UK Aid Policy: Global Funding Trends
House of Commons · Westminster Hall · 7 Jul 2026 · 49 speeches · Official Report
I beg to move, That this House has considered UK aid policy in the context of global funding trends. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I also thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this vital and timely debate. We are effectively about to have a change of Government, which will mean an opportunity for a reset. Usually we come to these debates avid to hear what the Minister has to say, but today we might not reflect on the past so much as look to the future. Of course, I commend the Minister for his efforts. I will not commend him too much, because that might not help him in the weeks ahead as the Government are reformed, but I acknowledge his personal commitment to these issues. As the Prime Minister moves on, the cuts in official development assistance and the way in which they have been carried out, with nothing seemingly learned from the lessons of the merger of the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, surely cannot be part of his legacy that he will wish to promote. Notably, this Government are presiding over cuts to our overseas aid budget that are deeper and faster than those being implemented in the United States under the Trump Administration. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s resource DEL budget has reduced by nearly 20%, over £1.5 billion, with bilateral programmes accounting for almost half of...
I am the chair of the water, sanitation and hygiene all-party parliamentary group and a big champion of WaterAid’s “Time to Deliver” campaign. One million mums and babies lose their lives each year because of a lack of access to water during childbirth. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that, in looking at humanitarian and global aid, we should make sure that remains a basic provision and a priority?
I absolutely do. I will come on to the most effective way in which limited resources can be used, and that is clearly one of them. We need to have honesty in this debate and acknowledge that reductions and changes in funding have consequences. We must have that honest dialogue and move away from the sort of speak that has become commonplace, such as “mainstreaming”. Everything now is to be mainstreamed. In my view that means no resources will actually be devoted to it; it will simply be part of some wider general budget. That has specifically been the case in relation to women and girls, which is something we must push back against.
The right hon. Gentleman sits with me on the International Development Committee, so he will know as I do that, to date, the Committee has found that there is still no detail on how “poverty alleviation is prioritised and tracked” under the new model going from donor to investor. Does he agree that if poverty reduction is to remain a primary focus of ODA, we need to understand better how these things will be tracked?
I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I commend him for his work on the International Development Committee. I will come on to the Committee’s report on the future of development, which highlighted that very issue. The Committee sought to help this Government take forward their stated objectives. I hope the incoming Government will grasp the report’s recommendations and move forward in the way the hon. Gentleman outlines. Although citizens across the world might have been distracted by the Democratic Republic of the Congo almost knocking England out of the world cup, sadly for that team, the situation at home still verges on the catastrophic. It is an example of where unthought-out and unstructured cuts and changes have a devastating impact. We see the spread of Ebola in parts of the DRC, particularly where US funding and structures have been withdrawn. There is no meaningful alternative government structure to provide a health service. That is an absolute example of where funding cuts have a real impact that could spread to the United Kingdom. There was a recent suspected Ebola case in Glasgow, which fortunately did not come to fruition. We need to push back on the idea that Ebola in a remote part of central Africa has nothing to do with us. We must not be starry-eyed about what happened previously. I was struck by recommendation 7 in the Committee’s report and, in a much more favourable climate for international development, by an article in The Guardian -I am...
As the right hon. Gentleman knows, nutrition is foundational for development, and the UK has been a trusted global partner on nutrition for many years. In the context of the recent reduction in aid spending, does he agree that supporting and developing innovative new mechanisms such as the Child Nutrition Fund is vital to reversing the trend of hunger, malnutrition and starvation while working in partnership with affected nations?
I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I can think of no better example than the Child Nutrition Fund to achieve what he has set out and our wider development objectives. Malnutrition is entirely preventable and treatable, yet it remains the underlying cause of nearly half of all deaths among children under five. It stifles economic growth, weakens immune systems, and disproportionately impacts women and children, so the Child Nutrition Fund is a perfect example of what the public expect from ODA funding: it puts food in the stomachs of those in need. With a relatively modest investment from the UK Government, the fund has a unique capacity to leverage philanthropic and private capital while mobilising domestic resources. If we want value for money in a stretched budget, nutrition is where we must double down.
