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.”
The complete record
Every one of 4,936 lines we hold for Sir Andrew Mitchell, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 71 of 99.
“I raised the issue of religious tolerance when I visited the west bank and Israel at the end of last year. The hon. Gentleman’s comments will have been heard by the Foreign Office, which I have no doubt will pursue them.”
“Britain has an extremely well-targeted aid and development programme in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It focuses on building the capacity of the Palestinian Authority to provide good government and support for the two-state solution. It focuses, too, on wealth creation and economic growth, which are important. The third strand principally supports the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, and ensures that we fulfil our humanitarian responsibilities. The programme is very well placed, and we make certain that it achieves all three of those things effectively.”
“My hon. Friend makes an important point. A recent study was set up by the Americans to look at the content of textbooks and teaching both in Israel and in the west bank for precisely the reason that he sets out. We take this issue very seriously. I will ensure that my hon. Friend receives a copy of that report when it is published.”
“The British Government consider that access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene is among the most basic of human needs. At the recent summit in Washington, I announced this Government’s intention to double the commitment on water and sanitation that we made last year.”
“My hon. Friend is entirely right to draw attention to the importance of sanitation. That is why the International Development Committee called its report on these matters “Sanitation and Clean Water” rather than referring to WASH—water, sanitation and hygiene. As he says, for every UK citizen we will provide clean water or sanitation for someone in the poor world who does not have it today. That is an important priority for Members on both sides of the House, and Britain is honouring it.”
“We make it an absolute priority to ensure that British taxpayers’ money goes as far as it possibly can, and that we secure 100p of delivery on the ground for every pound that we spend. We continue to ensure that we deliver clean water and sanitation at the lowest possible price.”
“The Government have been very clear, as have all Members of the House, about our commitment to the poorest in the world and not to balance the books on the backs of the least fortunate. We are the first Government ever to set out clearly how we will meet our 0.7% commitment. On the hon. Gentleman’s specific point about the law, the Bill in question has been drafted, the Prime Minister and I have said that it will proceed, and it rests with the business managers to decide the date for that.”
“My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. For a spend of less than 1% of gross national income, we are investing in our future prosperity and our security, as well as doing the right thing by the least fortunate in the world.”
“The Arab Partnership Participation Fund has supported political participation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It has funded a variety of civil society projects.”
“My hon. Friend puts her finger on a key ingredient of development. Promoting democracy and the rule of law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is central to our engagement in the region, as I described in answer to an earlier question.”
“The British Government’s position is clear and unequivocal on this, as the Foreign Secretary has assured the House on many occasions. Our commitment to promoting the two-state solution and to promoting democracy in this troubled area is absolute.”
“My Department is very focused on delivering the results of the family planning summit that will take place in London on 11 July, chaired by our Prime Minister and Melinda Gates. We have been very focused on the food agenda at the G8 Development Ministers meeting last week, and I will shortly be visiting Malawi.”
“The hon. Gentleman rightly says that almost all these demolitions are illegal, and that is a point that the Foreign Secretary has made regularly in his meetings with the Israeli Government.”
“I am afraid that my hon. Friend is entirely correct; the shameful way in which the previous Government sought to privatise Actis has meant that the taxpayer has received nothing at all from this management company. Thanks to the changes that the coalition Government have made, it is estimated that the taxpayer will receive between $100 million and $200 million.”
“I can tell the hon. Lady that meetings are taking place every week and every day, most recently yesterday. The delegation will be led by my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, and I have discussed this with him within the past 24 hours.”
“The whole House will be grateful to Sir John Major for chairing the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust. The British Government have put in £50 million to the match fund for these projects. Under the previous Government, support for the Commonwealth declined from some 45% of our development budget to 35%, whereas under this Government, over five years, it will increase to 55%.”
“The hon. Gentleman will have heard what the Foreign Secretary has been doing at the United Nations. On humanitarian support, I can tell the hon. Gentleman that we are supporting the United Nations, its Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs and a number of international non-governmental organisations on dealing with the consequences both outside Syria—on the borders and in the surrounding countries—and internally, within that country.”
