health. For example, the Dhaka Ahsania Mission, after seeing 100% of its funding cut, said that 1,250 out-of-school children living in flood prone areas in northern Bangladesh will not have access to quality non-formal primary education. It said,

“Within weeks…our project would have enrolled 700 out-of-school girls (and 560 out-of-school boys) into rural-based, non-formal primary education centres.”

All that has been cut.

In another case, an NGO that preferred to remain anonymous saw a 100% cut to funding for a programme that protected the rights of children and enabled them to grow up healthily. The project improved access to inclusive quality education for 1,700 children marginalised by ethnicity, gender and/or disability in three rural villages in Laos.

Again on health, in 2022 the UK pledged £1 billion to the global fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, which is £400 million less than in 2019. I remind colleagues that every minute of the day a child dies of malaria, and hundreds—around 600—are estimated to die every day of TB. I hope I have set out what the current policy means to those who are most in need of help.

We have to start the wind-ups at no later than 10 past 5. I have the names of only two Members who have notified the Chair that they wish to speak.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Bone, and to follow my excellent colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda). In his powerful opening speech, he reminded us why funding for overseas aid is so critical.

I am co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on HIV and AIDS, and it is good to see one of my fellow co-chairs, the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell), present today.

Four decades on from the start of the AIDS crisis, the global HIV response is caught in a perfect storm of waning political and public engagement, diminishing funds and the global shock of covid-19. It is fair to say that the reality is that, in many countries, the AIDS crisis never ceased. Currently, a child dies from an AIDS-related cause every five minutes, and only half of children living with HIV are on life-saving treatments. In 2021, 160,000 children newly acquired HIV. Children accounted for 15% of all AIDS-related deaths, despite the fact that only 4% of the total number of people living with HIV are children. Adolescent girls and young women are disproportionately impacted by HIV—for example, around 4,200 adolescent girls and young women in sub-Saharan Africa acquire HIV every week. This is not right, and it should not be happening in 2023.

The cut in ODA spending—from 0.7% to 0.5%—and further raids on the ODA budget have come at a critical time for the HIV response. There have been significant cuts across all the UK’s multilateral, bilateral, and research and development funding. As highlighted in a joint report from the APPG on HIV and AIDS, STOPAIDS and Frontline AIDS, the cuts have disproportionately impacted key and vulnerable populations, including children affected by HIV. I hope the Minister will realise that the cuts are damaging our soft power while others are on the rise. UNAIDS estimates that $29 billion will be required in 2025 for the AIDS response in low and middle-income countries, including countries formerly considered to be upper-income countries. This funding is desperately needed to get us back on track and to end AIDS as a global health threat by 2030.

It is a privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi), who gave a powerful speech on the significant impact of the cuts on the fight against HIV and AIDS. I very much hope that her points are heard and acted on. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) for securing the debate and for his opening remarks, rightly praising all those from the UK, in particular, doing their level best to help the peoples of Turkey and Syria to deal with the terrible impact of the earthquakes. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) also rightly praised the many church groups that help to keep all of us in this House focused on these issues—I can think of a number in my constituency that do just that.

I share the views of my hon. Friends the Members for Reading East and for Vauxhall, in that I think we need a timetable to get back on track to 0.7%. I certainly think we need to re-establish an International Development Department as a separate Department, which perhaps reflects the point made by the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran). Perhaps slightly unfashionably, I also think we should renew support to the World Bank, which saw one of the biggest cuts in multilateral aid as a result of the UK’s cuts in development assistance. I will return to that in a moment.

I have always believed that our first responsibility in this House is to our own citizens. However, there is surely also a moral responsibility for us, as one of the richest nations in the world, to do our bit to help those in the poorest countries and the worst circumstances to access better lives, too. I have also always believed that it was in our self-interest to do so. DFID was a global leader in development throughout its existence, which certainly enhanced UK soft power. Development assistance helps to build up markets, creating job opportunities not just in country but, as a result of trade, that benefit people here in the UK. It helps to reduce the pressures on those in the poorest places to migrate and seek sanctuary in the UK or other developed countries. In the light of covid, better healthcare in developing countries also helps to reduce the threat of diseases that may start in other places having a significant impact on our citizens too. The charity ONE estimated that, as a result of the cuts in development assistance, some 3.7 million girls worldwide would no longer receive a decent education —surely a matter of significant shame for the UK.