The right hon. Gentleman has talked about stretched budgets. Does he agree that we also need to address debt, because private debt is a big factor in preventing some low-income countries from investing in their health and education systems? It should form part of the Government’s strategy to leverage more money into debt-distressed, low-income countries.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I commend him and others for bringing the debt issue back to the debate. Obviously, it was a focal point of debate a number of years ago. It appears to have slid down the agenda, but it remains a vital issue, as he has highlighted. Another vital issue in reference to the Child Nutrition Fund is public support. We all have to acknowledge the need to rebuild public support for development. I put my hand up to being complacent in that regard, as I think many in the sector were assuming that the support would remain. It is still there, but it is all about the questions that people are asked and the context in which they are asked. That is why, for example, the Child Nutrition Fund commands public support: because people see that an intervention by the UK can have the direct effect of saving children’s lives. What detracts from public support is where interventions are less easily explainable or there is an inability to be clear that interventions are not wasteful. It was therefore surprising that the Government were at one point proposing to get rid of the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, the body that reviews the effectiveness of ODA. Thanks to the cross-party effort of the International Development Committee and others in Parliament, that decision was reversed, at least in part. I am the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on HIV, AIDS and sexual health, and in the multilateral/bilateral debate-a debate we need to have-I was...
It feels to me that there is scope for the UK and European Union countries to work together more closely to tackle the rising global anti-rights movement. Given the progress in Hungary, it feels like there is an opportunity to start to push back on the age of impunity. Does the right hon. Member agree that we should put human rights-especially sexual and reproductive rights and health-on the agenda of the upcoming European Political Community meeting, which will be held in Dublin in October?
I agree with the principles that the hon. Gentleman has set out; I will come on to that topic now. We need to see UK leadership in co-ordinating a response to such issues. Because of political decisions taken in the United States, certain groups will be deprived of help and support. We need to have a role in ensuring that there is co-ordination so that the support goes in, whether through country donors, philanthropists or non-governmental organisations. LGBT communities, for example, will not get that support unless we are proactive in ensuring that co-ordination. Although I welcomed the announcement that the Foreign Office still has an LGBT budget, I do not see the issues that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned being proactively tackled at this time, and we need to be at the forefront of that. I will draw my remarks to a close, as other Members wish to contribute. I was going to touch more on British International Investment-perhaps my International Development Committee colleague, the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Noah Law), will do so-but I will make the point that BII has to play a much greater role in alignment with UK Government policy, whatever the policy is. That does not mean that BII should not be independent in making investments, but the position of equivalent bodies in other countries is to be aligned with Government policy. I am not convinced that BII is at the moment, and given the scale of its investment, it needs to be. I have tried to range over...
I remind Members to stand in their places if they intend to contribute. I intend to call the Front-Bench speeches at 28 minutes past, so that gives you roughly seven to eight minutes each. That is a rough guide; there is no hard limit.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. We meet at a moment when the global aid system is under extraordinary pressure. I thank the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) for securing this incredibly important debate. Current projections suggest that cuts to international aid could contribute to as many as 14 million additional deaths by 2030, including 4.5 million children under the age of five. That is the human cost of dismantling the world aid architecture at speed. The United Kingdom is not alone in reducing aid spending-the United States, France, Germany and Canada are all scaling back their commitments-but that does not make our choices less significant; it makes them more significant. When every major donor retreats at the same time, there is no one left to step into the gap, and yet the challenges we face today do not stop at national borders. Conflict, climate change, forced displacement, pandemics and antimicrobial resistance affect us all. Investment overseas is increasingly an investment in our own security and prosperity here at home. Global health provides perhaps the clearest example of why this matters. Viruses do not stop at passport control. The first line of defence against the next pandemic is not at Heathrow or Dover, it is in strong public health systems thousands of miles away. Our national health service and the health security of people across Britain depend on a global health system that...
Does the hon. Member agree that one of the most cost-effective ways of helping, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, is to allow local people to avail themselves of clean drinking water, which can transform lives?
I agree 100%. My hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher) has already talked about his role in the water, sanitation and hygiene all-party parliamentary group. Access to water is an absolutely essential health determinant. Partnership and resilience building are incredibly important, but they cannot be the whole answer. A strategy designed to strengthen systems over many years does little for a clinic that is closing next month. Communities facing the loss of essential services are not reassured by a long-term theory of change, much as we love that in the development arena. They are worried about whether medicines will be available, whether healthcare workers will be paid and whether the lights will stay on. Withdrawal is fast, capacity building is slow, and people are falling through that gap. That is why, to be honest, the decision to withdraw support from the Global Polio Eradication Initiative and the Pandemic Fund is really quite disappointing. The Government’s own impact assessment warns that these choices increase the risk of disease outbreaks. We are closer than ever to eradicating polio, a disease that has blighted generations of children, and yet, potentially because of cuts to official development assistance, we are stepping back from that goal. I urge us not to. I am equally concerned about the dismantling of the Fleming Fund. Antimicrobial resistance may sound a little abstract, but it is not a distant or theoretical...
