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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“The hon. Gentleman needs to look carefully at the words that I used at the summit, about which he has just made his nice remarks. The fact is that 2.5 million deaths are caused by a lack of sanitation and 39% of people in our world do not have any access to a basic hygienic latrine. That is why we are focusing not on rhetoric but on results in trying to achieve specific outcomes in this very important area.”
“The Chairman of the Select Committee is absolutely right to say that my predecessor admitted that the Government had taken their eye off the ball on this important matter. We are looking carefully at the Indian programme as part of the bilateral aid review and, as part of our examination of the programme, we will be looking specifically at our support for sanitation.”
“The hon. Gentleman raises an extremely important subject. Britain has helped to bring clean water—the specific point that he raised, I think—to 380,000 people in Haiti. I sent a senior humanitarian expert last week to look at the situation on the ground, and to help specifically with co-ordination there. We are working with other United Nations agencies to ensure that this is prioritised and we are of course considering the recent appeal that the UN put out in that respect.”
“The global fund is assessed annually against key performance indicators. The programmes of the global fund have saved 5.7 million lives since 2000. The review of all our multilateral spending, including on the global fund, is designed to ensure maximum impact and value for money.”
“The hon. Gentleman is right to underline the importance and success of what the global fund has achieved. This includes circulating 2.8 million people with antiretrovirals, diagnosing and treating 7 million people with tuberculosis and distributing more than 122 million bed nets to help to prevent malaria. We have sent a clear signal to the global fund of strong support in this replenishment round. The precise level of that support will be dictated by the multilateral aid review.”
“G20 leaders endorsed the Seoul development consensus on shared growth and agreed to a multi-year plan to tackle the obstacles to growth in poor countries. As part of this plan, leaders also agreed to take measures to increase trade within Africa.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right to make the point about the importance of having a pan-African free trade area—one of the four specific areas championed by the Prime Minister at the G20 summit in Seoul. Knocking down those trade walls, having one-stop border posts and promoting trade within Africa is the key area in helping people to lift themselves out of poverty throughout Africa.”
“My right hon. Friend raised the matter not only in private but specifically at the table. He pointed out that it was hard to expect leaders in the developing world to stand by their commitments to their people if leaders in the G8 and others did not stand by the commitments that they had solemnly made at Gleneagles and beyond on the importance of increasing our support for the poorest in the world.”
“The new UK aid transparency guarantee will deliver a step change in the transparency of British aid. Under the guarantee, we will publish full and detailed information on our projects and policies, strengthen accessibility and feedback, and press international partners to follow our lead.”
“My hon. Friend is right about this, because there are some 44 international and multilateral aid agencies through which we spend British taxpayers’ money. All of them are being looked at under the multilateral aid review, which we set up immediately after this Government took office. The review will report by the end of January next year and we will decide upon our spending allocations in accordance with the results that we are achieving, which will be examined by that review.”
“The right hon. Gentleman has some credit for having masterminded and pioneered the Bill that became that Act through the House of Commons. He is right to underline the importance of the transparency that the Act ushered in and the importance of the House of Commons being able to discuss it, with Ministers being accountable to this House for that. So I can assure him that, through the usual channels, I will underline the point that he has made.”
“As the Chairman of the Select Committee rightly says, transparency is about accountability not only to our own taxpayers in Britain, but for the people whom we are trying to help in the poor world; it is about enabling them to hold their own leaders to account. On the nature of evaluation, to which his question also referred, it is important that this should be about not only value for money and the accountancy-driven approach to that, but development expertise. As he says, a lot of development is very long-tailed, so we need to meld both those two streams of expertise together to achieve the right results.”
“ECOSOC—the Economic and Social Council—which is the relevant body of the UN, will be monitoring this on an annual basis and we will ensure that other countries that have made commitments stand up for those commitments and fulfil them, just as Britain must fulfil its commitments.”
