Sir Andrew Mitchell
MP for Sutton Coldfield · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I urge Labour Members to rise up now and say that the historical interest and support of the Labour party have been for international development. People might expect the beastly Tories to cut aid and development, but they do not expect the Labour party to do that. Now is a chance to have a real reset, which should include three things.”
“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.”
“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.”
“The Government are the 100% shareholder in BII and are therefore able to set out very clearly what its priorities should be, but they should then leave an organisation like BII to get on with following that mandate. I argue that there have been three great losses from the Johnson and Starmer premierships.”
“I argue that, since the Suez crisis, international development has been the only area of indisputable British international leadership—and we have lost that.”
“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.”
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“I suggest that the inaction that inevitably imperils such complex and difficult situations must be addressed in three ways. First, we must address the humanitarian effects of that appalling crisis—Britain has shown great leadership in doing so. We must ensure that we continue to help those who, in ever greater numbers, are fleeing from the violence to which they are subjected in Syria. Secondly, we must do everything we can wherever we can to document abuses of human rights. The advent of mobile telephony and other mechanisms enables us to catch and document those who commit human rights abuses, and to provide testimony and evidence against those who launch such awful, egregious attacks on innocent individuals.”
“I hope that, in the course of the programme outlined in the Queen’s Speech, the crisis in the middle east will be addressed more trenchantly. I am speaking particularly of Syria. More than 1 million people are now refugees and countless more have been displaced. When I visited a camp last year on the Syrian-Jordanian border, I met women and children who had been shot at by the Syrian armed forces as they fled across the border to sanctuary in Jordan. The camp is hot and dusty in summer and freezing cold in winter. Despite the outstanding work of UNICEF and the Save the Children fund, which is supported by Britain, those people live in great discomfort and great peril, and wish only to return peacefully to their country. In recent months, the Foreign Office has issued some 43 ringing press releases.”
“Once again, Sutton Coldfield languishes under a Labour council, which, once again, is unnecessarily supporting an ill-thought-through suggestion that we build 10,000 houses on Sutton Coldfield’s green belt. It is completely unnecessary—other solutions to the housing problems in our area must be pursued before the green belt is attacked in that way. I hope that I can pursue the matter further in the House in due course if the ludicrous proposal from the Labour council in Birmingham stands. Having made those points on the economy and the responsibility of our generation to future generations, I should like to address foreign affairs, which have been raised in the debate and which were alluded to in the Gracious Speech. The context is the British hosting of the G8 in Northern Ireland.”
“Members on both sides of the House, boosting free trade is enormously important. Successfully concluding an EU-US free trade agreement will have a huge effect not only on our trade, and on trade in Europe and elsewhere, but on the lives and living standards of some of the poorest people in the world. No one should be in any doubt that the crisis in the eurozone has a negative effect on Britain as well as on the eurozone countries. If I may use a cricketing metaphor, the Chancellor finds himself at the crease at an unprecedentedly difficult time for our economy. He is making the right judgment calls and deserves the full support of the House. One other duty of our generation that directly affects my constituents is the duty to preserve the green belt.”
“The Government are successfully tackling the deficit, which, as the hon. Gentleman will know, is an essential precursor to tackling the debt. I revert to my point that if this generation fails to tackle that, future generations must address it. The point is made clearly by Edmund Burke, who said that not being responsible to future generations is a grave error for politicians—that includes today’s politicians. Anyone who doubts that should read the excellent biography of Edmund Burke by my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), which makes that point extremely well. We must ensure that we focus on growth as well as on cutting the deficit. In my view, there is nothing more important than pursuing the EU-US free trade agreement. As has been said by hon.”
“That is not just about the US, but the United Nations. The fact that the permanent five do not agree on Syria is not a barrier to the UN continuing to strive in every way and stretching every sinew to try to make progress in this desperate situation, which will pollute a far wider area than just Syria if it continues to develop as it is.”