“My hon. Friend is entirely right to focus on the role of women in Afghanistan. On my recent visit to Afghanistan, I launched a new civil society fund that will directly address her point. Additionally, the fact that the international community has helped to secure places for 6 million children in school in Afghanistan in recent years will have a transformational effect on the role of women in Afghanistan.”
“Ministers in my Department have had robust meetings with the Government of South Sudan and that of Sudan. The message we give is that it is important that oil should be brought back into commission and exported from Sudan and it is very important that the African Union road map should be adhered to by both sides.”
“The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point about Ukraine, but he is most unfair to the Government. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary raised the matter specifically in his opening remarks.”
“I make this point simply because the hon. Gentleman is the second hon. Member to make a comment such as that last one. The famine in Somalia was predicted, but the British Government were the first to go to the aid of the hundreds of thousands of people caught in that famine—the rest of the world was slow to do so. Will he at least acknowledge that his own Government and his own country, not least through the Disasters Emergency Committee, rapidly addressed that dreadful situation?”
“These are just a few examples of what we are doing on behalf of Britain, and what our taxpayers in the UK will achieve.”
“For every citizen of the United Kingdom, we will provide clean water or sanitation for someone in the poor world who does not currently have that, and we will be able to save the lives of 50,000 mothers in childbirth—my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) made that point, about what is a very important topic. We are also championing the enablers of development, supporting free and fair elections in at least 13 countries, working to promote openness and improvements in financial management, building up taxation systems in 22 countries, ensuring that 18 million women have access to financial services, ensuring that 6 million people who do not currently have property rights gain them, and helping 10 million women access justice through the courts, the police and legal assistance.”
“Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison). We are doing this because we believe it is the right thing to do, but also because it is hugely in our own national interest, contributing to our security and stability and to our future prosperity, and helping to ensure that in future there are more South Koreas and fewer North Koreas. This is truly aid for Britain, as well as aid from Britain. Over the course of this Parliament, we are on track to deliver extraordinary transformational change, putting some 11 million children into school at 2.5% of the cost of educating a British child, vaccinating a child every two seconds, and saving the life of a child every two minutes from diseases none of our own children die from.”
“I shall also start by echoing the words of the Foreign Secretary in thanking the men and women of our brilliant armed forces and the diplomatic service, as well as the DFID and humanitarian workers, my own officials and, of course, Dave Fish, who has been much celebrated during the course of this debate. The Government are clear about Britain’s promise to allocate 0.7% of our national income to development, as confirmed in the Gracious Speech. That is a promise not to balance the books on the backs of the poorest people in the world. At a time when people here in the United Kingdom are feeling the pinch and we are grappling with the economic difficulties imposed on us as the servants of the hard-pressed taxpayer, we also give a commitment to wrest full value from every penny we spend—a point eloquently made by my hon.”
“It is 20 years since I seconded the Loyal Address, standing where my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) is currently sitting. It was the most frightening thing I have ever done. I shall begin today by echoing the Prime Minister’s words at the start of our debate: he began his speech in response to the Loyal Address by making it clear that over the past year Britain has fed more than 2.5 million people facing famine and starvation, vaccinated 1.3 million children against measles in the horn of Africa, and kept livestock alive for 150,000 of the poorest people in that area through vaccination and fodder. Those points were well made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford.”
“All of us have constituents who would be interested in understanding and hearing those figures.”
“I had an opportunity to make those points during a recent visit to Bangladesh, and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has been directly pursuing the case. On the results that we will achieve with taxpayer funding, it is interesting to reflect on what the polling shows in Britain. When people are asked how much public expenditure goes on international development, they believe it to be 17.9%. When they are asked what they think the right level of public expenditure on international development should be, they give a figure of 7.9%. What is the actual figure? It is 1.1%, which means that we are achieving these transformational results with one seventeenth of the funding that the public think we are spending and with one seventh of the funding they believe we should be spending.”
