The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Collins of Highbury) (Lab)

Well, up until that point, I thought it was quite a consensual debate. Anyway, it has been a very interesting debate and could not be more timely, and I thank my noble friend for initiating it. Sometimes it is quite important to remind ourselves exactly what the SDGs are. They are universal. They apply to everyone and all countries; it is not the north telling the south or vice versa. If we start this debate on that basis, we can see a lot more progress. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, will forgive me because I am not being partisan, but I thought that the first attempt at the voluntary national review, which my noble friend referred to, was disappointing in the sense that it did not focus on the cross-governmental attitude. It did not look at how we are responding in education, health and other areas; it looked at what we are doing to others. I thought that was a missed opportunity and a big mistake. It could have been an opportunity to give the political leadership we needed. By the way—my noble friend mentioned this, and it is important to restate it—this country has a proud record in promoting global development, certainly with Gordon Brown and how he pursued the millennium development goals, and of course the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, in pushing that SDG agenda. We have a proud record as a country and on a cross-party basis. It is important that we remind ourselves of that and that, as we move forward in trying to deliver on the SDGs as a new Government, we work across government and not just in the FCDO. I will come on to some of those other issues to do with departments. I think that Anneliese Dodds, the Minister for Development, would have been delighted to be here in person to listen to this debate, but she is at Chatham House giving her keynote speech on the Government’s approach to development, which will cover many of the topics discussed by noble Lords today. I hope there will be an opportunity for us to circulate that and perhaps even have a further discussion about the future. The other thing I would like to say at the beginning— I will return to some of these points—is that we have initiated a review under the noble Baroness, Lady Shafik, who was a Permanent Secretary at the Department for International Development. That review will be concluded fairly speedily, but I do not want to pre-empt some of the things it might include. The Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister have set out some clear priorities for the FCDO, tackling the issues that all noble Lords have raised today. The focus is on delivering the Government’s five missions: delivering growth, enhancing security, tackling the climate and nature crises, rebuilding our relationship with Europe and, as we are discussing today, modernising our approach to international development. This Government’s mission is to help to create a world free from poverty on a liveable planet. Inevitably, this requires holding on to the hope that we can get the SDGs back on track through clear, effective and modern development policy, placing climate and nature at the heart of everything we do. There is no pathway to development without increasing climate resilience, tackling the nature crisis and improving access to green energy, and no pathway to a sustainable future without development that leaves no one behind. My noble friend is absolutely right about the importance of businesses and the private sector. The SDGs cannot be delivered by Governments alone and cannot be delivered even with the private sector alone. It is a joint enterprise. As my noble friend Lady Armstrong has also highlighted, this is about how we generate civil society to support the SDGs. I pick up the point by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester that mobilising civil society includes faith groups and other organisations. Even though I am a committed humanist, I have seen incredible work by faith groups in this country to deliver support for people—and I have seen that in other countries too. Mobilising that is incredibly important. We had the Secretary-General’s pact for the future at the UN General Assembly, which will be important in mobilising for future generations. It is a key element. I hear what my noble friend says about that. There are always lots of kind words at these events, and we need to translate those words into action. However, the fact that we achieved a consensus at the General Assembly, across all countries, is a sign of hope and positive news. Over the last three months—and it is only three months —this Government have focused on some key areas to tackle the issues that noble Lords have raised today. Economic growth is a top priority for this Government, at home and abroad. We are focusing on sustainable, inclusive economic development and growth that delivers opportunity and unlocks human potential. This approach is the one that will help to lift millions out of extreme poverty, as has been evidenced in the last 30 years. Giving local working people access to better and more productive jobs is the only way to sustainably reduce poverty and build resilience to climate change. As noble Lords are aware, by 2030, countries in the global South will make up the top 30 economies. I have been reminded in every visit that I have made to African countries in the last three months that, by 2050, a quarter of the world’s population will be African. It will be the biggest market, so we have to refocus our attention to these in terms of partnership and economic development. It is essential that there are quality jobs and infrastructure improvements, and that exports grow. The noble Lord, Lord Cameron of—