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. I thank the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) for raising this important issue and for the passion and detail that he conveyed. I welcome the Minister to his place; I very much look forward to what he has to say. I also look forward to the contribution of the shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), who is always here in these debates. We meet at a sobering hour. The global landscape for official development assistance is contracting before our very eyes, and funding is falling right across the west. At home, our aid budget is projected to come down to 0.3% of gross national income. I understand the intense fiscal pressures facing our nation and the absolute necessity of strengthening our national defence in a dangerous world, but as the aid pot shrinks, our moral responsibility does not diminish; it intensifies. When there is less to go around, it is a matter of profound duty to ensure that every single penny that we set aside is well spent. We cannot afford waste, bloated bureaucracy and Whitehall-centric projects that fail to hit the ground.
The hon. Gentleman raises the principal point that this money will go from aid to defence. The reduction will be £4.8 billion in 2026-27, and then £6.5 billion. We obviously appreciate the need for defence investment, but that money is being transferred to the most profligate and incompetent spending Department in Government: the Ministry of Defence. Those of us who have been here for a number of years can remember Nimrod, which cost £4 billion and was scrapped. The Bowman radio system cost £2.5 billion and was scrapped. The Daring-class destroyer went £1.5 billion over projected expenditure. The Ajax armoured fighting vehicle has cost £4 billion and probably cannot be used. The sale of married quarters lost £4 billion. We are taking money that is desperately needed to save lives and giving it to a Department that has wasted money time and again.
The right hon. Gentleman has made his point well. I am not sure whether the Minister will be able to answer that, because he is not in charge of defence, but the point is none the less well made. Being wise stewards of public money also means that we must take a hard, honest look at where our money is going. Aid was never meant to be a permanent, open-ended dependency; its ultimate goal must be to help nations to stand on their own two feet. We still see today vast sums of British taxpayers’ money flowing into middle-income countries with excellent economies. For example, India has a fast-growing economy, an expanding space programme and burgeoning domestic wealth. Surely common sense must prevail. We should be deeply wary about continuing to fund countries that are now clearly on their feet and fully capable of looking after their own citizens. Our priority must shift; I have a solution that I will put to the Minister at the end of my speech. We must concentrate our precious, limited resources on the poorest of the poor-on those forgotten nations that desperately need a helping hand just to get on their feet. To achieve true value for money, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office must radically change how it delivers aid. For too long, vast sums of UK aid have been swallowed up by massive international agencies and expensive consultants sitting in metropolitan hotels miles away from the suffering. The right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale...
It is a delight to participate in the debate, and I thank the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) for securing it. I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am a member of the IDC and a former development banker. I share many of my IDC colleagues’ reflections on the need for clarity and to be steadfast in our pursuit of the overarching goal of the UK’s foreign development policy, which is poverty alleviation. Our report sheds a light on the fact that there is a much greater need for clarity, transparency and measurability of the outcomes we are looking to deliver in particularly constrained circumstances. That said, I wholeheartedly support the Government’s shift from the mindset of donor to that of investor. That is necessary not just because it is what many developing countries are asking of us, but because it is the only way we will get the scale of investment that is needed to transform the fortunes of the world’s poorest countries. Whichever way we look at it-whether it is the sustainable development goals financing gap or any other interpretation-the scale of capital need is enormous and cannot be met by the multilateral development banks, let alone our development aid budgets. Let me move on from the hand-wringing we are all so used to in our favourite sector, towards a much more normative, positive pitch for the role the UK Government can play as we head into the G20, where we have the chance to...
The hon. Member mentioned multilaterals. We have seen massive cuts to aid. As many people will know, I worked for 30 years in the WASH sector, which had been cut by 85% before the recent aid cuts, and is so important in changing people’s lives. Does the hon. Member agree that, given the movement to multilateralism and multilateral support, we should see that channel used to direct much larger funds to the very poorest and to sectors such as WASH-although not to WASH exclusively-so that we can see a real improvement in people’s lives around the world?