“The Prime Minister has been asked by the United Nations Secretary-General to co-chair, along with the Presidents of Liberia and Indonesia, the high-level panel that will consider what framework might succeed the millennium development goals in 2015. This will be a major issue for the international community over the coming years, and the UK will ensure that it helps to steer an open and consultative process, on which I look forward to engaging with colleagues. We will continue to work with the rest of Whitehall and the international community to tackle the urgent and long-term issues in Somalia. We are championing the case for more effective resilience and humanitarian reform, especially in the light of the recent crisis in the horn of Africa, about which many colleagues have spoken.”
“We have also introduced a wholly new system of support for Britain’s brilliant international charities, which means that we will be able to help smaller non-governmental organisations to reach more people by launching fresh rounds of the global poverty action fund, which in its first year supported 56 charities and organisations that will help nearly 6 million people. Over the course of this Session, we will host a major global summit this summer, with Melinda Gates, which will bring a renewed international emphasis and much-needed action on family planning. The aim will be to halve the number of women in the poorest parts of the world who want access to contraception but cannot get it.”
“DFID now plays a full part in the National Security Council and has brought much greater focus to fragile and conflict-affected areas; we have ensured that the British public have a say in how part of the aid budget is spent; and our new UK aid match funding scheme has already made commitments that will directly benefit more than 2.7 million people in some of the world’s poorest countries—we have provided match funding for Sightsavers, Sport Relief, WaterAid and Save the Children.”
“Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald said, we have made sure that girls and women are at the heart of British development policy; we have set up the independent evaluation of British aid, so that the public can judge for themselves what we are achieving; we have emphasised the building blocks of wealth creation—trade, a vibrant private sector, property rights and a low-carbon climate-resilient economy; we have completely overhauled CDC; and we sold our remaining 40% share in Actis to rectify the shameful deal done by the previous Government, from which the British taxpayer has not seen a single penny.”
“I will deal directly with that in a moment. The point I seek to make is that we have made changes through the bilateral aid review, which determined that bilateral aid to 16 of the countries supported by Labour under the programme should be wound up, and through the multilateral aid reviews, where we found that 10% of the multilateral agencies that Britain was funding were not delivering value for money. We have made these tough decisions and we have, therefore, been able to refocus the programme and make it far more effective. As my hon.”
“My hon. Friend, in his eloquent contribution, brings me directly to the issue of the legislation. Many hon. Members have raised the question of the legislation —[Interruption.] If the right hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy) would stop mumbling from a sedentary position and trying to put me off, he will hear the answer to the question that his colleagues have been asking in respect of the legislation. [Interruption.]”
“Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) is sadly not in his place. He said that he thought that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary had been closing embassies. I have secured the record and the Foreign Office plans to open up to 19 new posts, whereas under the previous Labour Government some 45 posts were closed. I apologise to those to whom I am not able to respond. I say to the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) that under this Government funding for the Commonwealth has increased from the 33% figure we inherited from the Labour party to 55% of the budget. The Commonwealth is a big and important priority for the coalition Government. Finally, I thank the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn) for her comments about the Government’s funding for St Helena airport. I know she was a strong supporter of that project in—”
“I am thinking in particular of the contribution by my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke), who dwelt on the fact that we have been much more targeted in how we have used British aid. The hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Mr McCann) spoke about the importance of tackling the situation in the middle east, as did the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Dame Joan Ruddock), who had, I think, been on a visit with the Council for Arab-British Understanding and spoke with much passion and conviction on the issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) spoke with characteristic robustness about Europe and, having returned from a full day in Brussels this morning, I listened with great attention and more sympathy than I might otherwise have had. The right hon.”
“We are increasing co-operation on security and defence and we will continue to drive forward our development relationship over the course of this Parliament. Pakistan will be one of the biggest, if not the biggest, recipients of British aid in the world, which will include getting 4 million children into school. I can think of no better way to blunt the fanatic recruiters’ appeal than educating so many children. The right hon. Gentleman also asked about the outcomes of the Chicago summit. It is positive that NATO has extended an invitation to President Zardari to attend the summit. We want Pakistan to play a full role in helping to achieve lasting peace and security in Afghanistan and we hope that it will attend the summit and engage fully in the process. There have been a number of very important and useful speeches.”
