Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 29 October 2025

Debate

Contribution

My Lords, I add to the condolences for the devastating impact on the communities there, and share with the noble Lord regards from all Benches in this House. The Minister stated, correctly, that this event is even worse than the 2017 hurricanes that affected the Caribbean. I supported the previous Government’s work to change the OECD rules on overseas development assistance for Caribbean and middle-income nations to receive short-term ODA assistance when hit by a catastrophic humanitarian crisis. The question now is about not our intent or our support for communities in Jamaica but the scale on which the UK does it. In 2018 the previous Government, before the development assistance cuts of that Administration, allocated £57 million plus £3 million match funding— so £60 million. With the current Government’s ODA cuts, can the Minister assure me that the £2.5 million is only the start? What is the current size of the UK’s humanitarian crisis reserve pool?

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