I agree that alongside the shift to more risk capital, which will also support that goal, and more upstream project development with local partners, there needs to be a focus on the world’s very poorest, and on getting capital into markets that do not currently have the capacity to support it. We have to move on each of these fronts: on global debt reform, on engagement with the multilateral development banks and our own development finance institutions, and on the private sector. Only by getting the capacity right, and by getting the work that the MDBs and the DFIs do right, will we be able to mobilise capital at scale. In my experience, WASH in particular suffers from being uninvestable for development finance, partly because the ability of DFIs to provide support at the municipal level and for city regions is underdeveloped. I urge the Minister to work with, for example, Urban 20 colleagues to address the issue.
My hon. Friend mentioned multilaterals. I wanted to put on the record my concern, shared by a number of IDC members, that it will be much harder for us to influence the multilaterals when most of our money is going there, rather than to bilateral aid. Does my hon. Friend share my concern that we need to resource appropriately to achieve maximum leverage within the multilateral system?
I do share my hon. Friend’s concern. In a time of constrained resources, there is a bit of a knee-jerk reaction to move everything into the multilateral space to get more bang for our buck but, as we have seen, it is not as simple as that. One does have to be wary when trying to make that money go further. I am glad that there are examples, particularly on the climate finance front, of where our Government have stepped up to ensure we maintain the agenda of the multilateral development banks. To sum up, we need to be serious about the potential need for a statutory footing for some of the reforms to the global debt system, which the UK is uniquely well placed to address. We need to push our multilateral development banks and development finance institutions to go further, to take more risk and do that upstream development work. In doing so, we need to mobilise the private capital that at the minute is unable to get to the world’s poorest countries.
I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) on securing this debate and on leading a galaxy of great speeches. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Worthing West (Dr Cooper); she and I have worked together on global health partnerships, and I agree with everything that has been said. I will pick up on a couple of points that have been made. There has been focus on Britain’s G20, and I am sure that is an important opportunity for Britain to provide some leadership on this issue. As we get older, we tend to look back at the past through rose-tinted spectacles, but I acknowledge at the outset that British development policy is at its best by far when it is conducted on an all-party basis. It is not a Labour, Conservative or Liberal policy; it is a British policy. That was one of its great glories in the past. The Government did well in their recent conference, where they brought together a lot of interested parties and helped to underline an appropriate agenda. Those of us who really care about this issue must also be careful, because in Britain we are still spending an enormous amount of taxpayers’ money, and it is doing a lot of good. Although it has been greatly and savagely diminished, a lot of the spending is very good, and I want to make that clear. I am also very pleased that the Government have stuck to the...
The right hon. Gentleman makes a critical point. Obviously, we have seen public support wane in recent years, but protecting and preserving that narrative of the good that we do in the world is important. As a country, we often tend to look at the floor rather than looking up at the sky. As a country, we have a monarch of high standing, we are a permanent member of the Security Council, a NATO partner, a founding member of the United Nations and a global financial hub, and we have world-leading universities and research institutions. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that one of the things that can come out of this and other debates that we have around the topic is not hand-wringing, as we have heard repeatedly in this Chamber, but an opportunity to think about how we build on our successes and celebrate the good that we have done?
I do not really agree with that because, while the hon. Gentleman cites a number of areas where Britain makes a big contribution, there is a big black hole where we have cut off our legs in respect to international development. I will say a word or two about that in a moment. The importance of turning from donor to investor is absolutely right; but if investors are investing in a poor country where there is not adequate health and education, that country’s workforce will not be able to attract suitable investment. We must be worried about that. We must always focus on the results agenda, showing that the British taxpayer is getting 100p of value for every £1 spent. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale about the importance of saving the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, but we have to accept that we will not get a major boost in public support unless it comes from the top. We had an era of huge support, led by Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May. If there is not support at the top, public support cannot be won back and sustained-particularly if there is a Prime Minister who is foolish enough to say from the Dispatch Box that DFID is like an ATM in the sky, spewing out taxpayers’ money. Finally, the only point on which I disagree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale is in respect of BII, which of course follows the Government’s lead. The Government are the...