“May I welcome the right hon. and learned Lady to her new position? I think I hold the record for having shadowed this portfolio for the longest time—five years—and I wish her every success in beating my record. The whole House knows of her passion for gender equality and I am sure that we will work well together on that. We put girls and women at the heart of development, and I look forward to progressing that policy with her. Frankly, we are delighted that someone so senior on the Labour Benches is now shadowing this portfolio. As she said, the Secretary-General of the United Nations has set in train work to bring together all the commitments that were made by different countries at the summit.”
“We are moving from a focus on inputs to a focus on outputs and outcomes—the results our money actually achieves. We will gain maximum value for money for every pound we spend through greater transparency, rigorous independent evaluation and an unremitting focus on results.”
“My hon. Friend raises an important point about the next replenishment of the World Bank IDA funds. As I mentioned in answer to the last question, the multilateral aid review will be the body that looks at value for money. At the last replenishment—IDA15—as anyone who follows these things closely knows, Britain was the biggest contributor and that contribution was £2 billion. What I what from the next replenishment is for people to know to what extent we are getting clean water, sanitation, basic education and health care to the people at the end of the track, who do not have them in our world today.”
“My hon. Friend makes an important point about the effectiveness of emergency relief. There are undoubtedly lessons for us all to learn from what happened in Haiti. That is why I have set up an emergency review of the way in which Britain does emergency relief, which is being chaired by Lord Ashdown. That review will focus on all aspects of how Britain does relief and how we co-ordinated with the UN cluster system, and it will focus particularly on the importance of the immediacy of that relief, getting shelter, food and medicine through to people in such desperate circumstances.”
“Monitoring the effectiveness of British aid in the future will, at least in part, be done by external evaluation in the independent evaluation agency that we have set up. To some extent, evaluation should be built into all projects and into all the work that we are doing, and we are trying to ensure that that happens in the future.”
“We are reviewing the way in which such development awareness work is done. I am looking specifically at trying to ensure that global citizenship is enshrined in the work that schools do. In general, however, I do not think that British taxpayers’ hard-earned money meant for development should be spent in the UK. It should be spent helping the poorest in the world—those whom it is the intention of the House that we should be assisting.”
“The summit in New York achieved real progress and resulted in global commitments to save 16 million women and children, reverse the spread of malaria and tackle hunger and under-nutrition. The UK’s leadership, and in particular the Government’s commitments on aid and results, was noted by all our international partners.”
“The fight against malaria will be included in every bilateral programme where it is relevant as a part of the bilateral aid review, but I can tell my hon. Friend— [Interruption.] My comments on the fight against malaria do not usually get such a warm reaction from the House. Britain is committed to halving the number of malaria deaths in 10 African countries by 2015.”
“The hon. Gentleman is right. It is extremely important that people should be held to their commitments. That is why the Secretary-General is pulling together all the commitments that were made at the summit, and why every year ECOSOC will make sure that we have an assessment of the extent to which those commitments have been met.”
“The situation in Pakistan remains extremely difficult. In some areas of the country early recovery is beginning, while in other areas emergency relief is still needed, particularly in Sindh province. My Department continues to monitor the situation closely to identify and deliver aid appropriately.”
“First, I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his elevation to the post of shadow Environment Minister. Secondly, I assure him that we will continue to lead from the front on Pakistan. In particular, in respect of food security, crops and livestock, which he mentioned, we have made a specific intervention with the recent announcement of £70 million of emergency aid for Pakistan.”
“It is an opportunity for the international community to come together and provide exceptional support to Pakistan in its hour of need, but equally, the situation offers an unprecedented opportunity for the Government of Pakistan to drive forward a radical economic reform agenda that could make a real difference to the future of the country. The UK and Pakistan are bound together by bonds of history and family, which underline our support for Pakistan in good times and in bad. The Pakistani diaspora living in Britain ensures that our two countries remain closely linked. This bond will remain strong over the coming months and years, as we work together to help Pakistan to recover from this unprecedented catastrophe.”
