Blair McDougall

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is appropriate that we have such a distinguished internationalist in the Chair for this debate. [Interruption.] That did not get me any extra time for my speech. I recognise the impossible decisions that the Government have to take, but I hope that we do not set up a false dichotomy in which we believe that our moral preferences have to be at odds with our strategic interests. I recognise, though, that the Government are making budgetary decisions in response to very painful real-world events that are taking place every day. I represent many of the FCDO workers from East Kilbride, and I myself worked for 10 years delivering aid. I do not want to repeat what others said in pleading for the international development budget, but I want to ask the Government about one thing, and perhaps challenge them on it. If, as the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) said, we are not still the development superpower, what is our offer to the global south? We know what Russia’s offer is: blood for gold. It will kill your enemies for you, through mercenaries, and take precious minerals out of your country. We know what China’s offer is: infrastructure in return for debt that keeps you in its power. We cannot offer violence, and we cannot demand subservience. It seems to me that our offer is values, but values need to be projected through vehicles. In the time I have, I want to mention two of those vehicles. I add my voice to those of right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken in defence of the BBC. Others have spoken about how development helps to save money on defence. That also works the other way around: when defence fails, development picks up the pieces. If we need one example of that, we can look to Afghanistan. When we left Afghanistan, we left behind the BBC World Service. It is now the only broadcast journalism in the country—the only thing that is still there, saying to those people, “We have not abandoned you.” The cuts that we are discussing imply very deep cuts to the World Service, which I hope we will not see. The second thing I wanted to plead for is the democratic infrastructure that supports dissidents and democrats around the world—the people I worked with. As we stand here, that infrastructure is being dismantled because of Elon Musk’s vandalism. The most extraordinarily brave people I have ever met are being utterly abandoned.