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford, and an honour to follow the contributions by the right hon. Members for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) and for Sutton Coldfield (Sir Andrew Mitchell). I thank the former for securing this very important debate. It is shocking that we are in this position-that a Labour Government, who are supposed to share the principles of concern for the vulnerable, for equality and for solidarity, are the Government who have presided over the biggest ever single cut to the UK aid budget. As the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield mentioned, aid, our investment as a country in international development, has historically been a matter of cross-party consensus. That is crucial. This is not a party political issue; it is about our fundamental humanity as politicians and as a nation. Disappointing is not the word; it is shocking and shameful that we are in this position and that this Government have slashed aid to such an extent. It is short-sighted, because aid is an investment in building a better and a more secure world, and it is immoral, because aid does work. As the hon. Member for Worthing West (Dr Cooper), with all her experience in public health, communicated so clearly, aid saves lives. The effect of the cuts that we have seen in the UK and globally will be millions more deaths-millions. Every single one of them is an individual human being whose life could have continued. This is utterly...
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Very, very briefly, as I have almost no time.
In which case, continue.
I thank the hon. Member. We know that aid works; I have seen it myself. I worked in international development for several decades before coming to this place. I have seen, in Malawi, how the provision of clean water literally saves lives. I have seen, in Burundi, how work on HIV and AIDS literally saves lives. I have seen in northern Uganda how investment in conflict resolution, conflict prevention and rehabilitation of child soldiers works to rebuild lives and livelihoods. I have seen, in the Philippines, how international aid has helped a community devastated by a tornado to rebuild lives and livelihoods. Aid works. No, it is not perfect-of course it is not. Yes, we do need to do better. Yes, we know how to do that. We know how to build longer-term programmes, how to work better with local partners, and how to channel money in ways that are focused on outcomes rather than just on bean counting. We know all that, and we have been doing it for decades-yet what has happened? The rug has been pulled out from under aid, and for what purpose? To put the money into defence spending, which, as the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) pointed out, has itself too often been a black hole, with cancelled programme after cancelled programme costing billions. In the aid sector, we have focused on results and on outcomes. No other sector is so closely focused on results. Why was that done? Let us remember that this aid cut was put in place on 25 February 2025. That...
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) for securing this debate, because we rarely talk about this subject in the Chamber. The Government do not seem to want to talk about aid and development very much, but they must and they should, because our world is on fire, because cuts to development make it worse and because it is within the British national interest to support it. I am sure that, if my party had cut the aid budget that far, I would not want to talk about it either. The deplorable aid cuts, from a proud 0.7% to 0.3% -the biggest cuts to aid this century, amounting to a 50% cut in bilateral aid to Africa alone-are in danger of stripping the UK of much of its proud reputation on the global stage. I must note at this point that, despite continual prompting from members of the International Development Committee, of which I am one, the Government are still yet to publish their country allocations of aid, which makes it very difficult to scrutinise the damage. However, we do know, and the Government know, that these cuts will cost lives. Combined with those caused by the collapse of USAID-the United States Agency for International Development-the lives lost will likely be in their millions. That includes in countries where we have a legacy, such as Afghanistan, where 45% of the population needs humanitarian assistance and which is no longer prioritised...
I used to work in the international development sector for Oxfam, thinking about how to increase public support for international aid. I agree with what everybody in this room is saying, but we have a problem in our country that people in growing numbers do not support it, and I fear that we, as a Parliament, have to tackle the complacency that we are exhibiting here in the Chamber. Leadership matters, but how can we in Parliament actually grow that support to sustainably fund poverty alleviation?
The hon. Member is 100% right, and I will come to that slightly later in my speech. We hear a lot from the Government about migration. Each 1% increase in food insecurity in a population compels 1.9% more people to migrate. They are escaping war, too. The largest single group of unaccompanied minors in small boats has been from Sudan, the world’s greatest humanitarian disaster, in the midst of a brutal civil war. But this is just the tip. The wider Sahel is a tinderbox. Millions are expected to fall into crisis or, worse, into hunger in this lean season, as armed violence escalates across the region. Thousands of schools are closed due to insecurity, health systems are buckling under the weight of need, and still we cut. Do the Government understand the reality of these cuts at this inflection point, when the world is on fire? Do we not need some honesty with the public on where ODA is actually spent? In 2025, £2.4 billion was spent on in-donor refugee costs, in comparison with £1.3 billion spent on humanitarian assistance. Lifesaving ODA is being spent on propping up a broken asylum system, with less and less spent on the causes that brought those people here in the first place. We can assume that the cuts came first and the strategy second, given that the cuts announced in February 2025 seemed to take everyone, including the then Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), by surprise. Since then,...