“The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point, which is relevant to those who try to fill the pot when a humanitarian crisis occurs and support from Governments and taxpayers is essential. The answer is that we do it best by publishing whether people have stood by their promises. Sunlight is always the best disinfectant, and we need to be transparent and open so that we can show people whether their Governments stand by the commitments they have made. Thirdly, we need much greater leadership by the United States. Nothing will happen to address this issue without a far greater commitment from the US. There are signs that the new Secretary of State is addressing this point, but the US’s allies need to accept that progress will be made only if we are able to persuade the US to provide the leadership that only it can.”
“I agree strongly with my hon. Friend. He has direct experience of this issue, and we need to tackle the culture of impunity that grows up in such situations. It is important to use every possible mechanism —he eloquently described one such mechanism—and I hope that he will ensure that Foreign Office Ministers can gather from his experience the extent of what can be done to tackle that culture.”
“I wish the Government well on their programme for the G8 and every success with the Queen’s Speech, which is—as I say—well judged and has the capacity to make a huge difference to the lives of our fellow citizens and our constituents during a very difficult economic time for our country.”
“That is hugely important to Britain, as well as to those who live in Somalia, whose lives have been so blighted in recent years. Finally, I want to give strong praise and support to the Government’s G8 initiative to combat violence against women. I know that this is a particular interest and concern of the Foreign Secretary. It is great news that he has said that it will be put at the heart of the G8 agenda. The lives of millions and millions of women and girls are destroyed by insecurity and instability. Putting high on the G8’s agenda the importance of tackling violence against women will lead to the chance to transform the lives of some of the poorest people in the world, who always suffer first and foremost from instability and deep poverty.”
“It was following that crisis that the Prime Minister made the brave decision that last year we would have in London a conference that would bring together all the different Somalian parties, the regional powers and the leading nations in the UN to see whether we could do something about a country that has been in chaos for the last 20 years and where nine separate initiatives have failed to achieve anything to bring about change or improvement. It looks as though considerable progress is now being made in dealing with that intractable problem, and the conference yesterday confirmed that. I mention that because it is right to acknowledge that British efforts and support seem to be leading to fundamental change in that country.”
“Member for Leicester East mentioned Somalia, which was also mentioned indirectly in the Queen’s Speech as part of the Government’s approach to securing stability and addressing insecurity. Somalia is important for Britain—we have a huge, successful and diverse Somali population throughout the UK—but it is one of the most ungoverned spaces in the world. Until recently, there were more British passport holders training as terrorists in Somalia than in any other country. Britain was heavily engaged in trying to save lives through humanitarian relief in the dreadful famine that struck the Horn of Africa over a year ago, imperilling the lives of hundreds of thousands of children in particular. Britain gave great leadership on that occasion and was able to bring international resources to bear to tackle that situation.”
“The hon. Lady is right to flag up the importance of that work, supported as she says by many of the organisations that stand up for human rights in difficult situations around the world. I have mentioned US leadership. On Israel and Palestine, which continues to pollute the well of international opinion and good will, such leadership is essential. No time is easier for an American president to exercise that leadership on Israel and Palestine than the start of a second term. I profoundly hope that with the support of its allies we will see the US exercising that influence to try to do something about the deeply unjust situation in the middle east. Like the Syrian situation, although much more longstanding, it continues to pollute good will and international opinion. The right hon.”
“The article in last Saturday’s Financial Times by Terry Leahy, which set out the case for the morality of low taxation, is well worth reading and sets out an argument that we do not hear often enough in this House. The article was blessed with a cartoon that showed the Chancellor in a trench surrounded by mud, blood and barbed wire, and wearing a tin hit. He may well feel, after the past few days, that that is not a bad summation of where he stands.”
“It is perhaps not surprising that as a former Chief Whip, albeit one of relatively short duration, I rise to support the Budget set out by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but that is what I do. It is a considerable tribute to the strength of the Government’s purpose that the measures the Chancellor has announced today will be enacted. The Budget takes place against an extraordinarily difficult background. I cannot remember, in 26 years on and off in this House, a more difficult set of circumstances in which a Chancellor has had to craft the Budget, nor such a heavy volume of advice across all media, much of which has been contradictory.”