As a Palestinian myself, I fully agree with the hon. Member about the value of education to a community that feels completely abandoned and let down. Will he join hon. Members across the House in condemning the fact that schools have been torn down by the Israeli Government illegally, and in saying again to the FCDO that we thank it for its support in saying that that is illegal, but that saying that and then doing nothing more about it is frankly a bit toothless?

Any school being torn down, particularly in a developing country and particularly in the circumstances that the hon. Member describes, is devastating for the communities affected. We need to support the people of the Palestinian territories to get those schools back up, because education gives hope—it gives a route out of poverty and hope of a better future. Surely that is something that the whole House could row in behind.

I am privileged to have a very large Indian community in my constituency. India has seen huge growth and development over the past 20 years, with massive progress on access to education along the way, but there are still significant issues with access to the necessary quality of education on occasion. British development assistance can help to provide support to address some of those issues, in particular by providing the ideas to improve them. Clearly that is done in partnership with the Indian authorities and other multilateral players.

The World Bank developed what is called the learning poverty indicator, which flags, as a key statistic for each country to be measured against, the proportion of 10-year-old children who are unable to read and understand a short, age-appropriate text. The World Bank’s ambition is that the number who cannot read and understand a short, age-appropriate text by the age of 10 should halve by 2030. That is a significant target that the UK should get behind. I suspect we will need an increase in development assistance to the World Bank to support that. I urge the Minister to look again at reversing the cut in funding to the World Bank as another way of addressing the challenges of access to education in developing countries.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I start by declaring an interest. Last week, I went to Kenya with STOPAIDS and Unitaid to look at public health projects in and around Nairobi. The details are submitted and will appear on the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as soon as they can be processed.

I thank the hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) for securing this incredibly important debate. Liberal Democrats have always made the case for the UK to meet its commitments to the world’s poorest: it was we who proudly introduced, during the coalition Government, the private Member’s Bill that was adopted by the Conservative-led Government of the time to enshrine 0.7% in law.

Helping those most in need not only changes lives, but ensures that we build a stronger, safer and more sustainable world for us all. It is in our self-interest as much as theirs. That point seems to be missed constantly by this iteration of a Conservative Government, who have reneged on a promise in their own manifesto. They seemed to be very happy to keep others, but this one they were very happy to lose.

The scale of the cuts has been utterly eye-watering. In Lebanon, aid has been cut from £85 million to £13 million; in Ethiopia, a country dear to my heart—my family lived there for three years—aid has been cut from £350 million to £100 million; in Yemen, one of the most war-torn areas of crisis across the world, aid has been cut from £240 million to £100 million. These are huge sums. It is impossible to talk about these millions and billions of pounds that are being slashed.

What gets lost in debates is the stories of the individual people who are affected. Development is about helping the poorest and the most vulnerable around the world. Sometimes it is the smallest of actions that make the biggest impact—something as simple as providing a mug of porridge before school can help a young person to stay in school and receive a better education, and can transform their life. We are campaigning for that for children here, but it applies even more elsewhere, where the children have even less.

Is the hon. Member aware that the UK was sadly one of the only countries to reduce its funding to the Global Fund, so the excellent work that she has just highlighted could be impacted further?

The hon. Member is absolutely right. We want to celebrate the fact that we are a big donor. It is vital work that is literally saving lives, and it is such a shame that the funding is being cut.

The good work is not just in Kenya. The charity STiR Education does fantastic work in India and Uganda by supporting education systems through training and development for teachers. One teacher, Juliet, said after taking part in its programme:

“I have now fallen back in love with my job, and believe in helping my learners perform beyond their limits!”

But in March 2021, STiR was given just three weeks’ notice that the entire remainder of its FCDO grant was to be cut. It lost £828,000 with three weeks’ notice. It was forced to make a number of redundancies, cut back on its programme spending, move to smaller officers and postpone all salary increments and promotions. That all meant fewer resources available to help people like Juliet. The fundraising team worked hard, but that was just to keep STiR afloat—imagine what it could have done if it had that funding basis and could spend the fundraising money on doing even more work.

It is not just delivery of projects but research that is affected. Research and innovation is a vital part of the international development landscape and helps us to understand what kinds of interventions work, thereby making sure that projects deliver value for money, which I am sure the Government are very keen on.