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) on securing this important and timely debate. As ever, he brings considerable knowledge and experience on development issues and, importantly, an understanding that the world in which we deliver development has fundamentally changed-as indeed do a number of other speakers today, not least my constituency neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir Andrew Mitchell). I think it is fair to say that few in this place have the depth of knowledge that he brings to the debate. Today, the international landscape is defined by conflict, instability and strategic competition. Russia continues its illegal invasion of Ukraine. Sudan has become the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe. Fragility stretches across the Sahel and the horn of Africa. China is using finance and infrastructure investment to expand its geopolitical influence. At the same time, donor budgets across western democracies are under increasing pressure. Against that backdrop, Britain must ask a simple question: how do we ensure that every pound we spend overseas delivers the greatest possible benefit for the British people-our national security, our prosperity and health-as well as for the recipients? That is why we Conservatives believe the debate should not simply be about the size of the aid budget; it must be about...
The right hon. Lady always makes incredibly important and helpful contributions. In my contribution, I suggested that there is another way of doing things, which is working alongside church groups and faith-based organisations. Does she feel that that is a possible way to spend money and have influence more wisely?
The hon. Gentleman always brings great passion to this place and is never afraid of sharing ideas. I think we are at a stage with development where we are, I think all of us, looking for more answers and ideas. It is also important that we look to partners in other donor countries, and learn from them too. Coming back to the point about longer-term partnerships and areas where programmes should be helping us, if they do not we should ask why not and why British taxpayers are funding them. That also means introducing far greater conditionality. The British taxpayer rightly expects the organisations and countries receiving our support to demonstrate accountability, transparency and good governance. That principle must apply equally to the multilateral system. Under the previous Conservative Government, Britain led international efforts to reform UN agencies, reduce duplication and introduce stronger performance-based funding. We challenged international organisations to deliver better value and greater accountability. What reforms is the Minister pressing for across the United Nations and the wider multilateral development banks? What conditions are attached to UK funding? What discussions has he had with our international partners about driving greater transparency and accountability throughout the multilateral system? What are the Government doing to promote positive reform where it takes place, such as that being rolled out by the president of the World Bank, Ajay Banga....
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mr Efford. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) for securing this debate. I thank all Members who have contributed and will do my best to respond to the points raised. Twenty years ago, many believed that globalisation, economic growth and international co-operation would steadily drive down poverty and expand opportunity across the world. That ambition remains as important today as it was then, but the world has changed dramatically. We are living through a period of geopolitical fragmentation, increasing conflict and economic uncertainty. The assumptions around development policy no longer hold, so we must adapt. Many traditional and significant donor countries have announced or are carrying out reductions to their official development assistance budgets. Global aid fell by 23% in 2025-the largest year-on-year reduction we have ever seen. As this House is aware, the Government made the difficult decision to reduce the UK ODA budget to fund a necessary increase in defence spending. That was a tough decision that many Members have talked about today, and not all Members agreed with it. I understand that, but it was the right decision given the threats our country faces. Constrained ODA, though, is only part of the story. That is clear when we look at Africa, where the annual financing gap-the difference between the investment Africa needs each year to...
The argument that aid is only a small part of the solution to global poverty and inequality is not a controversial one, but lower-middle income countries have not been calling for the change that the hon. Member’s Government have delivered: the biggest slash in the aid budget altogether. If he believes that aid expenditure and development investment need to be done slightly differently, let us make the argument for that, but cutting it should play no part in the sorts of changes he talks about.
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I have to say, it is in complete contrast to my conversations with foreign Ministers. Some of them are exhausted by the idea that we dictate the terms of aid funding, and exhausted by the fact that we put a project in and then move away five years later with limited output.
Will the Minister give way?
I will not give way. The hon. Lady posed the question and I will answer it. When I have had conversations with Ministers globally- [ Interruption. ]
Order.