“We continue to urge people to give, and to give generously, to that appeal. Our commitment is not just for the current emergency relief phase but also for the long haul. We will remain at Pakistan’s side to help people to rebuild their lives and livelihoods. We will also support the longer-term reconstruction needs, such as schools, health clinics and other essential infrastructure, which are being considered as part of the bilateral aid review of our development programme. Although the floods have been a terrible tragedy, their aftermath offers a genuine opportunity for Pakistan.”
“We have recently put a floods monitor on DFID’s website to enable everyone to see where and how British aid is being spent to help those affected by the floods in Pakistan. All the UK’s humanitarian assistance is provided through impartial agencies or through goods in kind. I should also like to express my profound gratitude and respect for the unstinting hard work and skill shown by all British Government officials—both in DFID and from across Whitehall—throughout this emergency. In addition to the UK taxpayer’s contribution, the British people have once again demonstrated their compassion and generosity. I am sure all hon. Members will wish to join me in commending the magnificent response from the British public, who have committed more than £47 million to the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal.”
“The Pakistan authorities, the Pakistan Red Crescent Society and local and international agencies, including many brilliant British non-governmental organisations, have worked tirelessly throughout. We will continue to work closely with all partners to ensure that the response is as effective as it can be. I should like to assure the House that my Department has throughout been committed to transparency and achieving value for money. We have not simply signed a cheque and handed it over. Our contributions to this humanitarian crisis have been based on detailed and rigorous assessments of needs on the ground. We are working night and day to ensure that every penny spent achieves a meaningful output that alleviates the suffering of the victims of this disaster.”
“During our visits, the Deputy Prime Minister and I discussed the situation with President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani, as well as with representatives of UN agencies, non-governmental organisations and donors. Following my visit to Pakistan, I went immediately to attend the UN General Assembly special session on the Pakistan floods, to support the UN Secretary-General’s appeal. The initial response of the international community was woefully inadequate. I used that meeting to encourage other nations to contribute more and announced the doubling of the UK’s contribution to the relief effort to £64 million. We have consistently worked to co-ordinate the effort of the donor community and on the ground with Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority, under the experienced leadership of General Nadeem.”
“That assistance will help to open access routes and reduce the pressure on much-needed air assets. Soon after the flooding started, I travelled to Pakistan with my noble Friend Baroness Warsi to see for myself the devastation. I visited the town of Pir Sabaq in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and saw the 12 foot-high watermarks on the remaining walls of the houses. It is not easy to imagine the terror and panic that must have affected particularly older, less mobile people and children as the mountain of water swept through the town. I know that the Deputy Prime Minister’s visit to Pakistan last week made a similarly deep impression on him.”
“It will bring much needed water purification units, pumps and water tanks to assist those in desperate need of clean drinking water. The other two flights will carry a range of items, including water carriers and shelter kits. We are also starting emergency production lines in two factories in Pakistan to produce hygiene kits and water containers that will help stop the spread of water-borne diseases in southern Pakistan, and are helping to set up an emergency field operation and co-ordination base camp near Sukkur to provide a base for relief workers in the middle of the worst flood-affected area. My Department has also brought forward a bridge rehabilitation programme as part of the recovery effort. The first 10 bridges left Tilbury docks last week and will arrive in Karachi later this month.”
“Our assistance to date includes help for 500,000 malnourished children and pregnant or breastfeeding women through the provision of high-energy food supplements, treatment for severely malnourished children and the training of health workers. We are providing safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene for 800,000 people, and have prioritised clean water and health interventions in Punjab and Sindh. Our support is helping to provide hygiene kits for more than 500,000 people and is being channelled through Save the Children, Concern and Oxfam. We are also providing shelter for up to 40,000 households through the Pakistan Red Crescent movement and working closely with Islamic Relief. In addition, I am pleased to announce the overnight arrival in Karachi, in Pakistan, of the first of three new flights delivering DFID relief goods.”