“That was not my image, but the image in the Financial Times. Nor was it of a general, but of a soldier serving in the trenches. Hemmed in as the Chancellor is, he steers between the Scylla of debt that must be paid down and the Charybdis of growth that must be fought for and secured. I believe that today he has made the right decision in the long-term interests of the country, and I want to focus on those two key issues in my brief remarks. In terms of the Charybdis of growth, I think he has picked up on the excellent work done by Lord Heseltine, particularly in its reference to Birmingham, and on what we can do in local economies to ensure that growth is boosted.”
“I remember studying the papers on the National Security Council when we were conducting the defence review, and noting that there was, allegedly, from the previous Government a £38 billion black hole in their accounts. I was unable to believe that that was possible and sent back the papers on the assumption that there was a decimal point in the wrong place. But no, it was confirmed on the Monday morning that there was indeed, under the previous Labour Government, a £38 billion black hole in the defence budget. We should never allow them to forget the appalling difficulties that their stewardship of the economy and their legacy have left for the coalition to clean up.”
“The Scylla of debt has hung around our neck, and hangs around the economy’s neck, for the reasons that are well known across the House. Anyone who doubts its scale and the anxiety it causes, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie) set out, needs only to look at the absurd proposition, coming out of the crisis in Cyprus, that one can confiscate arbitrarily people’s deposits. That underlines the extraordinary difficulties that overweening levels of debt, which we and other countries face, cause. It is irksome to repeat so regularly the irresponsibility of the previous Government in the levels of debt they left and the measures they took during the good times, but that needs to be repeated so that people understand the sheer scale of what happened.”
“Encouraging entrepreneurship, improving links between schools and business, and making sure that all the lessons from these emerging markets are learned are all very important. For example, I wonder whether there is more to learn from Singapore, Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands, which consistently top the global competitiveness report issued by the World Economic Forum. I wonder whether the lessons from New Zealand, Denmark and Canada, which are consistently identified as the best countries in which to do business, have been learned, or whether there is more that we can learn from the Nordic and Asian economies that have been so successful in harnessing information and communications technology for economic growth. The Chancellor deserves great credit for the brave steps he has taken today to secure growth.”
“Prioritising the changes that make growth easier, cutting business taxes—not easy, and not the popular thing to do—and facing down the vested interests that the Chancellor has to wrestle with every day, are all important measures if we are to ensure that growth is supported nationally. Making life easier for entrepreneurs and businessmen is not the route to easy popularity, but it is the route to long-term economic success and growth. The way the Government have sought, with single-minded emphasis, to boost trade with the BRICs—Brazil, Russia, India and China—and the other countries with growing economies has had a significant effect. I wonder whether my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench think that all the lessons from around the world on how to boost growth and entrepreneurialism have been learned.”
“We see a company that is storming ahead and cannot produce enough cars to satisfy market demand. Last year, it exported more than £10 billion-worth of cars made in Britain and paid in to the Exchequer more than £1 billion of taxation. That real transformation offers hope at a very difficult time in the area of the country I represent. The announcement that we will have a single pot of central money to support local initiatives is enormously important, as is the emphasis that Lord Heseltine places on more effective governance to address the fragmentation and lack of coherence of the business voice, which he has been loud in commenting on. On the stimulation of growth nationally, today we have heard the Chancellor announce the excellent news about cutting taxes on jobs. I can think of few measures that could be more effective.”
“I do not agree at all, and I will come on to address the substantial part of what the Business Secretary said in a moment. I was talking about the importance of engendering growth in the economy through local activity, and mentioned specifically the work that Lord Heseltine has done in respect of Birmingham. He underlined the importance of the local enterprise partnership and the importance of stimulating growth in an area that remains at the heart of this country’s industrial base. I am reminded that it was only three years ago that I visited the Jaguar factory just outside my constituency in Castle Bromwich. At that stage, two of the three production lines were lying idle and employees were unable to continue to secure work. Now, just three years later, all three production lines are in operation.”
“I hope to hear far more from Ministers about why the development budget matters to our country. I want to hear all of them making that case, so that the sceptics outside can hear why it is important for our country’s economic and political future.”