“Those are all areas where Britain is clearly a leader in the multilateral system. The shadow Foreign Secretary asked about Government policy on Ministers visiting Ukraine during Euro 2012 and the case of Yulia Tymoshenko. This is a sensitive issue and we need to balance the need to keep politics away from sport with our concerns about the treatment of Yulia Tymoshenko and other opposition politicians. We are keeping potential attendance by the UK under review while we assess how the Ukrainian authorities are responding to our concerns. The right hon. Gentleman also asked about improving relations with Pakistan. He will know that the Prime Minister has just hosted a very successful visit by Prime Minister Gilani to London.”
“Let me start with the contribution by the shadow Foreign Secretary who, as one of my predecessors, deserves special treatment. He said that he agreed with much of what the Government were doing, specifically on the subject of Syria. In addition, he tried to make the case that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary was not a strong supporter and user of the multilateral system to pursue Britain’s foreign policy objectives, but that simply will not fly. I mention just four things: the UN work on Syria that has largely been led by my right hon. Friend; the Somalia conference in London; the work as co-chair of the Friends of Yemen; and the work in the World Trade Organisation that Britain has tried to assist with, which gets widespread support from hon. Members in all parts of the House.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. Many Members have raised the question of the legislation, so let me confirm again today that the Bill is ready and will be introduced when parliamentary time allows. As the Queen set out in her speech, next year the Government will meet our historic aid promise for the first time ever. Our plans are set out in black and white, and the Prime Minister and I have made it clear that the Bill is ready and will proceed. In the Gracious Speech, Her Majesty set out clearly the commitment to 0.7% and the Chancellor has confirmed in his Budget that that will take place. Next year, historically, this Conservative-led coalition Government will reach the commitment that we have all made. I wish to respond to some of the specific points that were made.”
“We have given direct support to 20,000 families for food rations, medical supplies and emergency water. We are today announcing additional support for humanitarian aid.”
“Any hope from that mission is severely limited. At the weekend I spoke to Baroness Amos, the head of the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and on Monday night I spoke to Jakob Kellenberger, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross. We continue to reflect the horror and indignation at what is happening in Syria—as my hon. Friend expressed—and to demand unfettered access for all humanitarian agencies.”
“The hon. Gentleman is entirely right to identify Russia as the key blocker to international agreement and to taking effective action on humanitarian relief, and more widely, in Syria. This subject is very dear to the heart of the Foreign Secretary, and he has repeatedly raised it in New York.”
“The hon. Lady rightly flags up the plight of those who have been forced to leave their homes, and not only the refugees who have fled across the border, but the internally displaced people. That is why some of our specific support goes to help 5,500 people who are in Syria and who have been forced to leave their homes.”
“The UK has allocated funding for Palestinian development to help build a future Palestinian state that is stable, prosperous and an effective partner for peace.”
“I have looked very carefully into this issue, not least because I know of my hon. Friend’s interest in it, and I have found no evidence in Palestinian school textbooks of what he describes. I was in Gaza just before Christmas, and I raised the specific matter then. I am sure my hon. Friend will share my pleasure in the fact that the State Department in America has set up an inquiry to examine the quality of both Israeli and Palestinian textbooks and will be reporting later this year, probably in the autumn. He and I will, no doubt, look with great interest at what the report has to say.”
“The hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point about the effects of this action in terms of the Palestinian economy, but he will know that the Government’s position is clear: we urge both sides to desist from the actions he has described.”
“I had an opportunity on a recent trip to Israel to visit Sderot and see for myself the effects of what my hon. Friend is describing. British development policy on Palestine is very clear: we concentrate on state building and strengthening financial management by public authorities; we support the private sector on growth, reducing unemployment and eliminating poverty; and we are working closely with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and the World Food Programme on issues of humanitarian relief. I will, however, take on board the point he is making.”
“The right hon. Lady is entirely right to say that it is much better to produce food in a sustainable way than to have to rely on food aid, and that is one of the policies we are pursing vigorously around the world. However, as she will know, the answer is for both parties in this long, protracted and bitter dispute to negotiate with each other in good faith. That is the way in which we will reach a two-state solution.”
“Ethiopia is making real progress in development and Britain’s programme plays a crucial role, as I saw for myself on the ground during January.”