“I am pleased to be able to say that the UK has been at the forefront of the international community’s response to the disaster and was the first major country to come to Pakistan’s support in significant scale in its hour of need. The Department for International Development has sent 3,500 all-weather tents to provide shelter for up to 10,000 people. More plane loads of aid quickly followed, providing tents, shelter kits, water containers and blankets to help many thousands more affected by the floods. We have drawn upon all resources available to the Government. The Royal Air Force has flown in five plane loads of relief, and I am sure that the whole House will join me in paying tribute to the contribution of our armed forces in this crisis.”
“More than 1 million head of livestock have been lost and 3.5 million hectares of standing crops damaged or lost. The estimated cost to Pakistan’s economy this year alone is $4 billion. Britain will continue to do everything we can to help. I am particularly concerned about the potential for a secondary humanitarian public health crisis due to the slow draining of waters from Sindh province and parts of Punjab, the lack of access to clean water and sanitation facilities, and inadequate health facilities to treat the outbreak of water-borne disease. I have discussed all those concerns on a number of occasions with the United Nations Secretary-General, and he has assured me that the UN, working with partners on the ground, will do all it can to respond to the threat.”
“With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement about the floods in Pakistan. I am sure that Members of all parties will wish to express their profound sadness at the terrible suffering and devastation that the catastrophe has caused. Our thoughts are with all those families, both in Pakistan and here, whose lives have been touched by this terrible natural disaster. It is now nearly a month since the devastating floods hit Pakistan, and it is almost impossible to describe the magnitude of what has happened. Ten years’ equivalent of rainfall fell in one week, and subsequently a wall of water has travelled 1,200 miles down the country. Some 12.5 million people are in need of immediate assistance and 1.2 million homes have been damaged or destroyed.”
“Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), announced the setting up of CERF, we gave it strong support in opposition. I pressed in New York for additional amounts from that fund to be made available, and as part of our review, we will certainly see whether we can build on the substantial benefits accrued from that decision. The right hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mr Alexander) made another point about the lessons to be learned from this disaster. I am sure that there will be lessons—although obviously at the moment we are focused on confronting the emergency phase of this disaster—and I hope very much that they will be picked up and learned by the emergency humanitarian review that we have set up and is being chaired by Lord Ashdown.”
“He is right to identify water-borne diseases and the dangers from them spreading rapidly through the vulnerable community, particularly among children and older people. All I can say is that we are on the case. I have spoken personally to the Secretary-General about that specific point, and all the money announced by the Deputy Prime Minister when he was in Pakistan last week will go directly to confronting that issue, which the right hon. Gentleman rightly raised. Finally, the right hon. Gentleman mentioned leaks. I have seen these leaks, and I think that he will understand, having held this office, that there is probably less to them than meets the eye. However, he made two specific points. On the central emergency response fund—this proves my point—when his predecessor, the right hon.”
“Gentleman feels that the British Government have used this opportunity to lobby hard and to get across the points on which he and I are agreed. The right hon. Gentleman asked how much of the funding is new money and how much is coming from existing programmes. I cannot tell him that at the moment. Obviously, we first ensured that we found the money required, and in due course we will see what budget line it will come from. The right hon. Gentleman next asked whether I am satisfied with the preparations made to tackle the secondary health crisis. He will be aware that the water is draining from Sindh extremely slowly because it is built on clay, and it might be many months before that drainage takes place.”
“I talked to the Finance Minister and the Prime Minister in Pakistan, to all the leading non-governmental organisations, and to the head of the Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Islamabad, who has responsibility on the ground for the cluster system. I also had bilateral meetings with Canada, Norway, the United Arab Emirates, Japan, Australia, and with the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Union while I was in Pakistan. In New York, I had meetings with the UN Secretary-General and John Holmes, and I lobbied hard with the UAE Minister for Foreign Affairs. I also spoke to my opposite number in the United States, Raj Shah, the Pakistani Foreign Minister, the Swedish Development Minister, the Irish Development Minister and Lord Malloch-Brown. I hope, therefore, that the right hon.”
