Contribution
My Lords, I too thank my noble friend for securing this debate and for opening it so effectively. She and I had the great privilege to be DfID Ministers in the coalition, when the UK finally honoured the commitment to spend 0.7% of GNI on aid. That does indeed now seem a long time ago, when there was a great deal of cross-party agreement—as we see reflected here today, in fact. It is wonderful to add the noble Baroness, Lady Hyde, and the noble Lord, Lord Barber, to our ranks here on this commitment of ours to international development.
Speaking of another noble Peer, I think back to the UN high-level panel of over 20 years ago, on which the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, served. This identified development as a key to security. As the ONE Campaign and others have pointed out, countries with the largest development needs face the greatest risk of conflict, and now the international rules-based order, imperfect as it was, as noted by Mark Carney and others, has been fractured and, possibly, worse. It now indeed seems that might is right. Trump allows Russia to take parts of Ukraine, seemingly because he identifies this as Russia’s sphere, and feels free to claim Canada and Greenland. But we do not need to follow Trump’s lead.
The UK’s development aid, as others have said, was a key to its soft power. We worked with Governments, civil society and multilateral institutions, building the trust that diplomacy alone could not secure. But then Boris Johnson destroyed DfID. The Tories cut the aid budget, using much of what was left in the UK. Now, Trump has shut USAID and cancelled 80% of its foreign aid contracts. He has shredded US support for multilateral institutions, those very institutions required for the balance that the noble Lord, Lord Barber, spoke of in relation to the Middle East. In the past, the UK has helped fill the gaps when Republicans have cut aid, especially when they slashed assistance on reproductive health and rights, so vital to women and girls worldwide. But that is not happening now. We note the growing global scepticism about whether the UK, along with the US, France and Germany, will deliver on its promises. The British Council’s Global Perceptions 2025 report notes how countries in east Asia and the global South are now rising in its indices.
The Government launched the UK Soft Power Council in January 2025. Three days ago, just before this debate, extremely abridged minutes from meetings in July and October 2025 were published. In July, there was a discussion of general strategy. Might the noble Lord expand on this? What did the experts recommend? In lovely “Yes Minister” fashion, the minutes of the October meeting noted:
“Members discussed the evolution of the role of the SPC, sharing thoughts on upcoming opportunities and challenges.”
I bet they did.
Our creative industries are still held back by Brexit damage. The BBC and the BBC World Service are under attack. Our higher education sector is hampered by the lack of welcome that this Government give—as Governments so often do—to international students, and especially to staff, with visa and health costs hugely out of line internationally. We may have educated many Heads of State, as the noble Lord, Lord Barber, has just mentioned—but are we doing so now?
There is no restoration of the ODA money that, for example, went into the Jenner Institute for Ebola vaccines, which then meant that we were at the forefront in vaccine development when Covid struck. As Malaria No More points out, the UK has been a global leader in medical science; I declare an interest as a council member at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Those from the UK have helped to set global health agendas. We have rejoined Horizon Europe, but it will take a while before the damage is repaired. Just because we have had strengths in these areas does not mean that that will continue. They need to be supported and cultivated.
Labour pledged at the election to strengthen diplomacy and soft power. It said it would rebuild Britain’s international development reputation. I am surprised, despite his depth of experience, that the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, as a Whip, has been detailed to respond to this debate rather than his noble friend the departmental Minister, the person who holds the levers here. There is much to do, and there is little sign of it being done. I hope that the noble Lord can persuade me otherwise when he responds.