Lord Wood of Anfield (Lab)

I start by paying tribute to the noble Lord, not just for his lifetime of service in military and government occupations and political roles but for his passion and commitment to Nepal, and the Gurkhas in particular. On his first point, he is absolutely right that Britain has supported Nepal on disaster risk, and we should definitely continue to support the authority that he mentioned. The £5 million package that I mentioned builds on about £100 million of UK support, which has developed Nepal’s climate resilience over the past 10 to 20 years with strengthening resilience funds, a climate smart development fund and a resilience adaptation fund. There is strong partnership in those dimensions, and it will continue. On his second point, I very much like the way the noble Lord expressed the ideal of helping Nepal build back differently. As he said, we have the science, business and political capacity to provide the kind of support that would enable that. Thirdly, I pay tribute to the Gurkhas and I appreciate the noble Lord’s reference to them. As he said, the support we are offering has to be led by the Nepalese Government and partners on the ground. I assure noble Lords that the support we are continuing to provide is changing as the needs change in the development of this crisis and as the kinds of challenges that the Nepalese are facing evolve.