Contribution
I knew that my hon. Friend could be relied on to talk about WASH. I also knew that I could rely on her to speak passionately about women and girls. Before my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) even spoke, I knew that she, too, would speak passionately about that topic. I knew that I could rely on both the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) to speak about global health, and my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Noah Law) to talk about British International Investment.
My background is in children and youth in conflict zones, so I shall address my remarks to that. We all think that these areas are important. Everyone is bringing things to the table and saying, “But what about this? Surely this is too important to lose.” My ask of Government is for them to draw up a proper, evidence-based impact assessment of what the cuts will mean and to publish it widely, so that the British public can understand what political choices are being made and what those choices will mean. There is far too much myth in a lot of the debate around international aid. What will the impact be, for example, of the laying off in large numbers of people involved in de-mining operations? What is the impact on communities that cannot return to their homes? What is the impact of leaving unexploded ordnance lying around? When conflict prevention education is being cut, what will be the impact in civil war and civil conflict? How will that impact refugee flows into our country? What will be the impact on the prevention of killer diseases of investing less in public health? My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East has talked passionately about the 90% cuts in South Sudan to programmes that have seen an unprecedented increase in girls going to school. What will be the impact of that?
The International Development Committee recently visited Nigeria and we saw a UK aid-funded maternal health centre. I was shocked at how poor that was, and that was the upgrade. I just could not imagine the scene of six or seven women all in labour at once, occupying a very small space in a hot environment without any air conditioning. What is the impact on all the things that we are doing? Has the FCDO made any analysis of this? If not, why not? If it has, will it publish it and make it more widely known?
I raise this matter for two reasons. First, as a social democrat and a Christian, I am unashamed of saying that I do believe in a global brotherhood of man. I care about a child in Ethiopia as much as I care about a child in my own community. As others have alluded to, this is super important for our national interest. People have spoken really well in this debate about the British Council and the BBC World Service. I wish to talk about staffing. We are led to understand that the quite severe cuts in staffing at the FCDO is because it is considered to be top heavy—it is considered to have too many people in head office. But does that mean that we can expect to see an increase in field staff? In many countries in Africa, I have found that whenever we visit a Ministry, we come across British people who are embedded there, sharing their expertise. That is really important for our soft power, as well as for leveraging our aid spending to do more.
That expertise at DFID and the FCDO is known around the world. It includes expertise in value for money, sustainability, anti-corruption, and gender mainstreaming. What will we lose in those areas, and what will be the impact of that?
I have one final and crucial point that I want to make about the UK national interest. We must not be blind to what is happening right now across the global south with regards to China and Russia. We seem to make different decisions about China from one election cycle to the other. China, on the other hand, has a 100-year plan for global dominance. It is enslaving the developing world in debt. It is using Chinese companies to build the infrastructure, and it is also building a polity of loyal people. That is why the BBC World Service, our education work and technical assistance are all so important—[Interruption.] I can see that Madam Deputy Speaker wants me to come to an end.