I understand the hon. Lady has significant experience in this field. I am talking about meetings that I have had with Ministers while serving as a Minister in the FCDO. They are clear that they want a different approach in how overseas aid is funded. They want a different approach in economic growth and investment. I have had more conversations with my ministerial counterparts on investment into digital infrastructure than I have on deciding to run a project for five years and then walking away from it. The hon. Lady and I are not going to agree. The difference for me is that I am not going to shout from a sedentary position-I have too much respect for the House for that. My ministerial counterparts want long-term, genuine partnerships based on mutual respect and shared priorities, not paternalism. To reflect that new reality, we are modernising our approach to international development through four essential shifts. The shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), raised the first point, so I hope I can answer her question. First, we move from donor to investor. There has been some criticism around that term today, but there is a key point. It means partnering with countries to unlock growth, jobs and trade through innovative finance and private sector investment. That is what those countries are asking for, not the dictatorial response, “We will do this to you.” We are doing it with them, not to them. Secondly, we are moving from service...
The Minister is talking about the importance of long-term partnership. Last week, I was proud to lead the first British parliamentary delegation to Syria since the fall of the Assad regime. I had a number of conversations with Ministers, who asked for technical support from our Government, particularly on special educational needs and disabilities. Some 27% of Syrian children are disabled, following the war. They also asked for us to reopen the embassy in Syria, for business support and a lot of other things. Does the Minister agree that now is the right time for a new development partnership with the Syrian Government, as that nation hopefully builds from the ashes?
On the wider work on Syria, I agree. The Minister for the Middle East, my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Mr Falconer), is working hard to bring about more support for the new Syrian regime, and we continue to prioritise that. My hon. Friend’s wider point about expertise is right, and that is exactly what the ODA changes bring about. We are using our expertise in education, health and-dare I say it-planning. I have had a number of conversations about planning and infrastructure investment in countries. It is about listening to what those countries actually want us to help with, rather than saying, “We think we know what is best,” so I agree with her wider point. The shadow Minister and a number of other colleagues spoke about the multilateral system. I happen to be the UN Minister, and UN reform is very high on my agenda. That is not just about the Secretary-General’s discussions about UN80, but about wider reform of the international civil service and the international architecture system, which Baroness Chapman and I are leading on in the Foreign Office. The shadow Minister is right to challenge us on that, but I assure her that we have led the charge in my 10 months in office, not just as a member of the Security Council but as a leader in the UN multilateral space, to bring about more reform in the UN system.
Could the Minister give some examples of how we will maximise our impact in those multilateral organisations, given that the balance of funding has moved towards them?
The right hon. Gentleman is right to raise that matter, and I will come to it later in my speech, particularly when I discuss the multilateral development bank system, which other Members have raised. We will prioritise multilateral organisations in the ODA budget, where the international system is required to deliver at scale and with legitimacy. We are backing the most efficient parts of the multilateral system to multiply our investment. For example, we are prioritising multilateral development banks, which are the largest source of development and climate finance and are able to lend to partner countries on the most affordable terms. That includes the World Bank’s International Development Association, where each £1 we invest unlocks £4 of additional finance, and where we have increased our contribution by 40%. It also includes the African Development Fund. Our £650 million contribution will allow it to leverage up to £1.6 billion in grants and concessional loans, including by issuing bonds on the London stock exchange for the first time. At the same time, we remain committed to reforming the global development system, and will strengthen its most important parts: humanitarian aid, health, climate and the global financial system. I assure the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale that that reform and our influence remain absolutely crucial to the FCDO’s wider work. I come to a point that I know the right hon. Gentleman cares deeply about: the...
I thank the Minister for his response, which is a picture from the current Government. This is a moment for reset, which I hope the incoming Prime Minister will take on board along with many of the things said in this debate, as well as the International Development Committee’s recent report on the future of international development in a fracturing world. This may be an echo chamber, but we can all make a difference in making the case for international development, which we have to do outside here. We have to be bold enough to challenge some perceptions. Most people think that a huge percentage of the UK budget is spent on aid. They do not realise it is 0.3%; they think it is nearer 40%. There are many misconceptions out there, which we must lead on challenging. At this moment, Labour MPs are the ones with the opportunity to make a difference. I have been through several changes of Prime Minister, and I know now is the point at which they can be influenced. They are not influenced once they are in No. 10, when it becomes much harder-it is now, as they cross the threshold. We have heard passionate contributions from Labour MPs and I know others feel the same. My appeal is the same as that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir Andrew Mitchell): make that difference now and get international development back on the Government agenda. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered UK aid policy in the context of global funding trends.