“I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his welcome for the statement and I will try to answer his questions. First, may I thank him for his comments about the hard work of officials across Whitehall and the brilliant work that is being done by British charities throughout the flooded area? He asked me about the meetings that have taken place. Off the top of my head, I cannot speak for all the meetings that the Deputy Prime Minister has had, but I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that I had a raft of meetings when I was in Pakistan and New York, as well as having numerous phone calls since I got back.”
“On his second point, about the reconstruction effort, he is clearly right that there needs to be strong co-ordination between all those taking part, and I hope that it will be provided by the pledging conference, which undoubtedly will take place before too long, and which I hope will take place in Islamabad.”
“On the last point raised by the Chairman of the International Development Committee, I said before these floods hit Pakistan that I thought it likely that, as a result of the bilateral aid review, Pakistan, within a comparatively short period, would become Britain’s most significant bilateral aid programme—so I underline the point that he made in his third question. On his first point, I thank him for what he said about British leadership. It is encouraging to note that there has been a significant increase in support for the Secretary-General’s appeal fund.”
“None of it goes through the Government of Pakistan; it all goes through the United Nations or through the NGOs that he mentioned, which are doing such good work in very difficult circumstances.”
“The right hon. Gentleman is right to focus on those points. It is fair to say that no Government in the world would have been able to handle a catastrophe of this scale, and there are many who believe that the Government of Pakistan have done rather better than might have been expected. Despite the experience from the earthquake gained by General Nadeem, who is in charge of the disaster authority on behalf of the Government, and whom I met during my visit, there has clearly been a struggle. However, the Government have done better than many people expected. The right hon. Gentleman asked how British taxpayers’ money and the money so generously donated to the Disasters Emergency Committee by the British people is being allocated.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that the money that is going from the British taxpayer and from people’s generous donations to the Disasters Emergency Committee does not go through the Government of Pakistan. It goes through the UN cluster system, with which he will be familiar, and through the NGOs that have been mentioned. If he cares to visit the DFID website, he will see an easily accessible monitor that enables people to track where British aid is going and what it is buying.”
“There will need to be great co-ordination between all members of the donor community and the Government of Pakistan to ensure that the programme addresses the long-term needs of the country and offers hope to the people who are in a pretty desperate position today.”
“The hon. Gentleman speaks eloquently about the needs that will continue for many years as a result of this crisis and of the development needs of Pakistan. Three phases are involved. The first is the emergency phase, which I hope can be brought to a conclusion as swiftly as possible. The second is the rehabilitation and rebuilding phase, which will involve the pledging conference, to which I referred, in order to co-ordinate the international effort. The third will involve the long-term development programme. We are currently reviewing Britain’s contribution to that through the bilateral aid review.”
“My hon. Friend is right to focus on the importance of bearing down on corruption, but I have made it clear that, in regard to all the emergency relief work that is being done through my Department on behalf of the British taxpayer, and through the Disasters Emergency Committee, none of the money goes through the Government of Pakistan.”
“The hon. Gentleman will be aware that discussions are ongoing between the IMF and the World Bank and the whole of the donor community. A number of plans, particularly for macro-economic reform in Pakistan, are already in train. The point I sought to make in my statement was that an unprecedentedly strong offer of support from the international community also merits an unprecedentedly strong focus by the Government of Pakistan on implementing the reforms that everyone is agreed need to be made, but which perhaps seem to be taking quite a long time to get through.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution. On his first point, all the money announced in New York—the second tranche, which is the doubling of our funding—is now being spent in Sindh and Punjab, for reasons that a number of hon. Members on both sides of the House have underlined. My hon. Friend is right to identify the poor response, although while I was in New York there was a big increase in support from Saudi Arabia, Canada and Australia, and a number of other countries have followed since. I very much hope that at the European Union meetings taking place in the next fortnight, there will be a strong focus on ensuring that all the countries that can come to the assistance of Pakistan in its hour of need do what they can to help.”