“This is a huge investment in our country’s future prosperity and security and in the prosperity and security of our children and grandchildren, which is why the Government are absolutely right to stand by the commitment, ensuring that the coalition delivers on that historic pledge. I have spent much of the past eight years of my life trying to work out the most effective use of public money and the most effective way of doing something about the colossal discrepancies in opportunity and wealth that scar our world and that our generations, for the first time ever, have a real chance to address. That is why I am pleased that the Government are standing by our commitment, that every day they continue to underline the effectiveness of development and that they are maintaining the implicit bargain with the public to spend the money well.”
“That underlines the scale and the difficulty, and the essential need to tackle welfare budget commitments, curtail expectations, and determine the sort of welfare system we will have as a society in the next 30 or 50 years and that we can afford. It is essential that our reforms do that. In conclusion, I wish to praise the Government and the Chancellor’s courage and wisdom in continuing the international development budget and ensuring that next year we meet our historic pledge of spending 0.7% of GDP on development. Of course, the special protection for this budget is justified only by the results it achieves and the effect it has, and we should never forget that this hard-earned taxpayers’ money has to be justified. Every pound we take off the taxpayer must deliver 100p of value on the ground.”
“I am afraid that I will be out of time, if my hon. Friend will forgive me. It is difficult to confront the welfare budget, as the Government have done. We still spend £23 billion on housing benefit. In looking at the welfare budget, which I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to continue to do, they should of course be guided always by the principles of fairness and decency. It is enormously difficult to cut the welfare budget. People blithely say that we can cut £1 billion off the welfare budget, as that is just 0.5% of that budget. However, cutting £1 billion would take £1,000 off 1 million people, or £100 off 10 million people.”
“My hon. Friend deserves great credit for having tabled this important motion, not least because, as she pointed out, girls and women are at the forefront of violence in the areas she identified. That is why so many of the Department for International Development’s programmes around the world specifically combat violence against women. Does she agree that it is hugely to the Government’s and particularly the Foreign Secretary’s credit that they have put this item squarely on the agenda for the G8 meeting in Britain later this year and that that helps to build on the international agreements that are aimed at tackling this subject and those which she has just mentioned?”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that the National Security Council, set up by this Government, has made a huge difference to that cross-departmental co-ordination? In Afghanistan, training the police is enormously important, and that greater co-ordination has had a major impact on the ground.”
“Does my right hon. Friend agree that the terrible events in Algeria underline the critical importance for the international community of tackling the root causes of poverty, instability and conflict in west Africa? Britain has been doing that in east Africa, not least in Somalia, where some progress seems at last to have been made.”
“The 0.7 Bill is ready and is with the business managers. As the Prime Minister has said, the coalition Government will introduce the Bill when parliamentary time allows.”
“The commitment was referred to in the Gracious Speech. The most important thing is to get on and fulfil the commitment, which has been made on both sides of the House and by all parties, to give development aid equal to 0.7% of our gross national income. That is what we are doing. The right hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. We must get on with the legislation. As soon as the business managers say that there is a slot, we will take it.”
“My right hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. Many Members will agree that under 1% of gross national income is an incredibly good investment in the future prosperity and security of the countries in which we work as well as in Britain’s prosperity and security.”
“I share the hon. Gentleman’s interest in a potential private Member’s Bill, but for the Government to comment on the Bill it will be necessary for the hon. Member concerned to publish it in the Table Office.”
“The hon. Gentleman is referring to the controlled foreign companies provisions of the Finance Bill and the ActionAid campaign on them. There have been discussions between Treasury officials and ActionAid, and there is significant disagreement about the effect of those measures.”
“My hon. Friend is entirely right to underline the fact that the coalition Government have put girls and women right at the centre of everything we do in development. She refers to the family planning summit, which the British Government are co-hosting with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. That summit has the power, if successful, to reduce by half the number of women in the poor world who want access to contraception but do not have it.”
“The hon. Gentleman rightly identifies the importance of being able to demonstrate to hard-pressed taxpayers that every pound of their hard-earned money is really delivering 100p of value on the ground. That is exactly what the Government are doing in the case of development policy. The 0.7% commitment to which the hon. Gentleman refers reflects the state of the economy, because the spending figure will go up and down with economic health. Many of us think that is what it should do.”
“On 1 March we announced a doubling of British aid to Burma. We are supporting the World Bank in conducting an assessment of the development opportunities there following the remarkable changes which Aung San Suu Kyi underlined in her historic visit to Westminster last month.”
“We are engaged in Kachin and Rakhine states, both of which are receiving British humanitarian support. I can also announce today that a team of Members of this House, under the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, will be visiting the Burmese Parliament in Naypyidaw later this month.”
“My hon. Friend identifies a matter of great concern in Kachin. We have set aside £2 million for humanitarian support there, of which some £1.2 million has already been allocated.”
“At the weekend, I represented the Government at the Afghanistan summit in Tokyo, at which Britain made long-term pledges to support the development of Afghanistan and called on the rest of the international community to do the same. Today, the British Government and the Gates Foundation are co-hosting a global summit that aims to cut by half the number of women in developing countries who want access to contraception but cannot get it. [ Interruption. ]”
“My hon. Friend identifies transparency as a most important aspect of development, and it is why Britain was a key leader at the launch and implementation of the international aid transparency initiative, and we continue to work hard with partners all around the world to ensure that the emphasis on transparency and good spending that was championed at the Busan conference in November continues.”
“I thank the hon. Lady for her question. The summit is about ensuring that women have the ability to choose whether and when they have children, and the spacing in between their children. We need to keep the focus of the summit on that issue. She will have heard the Government’s strong condemnation of the Taliban’s execution in Afghanistan. We set up the Tawanmandi fund last year specifically to empower women in the areas that the hon. Lady describes, and its work is ongoing. Three quarters of the grants from the fund have gone to organisations involved in protecting women.”
“The Tokyo summit was essentially a grand bargain between members of the international community to ensure that funding and support will continue through 2015 to 2017, and indeed throughout the decade of transformation to 2025. In return for that, the Government of Afghanistan need to continue to place a strong emphasis on governance reforms and economic reforms.”
“The hon. Lady rightly identifies the plight of the many people caught up in that conflict. A girl born today in South Sudan is more likely to die while having a baby than to complete her primary school education. However, the position on the border, particularly in Abyei, is now easing, and there are some signs of optimism in the direct negotiations that are taking place between South Sudan and Khartoum.”
“Yes. My hon. Friend identifies an important point. There is strong support on both sides of this House for the arms trade treaty. The Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr Duncan) will be going to New York to take part in those negotiations, and it is interesting to note that, even in the defence industry in Britain, there is strong support for a level playing field and for transparency in the sale of weapons.”
“The hon. Gentleman accurately identifies the position of children in South Sudan, which I set out in answer to his hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones). It is true that diarrhoea needlessly kills thousands upon thousands of children every day. That is one of the reasons why last year Britain led the replenishment for GAVI—the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation—so that Britain will be vaccinating a child in the poor world every two seconds and saving the life of a child every two minutes, precisely from these sorts of ills.”
“The Government vigorously condemned the execution to which my hon. Friend referred. One of the key ways of transforming Afghan society to prevent the return of the Taliban’s evil practices is, of course, to get girls into school. When they are a critical mass, that will have a big effect on Afghan society. Nine years ago, there were no girls in school in Afghanistan; today, there are nearly 2.5 million.”
“Both the Minister of State, who is today attending the Friends of Yemen meeting in Riyadh, and I keep a close eye on the effectiveness of our programme in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”
“I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. I would be very interested to see the material he describes. I can tell him that numerous credible studies show no evidence of incitement or anti-Semitism in Palestinian Authority textbooks, so if he ensures that we get a copy of what he has seen, we will take the appropriate action.”
“I do not have any current plans to meet the Foreign Minister from Israel, although I met a series of Israeli Foreign Ministers when I was there just before Christmas. I will ensure that the hon. Gentleman’s comments are passed on to the Foreign Secretary.”